#3, The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

This was one of my favorite books in high school and I had originally not intended to re-read it for this, but I watched the 1993 BBC miniseries starring Naveen Andrews and decided I needed to revisit the book.

The Buddha of Suburbia is about lots of things; it's about living through divorce, about coming of age, about the gulf between what you think you need and what you really do need, and the still wider gulf between those things and what you actually want.

"My name is Karim Amir," the book begins, "and I am an Englishman born and bread, almost."

Our narrator and protagonist's charismatic, engaging voice carries us through the novel's ups and downs. It's the 70's sexual revolution, and Karim's family is falling apart. Karim isn't sure what he wants to do with his life, and he spends the first half of the novel drifting around England, trying to find love and get laid, though perhaps not in that order. Karim is witty and sly, and not always as clever as he thinks himself to be.

Re-reading it as an adult, I found it a sadder book, and some of the racism Karim encountered became more obvious (Karim himself rarely notes it explicitly). But I still laughed out loud at some parts, and Hanif Kureishi has a warm, engaging voice. (The BBC series is pretty good too, though I'm not sure how it feels if you come to it before reading the book; Kureishi, who also wrote My Beautiful Launderette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, worked on the adaptation.)

Comments

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I have this on my shelf and it's very high on my to-read-next list. I didn't know there was a mini-series of it. *puts on Netflix queue*

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

I really wonder what it'd be like to just watch the miniseries, because so much of the book depends on Karim's voice. But it's quite good as long as you don't mind copious amounts of nudity.