The hero of Hanif Kureishi's debut novel is a dreamy teenager, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some rude and raucous results.
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Product Description
Book Description
Beautiful paperback Faber Firsts edition to commemorate Faber's 80th Anniversary.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Hanif Kureishi is the author of novels (including The Buddha of Suburbia, The Black Album and Intimacy), story collections (Love in a Blue Time, Midnight All Day, The Body), plays (including Outskirts, Borderline and Sleep With Me), and screenplays (including My Beautiful Laundrette, My Son the Fanatic and Venus). Among his other publications are the collection of essays Dreaming and Scheming, The Word and the Bomb and the memoir My Ear at his Heart.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Hailing from the borough of Bromley myself (albeit growing up there in a different decade), this book has been on my "I really should read that" list for years. Having finally got round to it (the reading part took only a matter of days, you'll see why below) I thought I may as well do the book the courtesy of setting out my humble thoughts on it.
The pace of the book is quick. It's an uptempo tale taking you from the south London suburbs, to well-heeled Kensington, glamorous New York and back again before you know it. Characters that are bonkers. Characters you'd love to have a beer with. Characters you have an ache in your chest for out of pure sympathy. Characters you would literally do an about turn in the street to avoid.
I don't think it's the place of these reviews to spell out the plot, and other people have taken the trouble in other reviews in any case. But Kureishi captures that longing for meaning and excitement that all (normal) teenagers and people in their early 20s experience, to a tee. People of that age are rightly selfish and need to take things for granted in order to find out what really matters to them.
This book captures that spirit of freedom in life. You never know where you might end up, who with and why. You also never know when you might surprise yourself and just go after something completely different in life to everything you had worked for and previously valued. It's a breath of fresh air and Kureishi's blunt and often brutal prose exploits that essence to the max. He writes it as it is and I like that.
For me the best character in the book is the surburb itself. As a surbabnite who is strangely simulatenously proud and ashamed of the fact, Kureishi just nails the surburban environment with all its unknown rules, hierarchies and bizareness. Even though the Three Tuns pub referred to in the book, is now a faceless chain Italian restauarant, the social snobbishess held by those who live in Chislehurst to those that slum it in Penge remains as true as ever.
The character he creates in the suburb itself just provides the most compelling backdrop for the characters and plots placed on top.
A great read that manages to be both funny and beautifully written. A great combination you don't always find.
The pace of the book is quick. It's an uptempo tale taking you from the south London suburbs, to well-heeled Kensington, glamorous New York and back again before you know it. Characters that are bonkers. Characters you'd love to have a beer with. Characters you have an ache in your chest for out of pure sympathy. Characters you would literally do an about turn in the street to avoid.
I don't think it's the place of these reviews to spell out the plot, and other people have taken the trouble in other reviews in any case. But Kureishi captures that longing for meaning and excitement that all (normal) teenagers and people in their early 20s experience, to a tee. People of that age are rightly selfish and need to take things for granted in order to find out what really matters to them.
This book captures that spirit of freedom in life. You never know where you might end up, who with and why. You also never know when you might surprise yourself and just go after something completely different in life to everything you had worked for and previously valued. It's a breath of fresh air and Kureishi's blunt and often brutal prose exploits that essence to the max. He writes it as it is and I like that.
For me the best character in the book is the surburb itself. As a surbabnite who is strangely simulatenously proud and ashamed of the fact, Kureishi just nails the surburban environment with all its unknown rules, hierarchies and bizareness. Even though the Three Tuns pub referred to in the book, is now a faceless chain Italian restauarant, the social snobbishess held by those who live in Chislehurst to those that slum it in Penge remains as true as ever.
The character he creates in the suburb itself just provides the most compelling backdrop for the characters and plots placed on top.
A great read that manages to be both funny and beautifully written. A great combination you don't always find.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
A humerous, intellectual and very observed insight into the growing up of a British Indian, his sexuality, viewpoints, career and family life. Based in the late 70s it encompasses wonderfully all the pains and joys of school to adulthood from the perspective of the voyeur, or should that be involved observer?
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Hanif Kureshi introduces us to the world of Karim, who, as a Seventeen year old boy with an English mother and an eccentric Indian father, is searching for his own identity. Karim is more of an English youth than the exotic Indian boy as everyone percieves him to be. Indeed, his English step-brother is more exotic than him. Karim experiments with new ideas in his search to find himself, he is not pinned down to any place or group of people. Instead, he is able to mix with anyone, and move around in any social circle in 1970s London. It is his hybridity that allows him to do this. He is neither one thing or another.
A very amusing and thought provoking novel. It opens the world up, and at the same time it makes it seem more familiar to us. We learn a great deal about ourselves through it.
A very amusing and thought provoking novel. It opens the world up, and at the same time it makes it seem more familiar to us. We learn a great deal about ourselves through it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Up and down
The more I read the more I enjoyed, as the characters developed it becomes harder to put the book down. Read more
Published 4 days ago by MR D J BRUNNING
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Read!
Any book that name checks the late Kevin Ayers is a winner! It kept me gripped till the end. Highly recommended.
Published 5 days ago by Fine_Old_Tom
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amusing and interesting
Amusing tale of life in south London's suburbia, as experienced by a not-entirely Indian family in the late seventies/early eighties, told from the point of view of the teenage... Read more
Published 6 days ago by Kimberly Sims
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting
An interesting story exploring both society and how people fit into it. Especially those who think of themselves on the outside or otherwise apart from it
Published 13 days ago by R. Hale
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not for me
I found this book difficult to read and rapidly lost interest in it. It is crude in places and is not a book I would want on my bookshelf.
Published 14 days ago by Dr Leonard M Fenton
3.0 out of 5 stars
Buddah
Lovely holiday book, at times a little rambling but overall was enjoyable to read and had some quite interesting moments.
Published 15 days ago by Jenna
1.0 out of 5 stars
:(
Dreadful book. Bought as it was a suggestion on a syllabus, read a couple of chapters and put it in the bin.
Published 2 months ago by Mrs G
3.0 out of 5 stars
Uncomfortable Read
Familiar themes of racism and self-discovery, but I could not warm or feel empathy to the characters. Read more
Published 2 months ago by John man!
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not my cup of tea!
A book club book - We followed a tedious journey through "the Buddha's" son's sexual awakening - and I'm not very interested. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Anne
3.0 out of 5 stars
Bit old hat
Had this for a bookclub book.
Mmmm maybe 20years ago it would have been worth a read.
Beware lots of swear words.
Mmmm maybe 20years ago it would have been worth a read.
Beware lots of swear words.
Published 4 months ago by S.Collins
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