Hanif Kureishi Books

As a big fan of Kureishi's work I can say that this book lives up to the legend of this great storyteller. Excellent use of descriptive language in this tale or greatness, artistry, and sorrow. Highly recommended!

Hanif Kureishi is one of a new generation of British writers whose experience of the United Kingdom is refracted, socially and culturally, through his Pakistani heritage.

My Beautiful Laundrette brings together the script of Hanif Kureishi's recent award-winning film with a long autobiographical on the nature of the Pakistani experience, The Rainbow Sign.
--- from book's back cover

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.

Magical realism has long been associated with Latin American literature and film. Aldama (University of Colorado, Boulder) examines its connections to other cultures as well. In five chapters, plus an introductory discussion of terminology and a coda, he emphasizes the need for precision in distinguishing between aesthetics and ontology while analyzing the films of Dash and Kureishi, the novels of Rushdie, and the Chicano/a narratives of Acosta and Castillo. Aldama posits the importance of storytelling techniques: parody, mimesis-as-play, rebellion, self-reflexivity, and the subaltern voice of the trickster/picaro. Citing such authors as Cervantes and Garcia Marquez as models, he stresses the need for imaginative writers and artists to question the effects of globalizatoin and consumptoin in the modern world. Joining a literature that includes Aldama's edited volume Arturo Islas: The Uncollected Works (2003) and related studes by such critics as Seymour Menton and Edward Said, this thought-provoking analysis should inspire further inquiry and discussion. Summing up: Recommended-all libaries serving upper-division undergraduates and above. Essential-researchers in the fields of comparative literature and film.
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries

I've just finished reading this nuanced and rich study of magical realism and finally understand not only how it differs from realism and the fantastic, but also how the make-believe of fiction has been confused with real facts that enable real politics. An excellent book for scholars and creative writers alike.

This book is a must for serious scholars working on magic realism, postcolonialism, American multiethnic literature, and globalization. Aldama begins by offering a helpful overview of the critics who have observed and theorized magic realism (or magicorealism, as he dubs it). Even more usefully, he interrogates those theories, explains his own fresh take on the subject, and trains his critical lens specifically and in depth on a spectrum of magic realist works of fiction and film--some already canonical, some just beginning to come under academic scrutiny. Though written in a complex and theoretically sophisticated style, this book is appropriate for advanced undergraduates. A valuable contribution to an important field.

Book Description: Magical realism has become almost synonymous with Latin American fiction, but this way of representing the layered and often contradictory reality of the topsy-turvy, late-capitalist, globalizing world finds equally vivid expression in U.S. multiethnic and British postcolonial literature and film. Writers and filmmakers such as Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, Ana Castillo, Julie Dash, Hanif Kureishi, and Salman Rushdie have made brilliant use of magical realism to articulate the trauma of dislocation and the legacies of colonialism that people of color experience in the postcolonial, multiethnic world. This book seeks to redeem and refine the theory of magical realism in U.S. multiethnic and British postcolonial literature and film. The author engages in theoretically sophisticated readings of Ana Castillo's So Far from God, Oscar "Zeta" Acost's Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, and The Moor's Last Sigh, Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust, and Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi's Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. Coining the term "magicorealism" to characterize these works, Aldama not only creates a postethnic critical methodology for enlarging the contact zone between the genres of novel, film, and autobiography, but also shatters the interpretive lens that traditionally confuses the transcription of the real world, where truth and falsity apply, with narrative modes governed by other criteria.

Reviews:
"In this exciting new book, Frederick Luis Aldama has done an outstanding job of remapping 'magical realism"--Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of Afro-American Studies, Harvard University.

"Frederick Luis Aldama offers a vigorous revisionary perspective on postcolonial literature and, more specifically, on the much discussed phenomenon of magicorealism. He has a commanding knowledge of postcolonial theory, and he performs a welcome critical task in demonstrating how it tends to confuse the confines of the academy with the contours of the real world, textuality with ontology. Aldama himself is a political critic, but he sanely argues that the arena of any serious politics is the world of living people and not a text"--Robert Alter, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley and author of Canon and Creativity.

"Providing a lucid and cogent critique of the tendency in contemporary criticism to ontologize "magical realism," a tendency that implicitly articulates a relatively simple mimetic relationship between "magical realism" and various postcolonial cultures, Frederick Aldama instead posits a theory of what he calls "rebellious mimetics" that introduces a complex aesthetic and political mediation in that relationship. In doing so, he weaves together a series of excellent analyses of novels and films by authors and artists as diverse as Salman Rushdie, Ana Castillio, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Julie Dash, and Hanif Kureishi. This is a very significant contribution to the study of this genre"--Abdul R. JanMohamed, Professor of English, University of California, Berkeley.

"In this insightful and forceful study of magical realism, Aldama successfully argues that a true postethnic and postcolonial criticism should not (con)fuse the world with the text. His commentaries on Castillo, Dash, Kureishi, Acosta, and Rushdie force the readers to see these artists' magicorealist works in a new light, thus revealing all of their splendid and contradictory complexities. Aldama's book is a must for anyone who wishes to understand the intricacies of magical realism and the vitality of this genre in contemporary European postcolonial and ethnic American literature and scholarship"--Emilio Bejel, Professor of Spanish American Literature, University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Gay Cuban Nation.

"Through a study of the playful narrative techniques of writers and film-makers such as Dash, Garcia Marquez, Rushdie and Kureishi, Frederick Luis Aldama offers a powerful critique of those who view magical realism as either a means toward postcolonial resistance or as a depiction of some exotic real world. Proposing a "postethnic" approach, Aldama argues convincingly that a reader's or viewer's understanding of the aesthetic dimensions of what he calls "magicorealism" can lead to greater political understanding than older, more ideologically oriented interpretations"--Herbert Lindenberger, Avalon Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, Stanford University.

"It is rare that we come across a truly great book, one in which fierce intelligence asserts itself in pages that truly matter. Such a book assigns us the task of reordering what we have taken as true on the promise of an understanding more profound. In such a book, we are guided by extraordinary vision, by an author with keen insight. In the rarest of occasions, we read words that are wise, words that make broad connection and interrogate a range of thought that afterwards we deem necessary. Postethnic Narrative Criticism is such a book; Frederick Aldama is such an author"--Alfred Arteaga, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

This work offers a highly valuable rethinking of magical realism, one that assesses previous work in new ways, one that extends the historical reach of arguments about magical realism, and one that brings a new level of sophistication to arguments about it"--Carl Guitierrez-Jones, Professor and Chair, University of California, Santa Barbara.

This book can only be convincing to those who have no knowledge of the long and by now tedious debate concerning Magical Realism in the field of Latin American literature. What some reviewers call his "innovative" posture is actually based on one of the most conservative and oldest understandings of Magical Realism, Seymore Menton's, articulated in the 1960s. He basically skips over the latest and best criticism by Latin Americanists concerning Magical Realism. He brushes off complex and interesting arguments made by Alberto Moreiras in the space of one paragraph. There is no mention of Moses Valdez who also has written a serious scholarly essay on the topic. Aldama dismisses without confronting in any sustained way the monumental anthology on Magical Realism put out by Lois Parkinson Zamora in recent years. He creates the neologism "magicorealism" or "magicoreelism" (when talking about film) but gives no substantial critical reason for the creation of these terms; At least not one that coherently distinguishes it from any myriad of definitions already available and used when talking about the old term "Magical Realism". There is a lot of confusing argumentation and a lot of neat sounding words that may confuse and convince those who don't know any better of the "greatness" of his argument. However there is nothing here of any real substance. It is little more than a barely re-written dissertation (his dissertation was on a similar topic) that some how made it into press at UT Austin. For any one interested I direct them to Menton's monumental work on the topic, followed by Moreiras, and then the Parkinson Zamora anthology and Moses Valdez's article. All of these people are conversant in the topic, they write in a way that is, for the most part clear and interesting in terms of the theoretical debate.

Excellent!!!!.-It's one of the best book I've read lately.-Kureishi let us enter into a phase of crisis in a man of his generation.-Love, pasion,friendship, sex,are some of the items that permit us to share the turning point in the life of a man that is seeking for more....Fully recomended.

This is the only book I have read by Hanif Kureishi and I can say that he writes about serious issues in life, the kind that most people like to avoid because they are considered a taboo in our society. The book is composed of one long story and a couple of other short ones. The main story is about a married couple in which the wife is engaged in an extra marital affair and Kureishi has tried to analyze this problem that what makes married couples look elsewhere for happiness. I won't call it a sizzling story but it was a good timepass.

This is the 2nd book I have read by this author and although it does not entertain to the same extent as BUDDHA the writing is clear sharp, honest and original. The story of INTIMACY is very one dimensional and therefore reads very autobiographical. There is very little characterisation of anyone in the book except the protagonist, which almost confirms the autobiographic theory. I liked the honesty, the weakness, the selfishness, the sheer madness of the thoughts and situation - it all rings very true from what I felt. It was like reading someones diary almost so the voyeurs out there will love it. There is plenty to dislike in the book but I read it in a day and a half and i dont do that often, the ending for example is weak, pathetic and superficial, bit like the author really, I am not saying this in a bad way, the character is just not very likable, no wonder his life is a disaster! Read it and be glad that you are not him.

I read 'Intimacy' a number of years ago. I'm a slow reader, but I found myself on its last pages a mere two days after picking it up for the first time. I have since read it several more times, and sometimes still pick it up at random to read a page or two in passing. This book (its hardcover edition) inspired me to read more, and I searched for other novels that might touch me as 'Intimacy' did, but it wasn't until recently that I found another.

I like Kureishi's tone, I like this story: depressing and hopeful at the same time. It does feel, as others have said, very autobiographical, but I believe that's what allows the reader to relate so easily.

I admire the protagonist, and I believe that a great many readers will as well. Why? He does something which many of us think about at one point or another, but do not have the courage to do. He refuses to settle, to be trapped by a life devoid of true happiness and fulfillment. He believes that betrayal can be a hopeful act, that life goes on and has a greater than ever potential of being what we've always hoped it could be. He defies convention.

But whether you admire or hate him, your reaction to the main character and his choices in life will surely unveil to you something about yourself, and that is the true beauty of any good book... at least for me.

Midnight All Day is a collection of short stories by Hanif Kureishi, an author whose characters often approach the low life, usually without ever actually attaining it. These stories are of variable quality, ranging from excellent to rather mundane, though they are all eminently readable, well written and well constructed. Sometimes there's just a bit too much incestuous involvement with the media. There are just a few too many writers, actors, television and film people around. One can understand why the author might meet a number of such people, but repeated use of media settings does occasionally detract from his story telling.

Despite this criticism, the characters are acutely drawn and are utterly credible. They tend to stumble or shamble through their lives from one opportunity to the next mistake, initiating and terminating relationships. Despite their tendency to write about or enact other characters, they often display very little facility for introspection. They often resort to their bottles or recreational drugs and treat sex as if it were a challenge.

So the stories deal with late twentieth century British professional middle classes, whose careers are always on top until they are bust, whose fortunes are always up until they crash, and whose relationships are always idyllic until they are failed.

Hanif Kureishi has a keen eye for the character of eighties and nineties Britain and on several occasions one feels implicitly that his subjects would not dream of discussing their woes with their parents. They are confident yet vulnerable, assertive yet indecisive, committed yet utterly ephemeral. There are occasions when these characteristics are a little overstated, but overall this is a moving and memorable collection which is probably best read one story at a time, rather than cover to cover.

The main theme of these sad stories written in a minor key, is the conflict between freedom, love and family: 'his freedom to live and develop as he liked, against the right of his family to have his dependable presence.'

The subjects of these stories are lonely, entangled in triangular relationships, lost, young but already burnt-out, disillusioned, emotionally afraid, or 'fighting to preserve oneself', for 'Love could be torn down in a minute like taking a stick to a spider's web.'
In this world 'without certainties', two people talking is already 'the apogee of civilisation.'

With cool, restrained sentences Hanif Kureishi evokes masterly 'the complexity and detail of inner motion.'

Not to be missed.

It is a great and very easy book to read. I respect the Authors and what they have written.

This useful anthology gives some idea of the vast range and depth of the US and British anti-war movements. It explores the impact of the `war on terror' from Palestine to Iraq, and looks at the US and British states' attacks on civil liberties and on public opinion.

In her excellent contribution, Arundhati Roy claims that capitalism undermines not national sovereignty, but democracy: in fact it undermines both. She rightly links the `war on terror' to the economic system that drives it, and points out that capitalism's international bodies, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation are all undemocratic, anti-national and secretive.

The best-researched piece is by Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine. She calls our current system `disaster capitalism'. She observes that after 9/11, Israel increased its military spending by 10%, financed by social services cuts. This increase funded 350 new hi-tec firms specialising in security, surveillance and weapons: one firm is revealingly called `Instinctive Shooting International'. Israel now holds six counter-terrorism conferences a year, and Forbes Magazine calls it `the go-to country for anti-terrorism technologies'.

Similarly, in the USA the Spade Defense Index, for defence, security and aerospace stocks, has risen by 15% every year since 9/11. Firms profit from the destruction caused by the wars that their states begin, then they profit again from contracts for rebuilding, then profit again by not actually rebuilding anything. Klein has rediscovered Lenin's insight that "war is terrible - and terribly profitable."

When Hanif Kureishi's Intimacy was published last year in Britain, it ignited a firestorm in both Kureishi's family and in the press, with one of its many critics denouncing it as "this short, odious book." And it's true that Intimacy's narrator, Jay (a scriptwriter) is wilful, childish, narcissistic and wild. And, yes, odious too; he even does the occasional parent-teacher interview in his "latest favourite suit, on acid" and keeps--even though he's the father of very young children--ecstasy, LSD, and an old bottle of amyl nitrate in the fridge. But he's also a man who is tender, introspective, witty, and exuberantly honest. Herein lies the book's reckless charm and elating momentum.

Intimacy also joins a long line of 20th-century novels that tell the story of men leaving home, beginning with the husband in John Updike's Too Far to Go, a man who--before leaving his wife and children--repairs hinges and latches: "a Houdini making things snug before his escape..." In novels by Richard Stern and Bernard Malamud and any number of other writers on the theme of men who are also ambivalently on the run, the women being left behind are (like the wives in Updike's fiction) dark-haired, enduring, and sexually withholding, while the mistresses are fair-haired, adoring, and quick to offer sexual comfort. The blondes also travel with a vast array of cosmetic and herbal supplies; in the case of Jay's Nina--a shrewdly wistful phantom forever kept off-stage in her pale, hippie clothes--it's a bag stocked with nipple cream, tapes of the sound of the sea, postcards of cats, packets of camomile tea, and other bits of the equipment so vital to "mobile girls."

"Soon we will be like strangers," Jay tells us, speaking of Susan, the mother of his children. But no, they can never be that. "Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history." Jay also fears dying--he's invited to more funerals than dinner parties--and so has little use for women who are also too quickly growing older, as he jauntily makes clear when he ironically asks what's wrong with maturity. "Think of the conversations I could have--about literature and bitterness--with a forty-year-old!"

Susan belongs in this age range, but in spite of his making her his muse by turning her (via metaphor) into a blank page--she's at the bottom of the stairs in her white T-shirt and white slippers, looking "so white I could write on her"--his evocations of her can also convey his love for her, as in the following scene when he's moved by her enthusiasm as she kisses their children: "When we really talk, it is about them, something they have said or done, as if they are a passion no one else can share or understand."

During his last night with his family, Jay experiences the outside world as both ominous and alluring. But mostly ominous: "Outside, the dark leaves on the trees flap in the wind like hundreds of long green tongues, the branches knocking at me." He dreads leaving his sons, two "fierce and ebullient" little boys who are never named--this is one of Kureishi's brilliant strokes--two wild boys who careen through the novel, adding to both its anguish and its comedy. Jay says of the three-year-old, "I wonder when I will sleep beside him again, if ever. He has a vicious kick and a tendency, at unexpected moments, to vomit in my hair. But he can pat and stroke my face like a lover. His affectionate words and little voice are God's breath to me." This has a parent's narcissism in it, true, but it's also incredibly tender. And yet in the skilfully abridged version of Intimacy that appeared last summer in The New Yorker, a few lines down from this adoring tribute Jay is on the threshold of his front door, the fresh wind sweeping through him as one of the more compelling of his inner voices commands, "Go. You must go."

This is where the novel should have ended, on page 92. It would have been a novella then, but it would have been the right thing to keep it emotionally and lyrically dynamic. Instead it goes on for another twenty-six pages, and the line that follows the powerful "Go. You must go," is almost criminally banal: "I am kicking over the traces." Along with a few other lacklustre passages, this is one of the relatively few disappointments in what is otherwise a vivid and fearless novel. The good bits in the final pages could also have been spliced in earlier. At times it's also as if the war between Jay's id and his superego has triggered a war in the syntax, which is sometimes formal and Victorian, sometimes the Kiplingesque English of Jay's father, sometimes London street slang.

But whatever its deficiencies, Intimacy is an important and weirdly thrilling book, reminding us (as we occasionally do need reminding) how honourable that other war is: the war between what's most "worthy" and what's most alive.

*******************************************************************
This novel first appeared in The Globe and Mail

Due to this book, Kureishi has become one of my favorite authors. It's short, sweet, and precise.

Leí en una de las reseñas escritras en la página, que era un poco absurdo el nombre, dado que la intimidad se daba como consecuencia del amor. En realidad uno puede entender este libro desde dos puntos de vista. La intimidad de pareja y la intimidad de Jay, el protagonista, con su propia verdad. La intimidad en este caso es su intimidad, tal cual, intima e intransferible. Es él quien durante todo el libro habla sobre su relación con su mujer, sus hijos, lo desencantado que está con todo, con la vida, con el amor...
Intimidad es la historia de una pareja (ella una súper ejecutiva y él un escritor y guionista) que tienen todo lo que las parejas actuales buscan: reconocimiento, fama, dinero etc... pero que llegan a un punto de saturación y aburrimiento que nada llena. Ni siquiera los hijos. Este libro es la reflexión de un hombre de cuarenta y pocos años que está completamente saturado. Intimidad es la explosión tardía de una crísis existencial. Pero vale la pena leerlo. Cada cual sacará sus propias conclusiones.

I spend a lot of time searching out books just like this one; short, vibrant, challenging and with beautiful language. Intimacy is a compelling book that is startling in its bold use of language and the stark honesty of the main character, a man on the brink of leaving his wife and two kids in pursuit of sex with a woman he had an affair with, who may, or may not, take him back.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the narrator, Jay, is completely unlikeable. Despite being middle-aged he acts like a selfish and self-pitying child. Jay complains and whines about everything and has led a life of self-indulgent excesses. He disliked his children when they were younger and admits to having pushed one roughly when it was a baby so that it hit his head. He also keeps drugs in the fridge and has had endless affairs while married. His wife, Susan, is also quite unlikeable, as are the majority of his friends. What redeems the book is its short, snappy style. I would not have wanted to read a thick, deeply involving book about these characters, but a short novel was just right.

I thought the book was a perfect portrayal of the particular type of modern person that believes in nothing, and therefore has nothing to believe in! Without belief in anything such as lasting love, himself, God or something other than pleasure and sex, Jay is on the pathway of destruction. Jay is actually a coward, as instead of telling his wife face to face that he is going to leave her and their children, he sneaks out of the house while she is at work and leaves a note on the table explaining all. In contrast to some of the other reviews, I do not think that this is a book that sums up the whole of the male species. Jay is a disturbed guy - hence the cocaine and the ecstasy and the mindless f*cking and goodness knows what else! There is more to life than that.

Read this book if you like short, thought-provoking fiction that dwells on the seedier aspects of the male psyche. Skip this one if you want to read about likeable characters.

JoAnne

I can still so clearly remember the afternoon I first read the Hanif Kureishi story that became INTIMACY---in the New Yorker in 1997 or 1998---and how I was so elated by it that I phoned an editor friend in another city who, like me, was a single mother whose children were officially grown up (but still trying to grow up) just as we were two women who were officially grown up (but still trying to grow up) and although we both belonged to a category of readers who should despise this book (women who've sometimes had a rough time in their relationships with sexually charismatic men) we just couldn't stop talking about it and singing its praises. But we didn't have to want a man like this in our lives (not any more, we didn't) to value that kind of man's incarnation as a character in an extraordinary novel.

It's true that when INTIMACY was first published in Britain, it ignited a firestorm in both Kureishi's family and in the press, with one of its many critics denouncing it as "this short, odious book." And it's also true that INTIMACY'S narrator, Jay (a scriptwriter) is wilful, childish, narcissistic and wild. And, yes, odious too; he even does the occasional parent-teacher interview in his "latest favourite suit, on acid" and even though he's the father of very young children he keeps Ecstasy, LSD, and an old bottle of amyl nitrate in the fridge. But he's also a man who is tender, introspective, witty, and exuberantly honest. Herein lies the book's reckless charm and elating momentum.

INTIMACY also joins a long line of 20th-century novels that tell the story of men leaving home, beginning with the husband in John Updike's Too Far to Go, a man who, before leaving his wife and children, repairs hinges and latches: "a Houdini making things snug before his escape..."

In novels by Richard Stern and Bernard Malamud and any number of other male writers on the theme of men who are also ambivalently on the run, the women being left behind are dark-haired, enduring, and sexually withholding, while the mistresses are fair-haired, adoring, and quick to offer sexual comfort. These blondes travel with a vast array of cosmetic and herbal supplies; in the case of Jay's mistress Nina--a shrewdly wistful phantom forever kept off-stage in her pale, hippie clothes--it's a bag stocked with nipple cream, tapes of the sound of the sea, postcards of cats, packets of camomile tea, and other bits of the equipment so vital to "mobile girls."

"Soon we will be like strangers," Jay tells us, speaking of Susan, the mother of his children. But no, they can never be that. "Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history." Jay also fears dying--he's invited to more funerals than dinner parties--and so has little use for women who are also too quickly growing older, as he makes clear when he ironically asks what's wrong with maturity. "Think of the conversations I could have--about literature and bitterness--with a forty-year-old!"

Susan belongs in this age range, but in spite of his making her his muse by turning her (via metaphor) into a blank page--she's at the bottom of the stairs in her white T-shirt and white slippers, looking "so white I could write on her"--his evocations of her can also convey his love for her, as in the following scene when he's moved by her enthusiasm as she kisses their children: "When we really talk, it is about them, something they have said or done, as if they are a passion no one else can share or understand."

During his last night with his family, Jay experiences the outside world as both ominous and alluring. But mostly ominous: "Outside, the dark leaves on the trees flap in the wind like hundreds of long green tongues, the branches knocking at me." He dreads leaving his sons, two "fierce and ebullient" little boys who are never named--this is one of Kureishi's many brilliant strokes--two wild boys who careen through the novel, adding to both its anguish and its comedy.

Jay says of the three-year-old, "I wonder when I will sleep beside him again, if ever. He has a vicious kick and a tendency, at unexpected moments, to vomit in my hair. But he can pat and stroke my face like a lover. His affectionate words and little voice are God's breath to me." This has a parent's narcissism in it, true, but it's also incredibly tender. And yet in the incredibly skilfully abridged version of INTIMACY that appeared in The New Yorker, a few lines down from this adoring tribute Jay is on the threshold of his front door, the fresh wind sweeping through him as one of the more compelling of his inner voices commands, "Go. You must go."

This is where the novel should have ended, on page 92. It would have been a novella then, but it would have been the right thing to keep it emotionally and lyrically dynamic. Instead it goes on for another twenty-six pages, and the line that follows the powerful "Go. You must go," is almost criminally banal: "I am kicking over the traces." Along with a few other lacklustre passages, this is one of the relatively few disappointments in what is otherwise a vivid and fearless novel.

At times it's also as if the war between Jay's id and his superego has triggered a war in the syntax, which is sometimes formal and Victorian, sometimes the Kiplingesque English of Jay's father, sometimes London street slang.

But whatever its deficiencies, INTIMACY is an important and weirdly thrilling book, reminding us (as we occasionally do need reminding) how honourable that OTHER war is: the war between what's most worthy and what's most alive.

this is really the most boring book i have ever read. i read the whole thing, waiting in vain for something good to happen, and while i was waiting, in vain, the book ended. that was it. the last page. no climax, no excitment. i could say that something good did happen, the book ended, but with a name like "the black album", you might expect something more ingriguing. maybe something having to do with, and this is a stretch....a black album. maybe i missed something, but the title and the fact that it did end were the 2 best things about this book. that, and i bought it either used, or on clearance.

Why does a college loafer of Pakistan origin flirt with fundamental Muslims, who become increasingly more extreme and more violent?
That this topic points more today, in a time of the irrational
condemnation of all Muslim tendencies than at the
publication date is no hint to a prophetic gift Kureishis. He "only" describes the colliding of two worlds in a very pointed way.
A nightlife and drug-exterminating student, long used to the British rock'n'roll lifestyle and thus avoiding in-depth thinking. All meetings are volatile and forgotten tomorrow. What he notices from his
neighbour in his college-dormitory praying room, is just as volatile. The consequences of the actions of the ever-larger growing group of fundamentalists are invisible to him, in such a way that it's still easy and good to live in two parallel universes, without coming to the conclusion that one side could be dangerous to the other.
And Kureishi is so intense in his description of this drifting between the worlds
that the reader is almost trying to look after the people in the road after finishing the Black Album.Kureishi has a qualities to offer in this book that is surely one of his best:

-forgetting to think about the own self can easily have dangerous consequences (maybe someday a skinhead-analyzing
social paedagogue reads the book?)

- it outlines the blueprint of the oh-so concerning and understanding
multiculturalist in the person of the lector, who can be nothing but another volatile relationship for the student.

-a book almost selfreading but worth to be read at least one more time to get all sidestreams and hidden wisdom

-it shows that one can vary only one topic again and again,
without becoming a selfcopy or delivering poor literature.

Sometimes the reader gets the impression that Kureishi only knows one story and three persons. It's just a constant rearranging of the situations and relations which makes a new book. BUT: Nothing else is done by great cooks and is there anybody out there who doesn't like to have a decent meal?

This is great literature! period!

Indians, Pakistanis, English right-wing thugs, academics, swingers, religious zealeots, idealists, pushers and the hopeless meet in London, but do little to create much excitement.
A young Pakistini student moves to the big city after the death of his father and deals with himself, his sexuality, relgious beliefs, his family's bollywood-like dramas and his neighbour's idealists (mis)adventures.

To rate this book on the strength of the images it conjures up for those who lived in London during that era, might not be the fairest way to judge a book. Apart from the protagonst's unconvincing affair with his lecturer and run-ins with his brother, there is little else to grab the attention of the reader.

A slow and tedious read and had i not picked this up for only US$2, the rating would be easily one star.

It is truly ironic that a novel whose plot and characters culminate in a powerful condemnation of intellectual narrowmindedness (here portrayed by a scene of Muslim radicals burning Rushdie's Satanic Verses on a college campus) turns out to be no more than an allegorical book burning in its own right. Kureishi's characters are rigid and simplistic proto-types of good and evil that appear to draw their inspiration from vulgar popular stereotypes rather than the imagination of a literary genius. The protagonist's Muslim friends are befitting of what George Bush today calls "terrorists," while his secular mistress embodies all the excitement of intellectual and physical freedoms which, oddly enough, remain unadulterated in the writer's mind by the fact that she also happens to be a junkie and a nymphomaniac. It could even be said that the author revels in her worldly vices which emerge as virtues in comparison with the excesses of religious fervor. The final scene in which the protagonist's mistress and Muslim friend physically struggle for him, each pulling him by one arm in the opposite direction is a ludicrous and exaggerated portrayal of his inner struggle to compromise his faith and worldly passions. This and other "key" scenes of the book (not to mention the dialogue) are so lacking in subtlety that they would do well in an elementary school reader where the audience cannot see beyond the obvious. As is to be expected of a novel thoroughly colored by an (ironically) anti-intellectual aversion to religion, worldly passions hold sway and all good is ultimately on their side - including freedom of thought. Unfortunately, Kureishi leaves his readers very little room to think in a story-line that categorically and unjustly rejects compromise between faith and intellectual illumination, forcing one to take sides in what ultimately ends up being a thoroughly anti-intellectual and propagandistic exercise in writing. Though I treasure books that range from authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez to Marquis de Sade, this was the first that I had to relegate to the bin. It did not deserve a place in what I consider to be an open-minded and intelectually stimulating literary collection.

Yet another winner from Hanif Kureishi as he delves deep into the world of drugs, music and adolescent confusion within the
world of a group of Asian college students. Taking the title from a Prince album, Kureishi explores the interrelations between a
working class Asian student heavily influenced by literature and his revolutionary, English lecturer with whom he begins an affair.This is counterbalanced by the threats of an uprising amongst his fellow students who seek to defend themselves against the prejudice they see within neighbouring communities.

In a titanic struggle, Shahid Hasan must choose between his friends and his lover, both of whom are cast in the revolutionary
lights yet in radically different ways. Just as in The Buddha of Suburbia, Kureishi's own literary and musical tastes are revealed
yet this also shows what can go wrong when one person takes it on themselves to embody the opinions of the majority. The
result sees the boundaries of class and identity become tragically blurred amongst a haze of pills, alcohol and teenage outrage.

Once again Kureishi reinforces his position as one of the best non-British writers in British literature with a rollercoaster novel which moves between the deadly serious and wickedly funny, true genius.

Provocative stories.-Well written.-We can a understand some of the problems that the middle age couples have to face in a post tacherisim era in London.-Kureishi goes deep in a world of confussion, individualisim and lack of compromise.-

Few years ago I have read Kureishi's "Gabriels Gift". Friend of mine gave that book so much praise that I was quite disappointed when I finihes reading it. I have decided that Kureishi is not worthy of my time and I quickly forgotten him. Then, by a weird twist of fate, my hands grasped the copy of Buddha of Suburbia and somehow they couldn't put it down. I began to wonder was I too harsh first time? It seemed to me that there is a spark of brilliance laying hidden inside Kureishi. Problem was, where to find such brilliance.

So, upon some dull debate, I have decided to try with collection of short stories titled "Love in a blue time." Title had some kind of blurry notion, trace of saddnes wich lured me and I dived heedlessly into those pages. I have found quite a lot there, though not as much as I expected. Now that I think of it, "Love in a blue time" gives the reader rather good perspective over work of Hanif Kureishi. Variety of themes that trouble Kureishi are there, from conflicts with faterly figure to construction of identity in postcolonial world, struggles in small community of imigrants and wasted lives of small men that were overrun by time they in which they lived.

Kureishi writes with ellegance, sometimes though forgetting himself which results in suspicious sollutions of problems which are long way from being done in satisfatcoral way. Sometimes his characters are just plain stupid, and sometimes they bear entire weight of the world on their shoulders. But the best thing that I can say of this collection is that up to this day I sometimes feel urge to retunrn to it, and to read a passage or two that remained in my memory when need arise and "things are looking grey". I learned to value those books that have that kind of ability. Maybe I'm wrong, you should try for yourself.

He gives a voice to the outcasts, the forgotten, the neglected and makes us feel a part of their world.

This is a small book of short stories, but for some reason it took me awhile to finish it. It was my third foray into Kureishi territory (The Black Album and the Buddha of Suburbia were first) and I have to say now, somewhat regrettably, that I'm hooked. I didn't, and don't, always enjoy reading his subject matter, but as an aspiring writer myself, his work continues to impress me. He is a talented literary artist, which is something that most average writers aspire to be. In this book, he writes in an economic style, and gives life to his stories with well told action, realistic dialogue, interesting conflicts and memorable characters. But the true strength of this book is in the passages, and in how emotion is communicated in an evocative, and often poetic way. His work often has a distinct dramatic and theatrical element, which could explain the multiple successes of his books' translations into plays and films. He rarely shies away from tough topics, and he indeed does have a special talent in exploring and explaining the depths of the human soul. He is able to tap into the minds and viewpoints of his many characters, and change the perspective of the story, which again is something that only the talented writer can manage successfully. I really like that his characters are always true to their character, and they never say or do anything that seems contradictory. In this book, I most enjoyed the stories "We're Not Jews", "D'Accord, Baby", and "The Flies". The latter is a morose and highly repulsive tale, but artfully done and very memorable nonetheless. I kind of look at these stories as "mood pieces", and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone looking for something light and cheery. But if you're in the market to explore some serious literary work, pick it up and maybe, like me, you'll be impressed.

For those (like me) familiar with Kureishi only via his film work, the stories here will not surprise, as they exhibit his usual sensitive approach to the themes of cross-cultural difficulties and men completely adrift in their middle-age. The ten stories--most in the 5-15 page range with three 40+ pagers mixed in--are fairly mixed in quality, there are a few failures, but what is good is exceedingly good. In the cross-cultural difficulties category are three workmanlike, but unremarkable stories: "We're Not Jews," "With Your Tongue Down My Throat," and "My Son the Fanatic." The latter offers an excellent example of how a somewhat offhand short story can be turned into a quite compelling and powerful film. The other seven stories all deal in one way or another with men struggling to come to terms with marriage, responsibility, commitment, and sheer growing up--or more often, not struggling but trying to simply avoid it all. Two of these, "The Flies" and "The Tale of the Turd" wander off into Gogolish territory to no great effect. Kureishi's writing is inarguably strong, and he's able to make his characters come alive with a minimum of words, and often with a fair dose of humor. But while it's fun to read the stories just to enjoy good writing, too many of these men start to feel like they're living under the same desperate cloud, which gets tiresome.