Naveen Andrews Books

There is a timelessness to this novel. It is contemporary but it is a classic. I was captivated! It is beautifully written, the characters are almost touchable. One can connect on a human level to the story, the characters and their lives. Aside from being well written the plot is fantastic; exciting and sexy, like Henry Miller and Salinger but with a contemporary East meets West vibe. You won't be able to put it down and you'll be ok with that.

This story is seen through the eyes of an adolescent from a middle class Indian-English family in the late hippies/early punk years in a suburb in London. Many characters play but, may be as pointed out by the title, the deeper story is the one of his father. The father to son difficult relationship is usually present in most Kureishi's works but in no case with such an intensity. The collapse of a family, its impact in the lives of many people including the character are ,in my view, the essential part of this novel. Karim's father character with its deep contradictions, his ups and downs is absolutely the best of the book. Their relationship is described throughout the novel among funny anecdotes of the life in a London suburb.

Hanif Kureishi wrote the excellent "coming of age" novel set in London of the 1970s. The protagonist is a boy, Karim, from mixed family: his father is Indian, his mother English. He has a younger brother. They live in a London suburb of not the best reputation, the immigrant district, and feel it...

As Karim enters his teens, disturbing per se, his family collapses, his father, searching for his own path (quite good, actually, even nowadays: he becoomes a meditation guru), finds a lover, Eva, an eccentric woman with pretenses to be an artist. Meanwhile, his son falls in love with Eva's son, Charlie, and since then starts his struggle to recognize his sexuality. At the same time, he has to figure out what to do with his life... His best friend, an Indian girl with a sharp mind (a very interesting character), daughter of a shopkeeper, chooses to be a feminist, although initially she has no courage to oppose her father, traditionally bullying her into an arranged marriage,and marries an Indian from India, but quickly regains her position and goes back on the "modern" path. Karim is bright, observant, learns quickly (however he has no inclination for academic learning), ambitious (he wants to move up in society and not be regarded as an immigrant, who he, in fact is not) finally he figures out what he wants and becomes an actor.

This is a funny account, very much in the atmosphere of the hippie times, at the same time trying to grasp the 70s, tackling the immigrant problems in England from every possible angle, and describing the rebellious years of one youth. Maybe this is too much... The strory is a bit incoherent sometimes and has some boring moments,probably more interesting is the way it is written (an internal monologue), the humor and language, the sharp and witty character portraits, and the hints of autobiography (?). Although it is evidently not perfect, it only excited my curiosity as to other Kureishi's novels.

This novel, Hanif Kureishi's first, is a fascinating portrait of 1970s London. It focuses on a young Indian boy growing up with a father who styles himself as the eponymous Buddha of Suburbia. The father's character is great-- he has never been spiritual, but the yuppies of his suburb think that because he is Eastern, he must be Wise in All Things. The father begins to believe in his own greatness and leaves his wife and family in order to move in the circles of higher society. The entire cast of characters is a great bunch, often hilarious and very authentic.
The aspect of this story which I found most engaging was how well it told the tale of adolesence. Kureishi perfectly captures that process by which we move from being children to thinking we know everything to finally realizing we know nothing.
Kuresihi has since written several more novels, and I'm looking forward to hunting them down!

This book is vulgar, graphic, and crude. It's also witty, interesting, and entertaining. And that combination makes it unlike anything else I've read.

"I wanted to live always this intensely: mysticism, alcohol, sexual promise, clever people, and drugs." That's what the narrator, Karim Amir, states near the beginning of the story. As the book opens he's just a kid--a seventeen year old boy living in suburban London. His father is Indian and his mother in English, and that effects everything in his life, though the author never beats you over the head with his opinions on race relations.

The novel is set in the last seventies, and you follow Karim as he leaves the suburbs and gets caught up in the punk movement and socialist politics. His father wants him to be a doctor, but he realizes it's not for him and eventually pursues acting.

The story itself is not remarkable. It's a basic coming of age tale that follows the narrator through several years as he experiences sex, love, and first jobs. What makes this book fascinating is the writer's style. He mixes philosophy with references to pop culture. He's very blunt and possibly offensive when discussing sex or politics. The book is often humorous, sometimes even laugh-out-loud funny.

The whole things is very refreshing. Rather than reading a work of fiction it almost feels like reading letters from a friend. The prose is excellent, but you never feel like the author gets too poetic, so it feels realistic and you really believe that you're getting a story told by Karim without anything being sugar -coated.

I can't think of any authors who are exactly like Kureishi, but he does remind me of Vonnegut at times because the book is humorous, but there's also a lot of depth to it. You might also enjoy it if you like pop culture authors like Nick Hornby, but you're looking for a bit more substance.