What do you think?
Rate this book
The Buddha of Suburbia
Karim Amir lives with his English mother and Indian father in the routine comfort of suburban London, enduring his teenage years with good humor, always on the lookout for adventure and sexual possibilities. Life gets more interesting, however, when his father becomes the Buddha of Suburbia, beguiling a circle of would-be mystics. And when the Buddha falls in love with one of his disciples, the beautiful and brazen Eva, Karim is introduced to a world of renegade theater directors, punk rock stars, fancy parties, and all the sex a young man could desire. A love story for at least two generations, a high-spirited comedy of sexual manners and social turmoil, The Buddha of Suburbia is one of the most enchanting, provocative, and original books to appear in years.
288 pages, Paperback
First published May 7, 1990
About the author
Hanif Kureishi
108 books1,008 followersHanif 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.
Kureishi was born in London to a Pakistani father and an English mother. His father, Rafiushan, was from a wealthy Madras family, most of whose members moved to Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. He came to Britain to study law but soon abandoned his studies. After meeting and marrying Kureishi’s mother Audrey, Rafiushan settled in Bromley, where Kureishi was born, and worked at the Pakistan Embassy.
Kureishi attended Bromley Technical High School where David Bowie had also been a pupil and after taking his A levels at a local sixth form college, he spent a year studying philosophy at Lancaster University before dropping out. Later he attended King’s College London and took a degree in philosophy. In 1985 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, a screenplay about a gay Pakistani-British boy growing up in 1980’s London for a film directed by Stephen Frears. It won the New York Film Critics Best Screenplay Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay.
His book The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Award for the best first novel, and was also made into a BBC television series with a soundtrack by David Bowie. The next year, 1991, saw the release of the feature film entitled London Kills Me; a film written and directed Kureishi.
His novel Intimacy (1998) revolved around the story of a man leaving his wife and two young sons after feeling physically and emotionally rejected by his wife. This created certain controversy as Kureishi himself had recently left his wife and two young sons. It is assumed to be at least semi-autobiographical. In 2000/2001 the novel was loosely adapted to a movie Intimacy by Patrice Chéreau, which won two Bears at the Berlin Film Festival: a Golden Bear for Best Film, and a Silver Bear for Best Actress (Kerry Fox). It was controversial for its unreserved sex scenes. The book was translated into Persian by Niki Karimi in 2005.
He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.
Kureishi is married and has a pair of twins and a younger son.
Kureishi was born in London to a Pakistani father and an English mother. His father, Rafiushan, was from a wealthy Madras family, most of whose members moved to Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. He came to Britain to study law but soon abandoned his studies. After meeting and marrying Kureishi’s mother Audrey, Rafiushan settled in Bromley, where Kureishi was born, and worked at the Pakistan Embassy.
Kureishi attended Bromley Technical High School where David Bowie had also been a pupil and after taking his A levels at a local sixth form college, he spent a year studying philosophy at Lancaster University before dropping out. Later he attended King’s College London and took a degree in philosophy. In 1985 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, a screenplay about a gay Pakistani-British boy growing up in 1980’s London for a film directed by Stephen Frears. It won the New York Film Critics Best Screenplay Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay.
His book The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Award for the best first novel, and was also made into a BBC television series with a soundtrack by David Bowie. The next year, 1991, saw the release of the feature film entitled London Kills Me; a film written and directed Kureishi.
His novel Intimacy (1998) revolved around the story of a man leaving his wife and two young sons after feeling physically and emotionally rejected by his wife. This created certain controversy as Kureishi himself had recently left his wife and two young sons. It is assumed to be at least semi-autobiographical. In 2000/2001 the novel was loosely adapted to a movie Intimacy by Patrice Chéreau, which won two Bears at the Berlin Film Festival: a Golden Bear for Best Film, and a Silver Bear for Best Actress (Kerry Fox). It was controversial for its unreserved sex scenes. The book was translated into Persian by Niki Karimi in 2005.
He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.
Kureishi is married and has a pair of twins and a younger son.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,184 reviews
![Profile Image for Orsodimondo [part time reader at the moment].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1528452721i/10490224._UY200_CR39,0,200,200_.jpg)
February 13, 2024
KARIM EVA JAMEELA CHARLIE HAROON MARLENE PYKE VANNO A LETTO
Il romanzo fu adattato in una miniserie di quattro episodi per la BBC nel 1993.
Esordio nella narrazione lunga per Hanif Kureishi (padre pakistano, madre inglese). Aveva già scritto le premiatissime sceneggiature (anche candidatura all’Oscar!) di My Beautiful Laundrette e di Sammie and Rose Get Laid. Esordio trasformato in serie tv. Esordio notevole. Dal mio punto di vista considerato che quanto di scritto dopo ho letto (Intimacy e Love In A Blue Time) non mi ha convinto affatto.
Gli anni sessanta sono finiti stanotte; quei ragazzi che abbiamo visto hanno ucciso ogni speranza, sono loro il fottuto futuro.
Kureishi - al quale mando i miei più sentiti auguri di pronta guarigione – racconta gli anni Settanta londinesi. A un certo punto l’azione si sposta a Manhattan: ma è Londra il focus del romanzo, luogo co-protagonista.
Si comincia nel 1971 8anno in cui Kureishi aveva la stessa età del suo protagonista, diciassette anni) e si va avanti per qualche anno, fin quasi all’esordio dell’orribile pernicioso devastante primo governo Thatcher. Dal mio punto di vista fu l’inizio della fine d’ogni speranza.
Il Budda delle periferie si cimenta in cucina, ma sarebbe meglio lasciasse perdere.
C’è musica, teatro, qualche film, arte in genere. Ma niente name-dropping, niente brani dal testo delle canzoni in voga, come invece purtroppo tanti hanno fatto e fanno tuttora. Cattura a meraviglia lo spirito-del-tempo, cattura l’aria, il momento.
Noi li abbiamo catalogati come anni-di-piombo: ma sono stati anni elettrizzanti sotto tanti punti di vista.
Il Buddha è il padre del protagonista, Karim, l’io-narrante figlio di un indiano e una inglese. L’uomo si scopre mistico, pieno di pensieri zen e buddisti, e comincia a elargirli in giro ad amici e man mano adepti. Ma non solo: in questa sua scoperta di rinnovamento personale, capisce anche d’essere innamorato di Eva, a sua volta sposata, madre di Charlie. E il budda indiano trapiantato nella capitale inglese molla la moglie inglese, rompe la famiglia, abbandona il tetto coniugale e si trasferisce da Eva a vivere il suo amore. Fanno l’amore su una panchina, si baciano in pubblico.
Tutta la vita pensi ai genitori come a mostri, soffocanti e protettivi, che detengono un potere immenso su di te e poi un giorno ti volti, li cogli di sorpresa, e ti accorgi che in realtà sono solo persone deboli e timide che cercano di cavarsela come possono.
Il Budda delle periferie col figlio primogenito e il suo amore adultero.
Charlie e Karim diventano fratellastri: e quindi, il sesso che fanno insieme può essere catalogato come incestuoso?
Forse sì, forse è incestuoso. Ben venga: Kureishi sembra anticipare i tempi e dispiega una serie di personaggi, cominciando proprio da Karim, dalla sessualità fluida, definita ma non inchiodata, pronti a esperienze nuove. E soprattutto di sesso affamati, voraci.
Il budda padre si muove in un posto così:
ogni volta che qualche novità arrivava fino a noi si poteva stare certi che era già passata di moda.
Più che periferia, si tratta di sobborghi di Londra alla quale ci si rivolge dicendo “andare in città”. Perché è lontana, perché è un altrove.
Eppure anche quella periferia sobborgo suburra nel 1971 sembra secoli avanti a posti che ho conosciuto.
Karim si muove a cavallo delle sue due culture di partenza, l’indiana e l’inglese: brama integrarsi, rifiuta l’immigrazione e quello che ne deriva, sembra disprezzare sia i suprematisti bianchi che gli emigrati che rimpiangono la casella di partenza.
Adesso però, guardando queste strane creature – gli indiani – sentivo che quella in qualche modo era la mia gente, e mi rendevo conto di aver passato la vita a cercare di ignorare e negare questo fatto. Mi sentivo incompleto e mi vergognavo nello stesso tempo, come se metà di me fosse mancante, come se mi fossi alleato con i miei nemici, con quei bianchi che volevano rendere gli indiani come loro. La colpa di questo era in parte di mio padre.
Irriverente e scorretto, ma anche sinceramente commovente e onesto, questo racconto si sviluppa in quattrocento pagine che scivolano che è un piacere: si ride, ci si diverte, si rivive un’epoca, ci si immerge in una delle capitali del mondo occidentale in un decennio nevralgico, si percorre un viaggio che si trasforma in un percorso di formazione, autentico bildungsroman,
I teppisti erano saltati addosso a Changez chiamandolo paki, senza vedere che lui era indiano. Lo avevano preso a calci dappertutto e avevano cominciato a incidergli le iniziali del Fronte Nazionale sullo stomaco con una lametta. Erano scappati perché Changez aveva fatto partire la sirena del suo grido di guerra musulmano, che si poteva sentire fino a Buenos Aires.
Hanif Kureishi, Naveen Andrews, il protagonista, e David Bowie, che scrisse la colonna sonora della miniserie.
Il romanzo fu adattato in una miniserie di quattro episodi per la BBC nel 1993.
Esordio nella narrazione lunga per Hanif Kureishi (padre pakistano, madre inglese). Aveva già scritto le premiatissime sceneggiature (anche candidatura all’Oscar!) di My Beautiful Laundrette e di Sammie and Rose Get Laid. Esordio trasformato in serie tv. Esordio notevole. Dal mio punto di vista considerato che quanto di scritto dopo ho letto (Intimacy e Love In A Blue Time) non mi ha convinto affatto.
Gli anni sessanta sono finiti stanotte; quei ragazzi che abbiamo visto hanno ucciso ogni speranza, sono loro il fottuto futuro.
Kureishi - al quale mando i miei più sentiti auguri di pronta guarigione – racconta gli anni Settanta londinesi. A un certo punto l’azione si sposta a Manhattan: ma è Londra il focus del romanzo, luogo co-protagonista.
Si comincia nel 1971 8anno in cui Kureishi aveva la stessa età del suo protagonista, diciassette anni) e si va avanti per qualche anno, fin quasi all’esordio dell’orribile pernicioso devastante primo governo Thatcher. Dal mio punto di vista fu l’inizio della fine d’ogni speranza.
Il Budda delle periferie si cimenta in cucina, ma sarebbe meglio lasciasse perdere.
C’è musica, teatro, qualche film, arte in genere. Ma niente name-dropping, niente brani dal testo delle canzoni in voga, come invece purtroppo tanti hanno fatto e fanno tuttora. Cattura a meraviglia lo spirito-del-tempo, cattura l’aria, il momento.
Noi li abbiamo catalogati come anni-di-piombo: ma sono stati anni elettrizzanti sotto tanti punti di vista.
Il Buddha è il padre del protagonista, Karim, l’io-narrante figlio di un indiano e una inglese. L’uomo si scopre mistico, pieno di pensieri zen e buddisti, e comincia a elargirli in giro ad amici e man mano adepti. Ma non solo: in questa sua scoperta di rinnovamento personale, capisce anche d’essere innamorato di Eva, a sua volta sposata, madre di Charlie. E il budda indiano trapiantato nella capitale inglese molla la moglie inglese, rompe la famiglia, abbandona il tetto coniugale e si trasferisce da Eva a vivere il suo amore. Fanno l’amore su una panchina, si baciano in pubblico.
Tutta la vita pensi ai genitori come a mostri, soffocanti e protettivi, che detengono un potere immenso su di te e poi un giorno ti volti, li cogli di sorpresa, e ti accorgi che in realtà sono solo persone deboli e timide che cercano di cavarsela come possono.
Il Budda delle periferie col figlio primogenito e il suo amore adultero.
Charlie e Karim diventano fratellastri: e quindi, il sesso che fanno insieme può essere catalogato come incestuoso?
Forse sì, forse è incestuoso. Ben venga: Kureishi sembra anticipare i tempi e dispiega una serie di personaggi, cominciando proprio da Karim, dalla sessualità fluida, definita ma non inchiodata, pronti a esperienze nuove. E soprattutto di sesso affamati, voraci.
Il budda padre si muove in un posto così:
ogni volta che qualche novità arrivava fino a noi si poteva stare certi che era già passata di moda.
Più che periferia, si tratta di sobborghi di Londra alla quale ci si rivolge dicendo “andare in città”. Perché è lontana, perché è un altrove.
Eppure anche quella periferia sobborgo suburra nel 1971 sembra secoli avanti a posti che ho conosciuto.
Karim si muove a cavallo delle sue due culture di partenza, l’indiana e l’inglese: brama integrarsi, rifiuta l’immigrazione e quello che ne deriva, sembra disprezzare sia i suprematisti bianchi che gli emigrati che rimpiangono la casella di partenza.
Adesso però, guardando queste strane creature – gli indiani – sentivo che quella in qualche modo era la mia gente, e mi rendevo conto di aver passato la vita a cercare di ignorare e negare questo fatto. Mi sentivo incompleto e mi vergognavo nello stesso tempo, come se metà di me fosse mancante, come se mi fossi alleato con i miei nemici, con quei bianchi che volevano rendere gli indiani come loro. La colpa di questo era in parte di mio padre.
Irriverente e scorretto, ma anche sinceramente commovente e onesto, questo racconto si sviluppa in quattrocento pagine che scivolano che è un piacere: si ride, ci si diverte, si rivive un’epoca, ci si immerge in una delle capitali del mondo occidentale in un decennio nevralgico, si percorre un viaggio che si trasforma in un percorso di formazione, autentico bildungsroman,
I teppisti erano saltati addosso a Changez chiamandolo paki, senza vedere che lui era indiano. Lo avevano preso a calci dappertutto e avevano cominciato a incidergli le iniziali del Fronte Nazionale sullo stomaco con una lametta. Erano scappati perché Changez aveva fatto partire la sirena del suo grido di guerra musulmano, che si poteva sentire fino a Buenos Aires.
Hanif Kureishi, Naveen Andrews, il protagonista, e David Bowie, che scrisse la colonna sonora della miniserie.
April 22, 2016
I grew up in a place called Bromley, which is a sort of no-man's-land between London and Kent, and unclaimed by either. Nothing happens there: the main activities are adultery and backing out of Waitrose carpark. Its list of famous former residents is limited to HG Wells (blue plaque outside Argos) and David Bowie (then plain old David Jones), who went to school at a local polytechnic before running for the hills at the earliest opportunity. (That twanging pronunciation he has is the Bromley accent par excellence.) Oh, and Frankie Boyle, who recently tweeted the following:
My favourite part about this was the local reaction, as reported by the Evening Standard.
Do you hear that, Frankie Boyle?! A reasonable amount of shops and restaurants! In your face!
I had no idea there were any books set in Bromley. I suppose if you're from London proper, or Manchester, or even Brighton, you must get used to the idea that various works of art use your hometown as a setting – but for me it was a very new experience to read about characters in Orpington High Street or Beckenham or Petts Wood or all the rest of the suburban geography of my childhood.
Of course I was there in the 80s and 90s, whereas Karim, the hero of The Buddha of Suburbia is primarily negotiating the 1970s. But Bromley doesn't sound too different: Karim describes it in the book as being a place ‘of which it was said that when people drowned they saw not their lives but their double-glazing flashing before them’.
This suburban experience is one of the points of the novel, which among other things is a gentle examination of English class relations, particularly as they intersect with race – Karim's father is an Indian immigrant, and the casual racism of the 1970s is hovering there in the background. For Karim, it's more of a peripheral irritation: his main concerns are listening to new music and getting laid.
He's bisexual, in the sense that he'll sleep with anyone who'll have him.
So there is a lot of this sort of heated adolescent self-experimentation going on. There are many awkward sex scenes described in a similarly detached way, which can be very funny, although after a while I started to find it unnerving too, the clinical obscenities reminding me a bit of the sex scenes in American Psycho (although when I mentioned this to a friend she looked at me as if I was mental).
Besides the sex, there's a lot of very accurate take-offs of the London theatre and media world, self-appointed class warriors (who ‘predicted the last forty crises out of twenty’), as well as some judicious outbreaks of violence – I loved this altercation, involving some unusual weaponry:
I enjoyed the book, but for me it was never laugh-out-loud funny. Partly because I spent the whole time trying to compare these lessons about suburban upbringing to my own experience. However I do really like what Karim becomes by the end of the story – his acceptance of who he is, where he comes from, and what he knows and doesn't know about – because lying about those things is what class is all about to me.
The BBC ran an adaptation of this in the early 90s, starring that guy from Lost, and I kept seeing him in my head when I was reading. Local-boy-done-good David Bowie even came back to score all the music for the series. It was a brilliant soundtrack, but man, I bet he couldn't wait to leave again.
(Jun 2013)
My favourite part about this was the local reaction, as reported by the Evening Standard.
Furious Bromley residents have hit back at comedian Frankie Boyle after he claimed the south London suburb was “like a lobotomy made out of bricks”. […One local] said: “Bromley is great. A relatively calm place to live, a reasonable amount of shops and restaurants and great public transport to get into London.”
Do you hear that, Frankie Boyle?! A reasonable amount of shops and restaurants! In your face!
I had no idea there were any books set in Bromley. I suppose if you're from London proper, or Manchester, or even Brighton, you must get used to the idea that various works of art use your hometown as a setting – but for me it was a very new experience to read about characters in Orpington High Street or Beckenham or Petts Wood or all the rest of the suburban geography of my childhood.
Of course I was there in the 80s and 90s, whereas Karim, the hero of The Buddha of Suburbia is primarily negotiating the 1970s. But Bromley doesn't sound too different: Karim describes it in the book as being a place ‘of which it was said that when people drowned they saw not their lives but their double-glazing flashing before them’.
This suburban experience is one of the points of the novel, which among other things is a gentle examination of English class relations, particularly as they intersect with race – Karim's father is an Indian immigrant, and the casual racism of the 1970s is hovering there in the background. For Karim, it's more of a peripheral irritation: his main concerns are listening to new music and getting laid.
He's bisexual, in the sense that he'll sleep with anyone who'll have him.
I liked being handled by men, their fists pulling me; and I liked objects – the ends of brushes, pens, fingers – up my arse. But I liked cunts and breasts, all of women's softness, long smooth legs and the way women dressed. I felt it would be heart-breaking to have to choose one or the other, like having to choose between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
So there is a lot of this sort of heated adolescent self-experimentation going on. There are many awkward sex scenes described in a similarly detached way, which can be very funny, although after a while I started to find it unnerving too, the clinical obscenities reminding me a bit of the sex scenes in American Psycho (although when I mentioned this to a friend she looked at me as if I was mental).
Besides the sex, there's a lot of very accurate take-offs of the London theatre and media world, self-appointed class warriors (who ‘predicted the last forty crises out of twenty’), as well as some judicious outbreaks of violence – I loved this altercation, involving some unusual weaponry:
As Anwar smacked downwards with his stick, Changez lumbered to one side, just in time, withdrew the knobbly dildo from its paper-bag sheath, and with a Muslim warrior shout […] whacked my uncle smartly over the head with it. Uncle Anwar, who'd come from India to the Old Kent Road to lodge with a dentist, to jangle and gamble, to make his fortune and return home to build a house like my grandfather's on Juhu Beach, could never have guessed all those years ago that late in life he would be knocked unconscious by a sex-aid. No fortune-teller had predicted this. Kipling had written ‘to each his own fear’, but this was not Anwar's.
I enjoyed the book, but for me it was never laugh-out-loud funny. Partly because I spent the whole time trying to compare these lessons about suburban upbringing to my own experience. However I do really like what Karim becomes by the end of the story – his acceptance of who he is, where he comes from, and what he knows and doesn't know about – because lying about those things is what class is all about to me.
People who were only ever half right about things drove me mad. I hated the flood of opinion, the certainty, the easy talk about Cuba and Russia and the economy, because beneath the hard structure of words was an abyss of ignorance and not-knowing; and, in a sense, of not wanting to know.
The BBC ran an adaptation of this in the early 90s, starring that guy from Lost, and I kept seeing him in my head when I was reading. Local-boy-done-good David Bowie even came back to score all the music for the series. It was a brilliant soundtrack, but man, I bet he couldn't wait to leave again.
(Jun 2013)
February 6, 2019
Funny, thought provoking at times, but mostly mindless ramblings of a confused man. And that title is absolutely misleading.
July 20, 2022
“– Creo que va a girar en torno al único tema que existe en Inglaterra…Las clases.”Aunque las cosas están cambiando, hasta hace pocos años no eran frecuentes las novelas en las que los personajes principales fueran gente de barrio, y menos aún aquellas en las que esas gentes eran tratadas sin condescendencia, idealizándolas o compadeciéndolas. Kureishi no comete tal pecado y, junto a la denuncia del racismo y el clasismo de la Inglaterra de los años setenta, no falta el reproche a las propias víctimas, indios musulmanes en este caso, por asumir en buena parte esos mismos discursos, tal como hace aquí Changuez, uno de los personajes, por otra parte, más entrañables de la historia:
“Tienen alma, eso es verdad, pero la razón por la cual existe este racismo tan malsano es porque son sucios, vulgares y maleducados. Y luego llevan ropa que para los ingleses resulta extrañísima, turbantes y demás. ¡Si de verdad quieren que les acepten tendrían que adoptar las costumbres de los ingleses y olvidarse de sus cochambrosos pueblecitos! Tienen que decidir si quieren quedarse aquí o allí.”Más allá de la incorrección política, que el autor reparte a diestro y siniestro, el siguiente gran punto de la novela es su humor. «El buda de los suburbios» es una novela episódica repleta de juguetonas escenas en las que se retuercen hasta la parodia los estereotipos que ambos bandos, aborígenes y foráneos, tienen los unos sobre los otros. Un humor lleno de esa ironía que, como decía Robert Walser, “es también el rodeo de un dolor”.
“… cuando la gente me escupía, yo prácticamente les daba las gracias por no hacerme tragar el musgo que crece entre los baldosines de la acera.”Pero como dice la cita con la que empiezo el comentario, el racismo es solo una parte de ese gran tema de Inglaterra y de la novela: las clases sociales y como cada una observa y concibe a las otras.
“Yo quería contarle que el proletariado de los suburbios tenía una conciencia de clase muy fuerte, de una virulencia cargada de odio, pero que sólo iba dirigida contra la gente que estaba por debajo de ellos.”Qué gran frase y qué cierta, ahora igual que siempre. Nuestro joven protagonista, Karim, emigrante de segunda generación, aunque odiaba la falta de igualdad que le dificultaba las cosas, no era la justicia social lo que ambicionaba, solo escapar de los barrios pobres, “alcohol, sexo a manta, gente interesante y drogas”, formar parte de esa élite privilegiada a la que se admiraba y se le perdonaba cualquier cosa, aunque para ello tuviera que plegarse a todo aquello que se espera de un exótico extranjero. Había tenido un ejemplo muy cercano, su padre, el buda de los suburbios, que había sabido sacar buen provecho de los tópicos de la espiritualidad india entre esas crédulas almas blancas en busca del sentido de la vida.
Eran los setenta, el inicio del punk, la música del no future que expresaba el nihilismo, el desencanto y la falta de motivación de una generación que se aburría “repantigados en colchones de casas medio en ruinas”, pero que tampoco quería ser como la generación anterior y gastar su vida “trabajando en el engranaje del sistema”.
“Londres tenía un sonido propio, el de la gente que tocaba los bongos en Hyde Parle, pero también el de los teclados de «Light My Fire» de los Doors. Había jóvenes que llevaban capas de terciopelo y vivían una vida libre y centenares de negros por todas partes, así que no iba a sentirme como un bicho raro; había librerías con montones de revistas impresas sin caracteres en mayúscula y sin el engorro burgués de los puntos; tiendas que vendían todos los discos que uno pudiera desear; fiestas con chicas y chicos a los que no conocías y que te llevaban arriba para acostarse contigo; todo tipo de drogas. Ya veis, no le pedía demasiado a la vida; hasta ahí llegaban mis aspiraciones. Cuando menos, mis metas eran claras y sabía lo que quería. Tenía veinte años y estaba dispuesto a todo.”Karim protagoniza desde el suburbio su particular “bildungsroman” deslumbrado por toda esa gente interesante, los artistas e intelectuales capaces de hablar “sin esfuerzo aparente de arte, teatro, arquitectura, viajes”, de desenvolverse en varios idiomas, mientras que en su barrio ellos se sentían “orgullosos de no saber más que los nombres de los jugadores de fútbol o el de los integrantes de los grupos de rock y toda la letra de «I am the Walrus”, hasta descubrir lo poco que había en ocasiones tras esa fachada de “clase, cultura y dinero”:
“El mundo arde en llamas y lo único que saben hacer es arreglarse las cejas. Lo máximo que se les ocurre es llevar al escenario ese mundo en llamas. Ni siquiera se les pasa por la cabeza sofocar el incendio.”Karim se “había ido descubriendo a sí mismo a través de todo cuanto había ido rechazando”, hasta darse cuenta de lo lejos que estaba de su gente sin haberse acercado lo suficiente a ese nuevo círculo al que aspiraba.
“Me sentía avergonzado y vacío al mismo tiempo, como si me faltara la mitad del cuerpo, como si hubiera estado conspirando con mis enemigos, esos blancos que querían que los indios fueran como ellos.”En definitiva y parafraseando a uno de los personajes: tenemos diferencia de clases, de razas, sexo y farsa ¿qué más se puede pedir a unas horas de ocio lector?
March 14, 2016
3 Things about The Buddha of Suburbia:
(1) i read this one because of my fondness for the movie My Beautiful Laundrette, which was written by this author. that movie was so generous, its characters so busy, its perspective so uncomplaining about unruly complicated messy awkward life. the book has that same feeling. i have a (too) organized mind and i feel vaguely envious of how Kureishi must see the world, taking in all of the confusion and seeing it as natural, organic, sometimes awful but mainly kinda beautiful. that generosity of spirit is the best thing about this delightful but sometimes rather minor note novel. it is crammed with life. even in suburbia!
(2) the protagonist is casually bi. so am i. this is maybe the only other time i've read of such a protagonist in contemporary literary fiction (the other being The Mysteries of Pittsburgh). beyond sexuality, Karim tries to be open-minded and even-handed; he often fails utterly and holds things against people that he knows he shouldn't. Karim is also a very internal person, yet is surrounded by outgoing people and is part of a dynamic whirl of events, socializing, coming-and-going, people changing, etc. he is a part of different groups while being apart from those groups as well. it was a nice experience to read all about a character who showed me a way of looking at myself.
(3) i should also mention that Karim is a Class A Jerkoff. he makes poor decisions. he is a condescending know-it-all who talks on and on and on. he's such an asshole at times and was quite hard to deal with. at those points it was even harder realizing that i still saw myself in him. ah well. the best character is actually his friend Jamilla ('Jammie') who has a rather adorably pathetic fiance and is a smart, sensible, rather mean-spirited, tough-minded, down-to-earth lady that i would like to marry.
(1) i read this one because of my fondness for the movie My Beautiful Laundrette, which was written by this author. that movie was so generous, its characters so busy, its perspective so uncomplaining about unruly complicated messy awkward life. the book has that same feeling. i have a (too) organized mind and i feel vaguely envious of how Kureishi must see the world, taking in all of the confusion and seeing it as natural, organic, sometimes awful but mainly kinda beautiful. that generosity of spirit is the best thing about this delightful but sometimes rather minor note novel. it is crammed with life. even in suburbia!
(2) the protagonist is casually bi. so am i. this is maybe the only other time i've read of such a protagonist in contemporary literary fiction (the other being The Mysteries of Pittsburgh). beyond sexuality, Karim tries to be open-minded and even-handed; he often fails utterly and holds things against people that he knows he shouldn't. Karim is also a very internal person, yet is surrounded by outgoing people and is part of a dynamic whirl of events, socializing, coming-and-going, people changing, etc. he is a part of different groups while being apart from those groups as well. it was a nice experience to read all about a character who showed me a way of looking at myself.
(3) i should also mention that Karim is a Class A Jerkoff. he makes poor decisions. he is a condescending know-it-all who talks on and on and on. he's such an asshole at times and was quite hard to deal with. at those points it was even harder realizing that i still saw myself in him. ah well. the best character is actually his friend Jamilla ('Jammie') who has a rather adorably pathetic fiance and is a smart, sensible, rather mean-spirited, tough-minded, down-to-earth lady that i would like to marry.
November 3, 2021
“The Buddha of Suburbia” had been warmly recommended by a friend, but I don’t think he had any idea how much I would (bizarrely) relate to this book when he recommended it. This bildungsroman about the son of an Indian immigrant coming of age in the South London suburbs in the 1970s can seem as far from my life as one can imagine. But the thing about Karim’s father Haroon, is that he one day improvises himself as a meditation/spiritual teacher, and leaves Karim’s mother for one of the enthusiastic followers of his proverbial Buddha of suburbia act. And that is pretty much exactly what my dad did. He’s not Indian, and it was the Montreal suburbs, but otherwise, it is the exact same damn story.
It didn’t make my reading experience awkward or uncomfortable at all: if anything, it made Karim very endearing to me. Of course, he’s a selfish little prick, but he’s 19, and I have never known 19-year-olds to be anything other than self-involved and hysterically hormonal. A lot of what he does is awkward, clumsy – and it would be. How do you figure out who you are when you are constantly confronted with other people’s perception of you that you feel are completely off the mark? Karim’s father is Indian, but his mom is white: he considers himself an Englishman, but other people think of him as an immigrant because of his skin tone. His search for identity is as much about multiculturalism as it is about class division and confusion.
I came to realize that many other characters Karim was drawn to were not as different from him as they might seem: many of them share this feeling of being on the outside looking in, of trying really hard to be something they aren't - to the point where they entirely forget who they are. Charlie is not a punk, but when he sees that reinventing himself as another Johnny Rotten will put him on the map more than his own style will, he goes for it. Eva dreams of the privileged bohemian life Karim's girlfriend Eleanor was born into, and tries very hard to create it around herself - but the very act of trying gives her away as a fraud. All these people defined by others’ perception of them…
I found this book very funny, it a rather unique way: there was a good dose of that good old dry British humor I love so much, but there was also a subtle touch of something else, a bitter-sweetness that seems to simply be Kureishi’s own voice. When Karim “accidentally” gets cast as Mowgli by a spectacularly clueless theatre director, I think I groaned out loud (and again when he is told to speak with a “real” Indian accent for the role), as I did when his cousin Jamila befriends the prostitute her husband frequents.
Speaking of Jamila, she is incredible: raised by traditional Muslin parents, she is a strong-willed, clever, stubborn, radical and liberated young woman who submits to the arranged marriage her parents want for her, but subverts the whole thing by moving (with her poor hapless husband) in the weirdest setting imaginable.
I'm going to be re-reading this one. 4 and a half stars.
It didn’t make my reading experience awkward or uncomfortable at all: if anything, it made Karim very endearing to me. Of course, he’s a selfish little prick, but he’s 19, and I have never known 19-year-olds to be anything other than self-involved and hysterically hormonal. A lot of what he does is awkward, clumsy – and it would be. How do you figure out who you are when you are constantly confronted with other people’s perception of you that you feel are completely off the mark? Karim’s father is Indian, but his mom is white: he considers himself an Englishman, but other people think of him as an immigrant because of his skin tone. His search for identity is as much about multiculturalism as it is about class division and confusion.
I came to realize that many other characters Karim was drawn to were not as different from him as they might seem: many of them share this feeling of being on the outside looking in, of trying really hard to be something they aren't - to the point where they entirely forget who they are. Charlie is not a punk, but when he sees that reinventing himself as another Johnny Rotten will put him on the map more than his own style will, he goes for it. Eva dreams of the privileged bohemian life Karim's girlfriend Eleanor was born into, and tries very hard to create it around herself - but the very act of trying gives her away as a fraud. All these people defined by others’ perception of them…
I found this book very funny, it a rather unique way: there was a good dose of that good old dry British humor I love so much, but there was also a subtle touch of something else, a bitter-sweetness that seems to simply be Kureishi’s own voice. When Karim “accidentally” gets cast as Mowgli by a spectacularly clueless theatre director, I think I groaned out loud (and again when he is told to speak with a “real” Indian accent for the role), as I did when his cousin Jamila befriends the prostitute her husband frequents.
Speaking of Jamila, she is incredible: raised by traditional Muslin parents, she is a strong-willed, clever, stubborn, radical and liberated young woman who submits to the arranged marriage her parents want for her, but subverts the whole thing by moving (with her poor hapless husband) in the weirdest setting imaginable.
I'm going to be re-reading this one. 4 and a half stars.
May 19, 2014
This book was a lot of fun. It has that wryly English sense of humour. Through Karim, muddling through playing Mowgli in the Jungle Book, his attachment to his father's new girlfriend, guilt about his mother, his stepbrother's move from mediocre musician to punk icon, the book captures a certain time period in England, and mixes in second-generation immigrant issues. And a lot of sex.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
February 2, 2020
Very unique story with a fresh perspective on the London suburbs of the 1970's. The Immigrant Tale is turned on its head as the main protagonist is an inspiration to anyone ashamed of their sexuality or even too cautious of it. The blind cannot lead the blind, Karim knows this intuitively so he just shoots the shit; our main man is a Don Juan of a kind, with various sexual experiences under his belt which bathes the reader with an uncommon--for literature--enthusiasm for his escapades. Sexual education we want for Karim, and he does not disappoint. Also, the novel is a very close relative to Kureishi's claim to fame "My Beautiful Laundrette," which is a great thing. Expect similar reaction at the conclusion of this one!
April 22, 2013
I have recently read Turgenev’s Sketches from a Hunter’s Album, where he quotes an anecdote about a Frenchman who somehow got lost in Russia after Napoleon’s hasty retreat and after being captured by villagers ready to lynch him he was rescued by an aristocrat who was looking for a French and piano teacher for his daughters. It didn’t matter that the said Frenchman couldn’t actually play the piano, his Frenchness gave him all the credibility he needed.
We find a similar situation in the Buddha of Suburbia where Karim’s father, Muslim raised according to very English ideals, all of a sudden decides to become a yoga, meditation, all the New Age mumbo jumbo guru and rises to fame in the suburbs of London, where his dark skin serves for all the credentials he might need.
Karim, his mixed-race, second generation immigrant son doesn’t really suffer from an identity crisis until people tell him to and try to tell him to be this or that. He plays Mowgli in a play and is told by the director to fake an Indian accent to be more authentic. When he joins a different theatre troupe he is reprimanded by fellow ‘people of colour’ for not representing his race the way he should.
But here is the beauty of this book – Karim doesn’t define himself in any way. He does start his book by saying he is an Englishman of a new breed but that’s all you will hear about it. He seems to be attracted to men and women both, but he will never say whether he is heterosexual, or homosexual, or even bisexual. For most of the book he doesn’t seem to need any labels and is bemused by the fact other people need them to categorise their world. All he wants is just to get laid and get out of the suburbs before they smother him. This is what he will go on doing leaving the hard task of making sense of everything to the reader.
As far as coming of age novels go, this one is a gem. This is what Vernon God Little tried to be but failed – a satire that despite being genuinely funny feels also raw and authentic. The emotions don't get lost in caricatures.
There is still the feel of a late day hippy liberalism but with the birth of punk you can already see the signs of proto-Thatcherism and Kureishi captures that zeitgeist superbly.
I have heard that in his later novels Kureishi have shown some sexist tendencies (please note this is only anecdotal and I don’t actually know what I’m talking about), but I can’t see any traces of this in ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ which features a few great female characters who provide us with very interesting background plotlines to concentrate on when the main character needs a break.
All in all, a well rounded debut novel, deservingly described as a kind of modern classic.
We find a similar situation in the Buddha of Suburbia where Karim’s father, Muslim raised according to very English ideals, all of a sudden decides to become a yoga, meditation, all the New Age mumbo jumbo guru and rises to fame in the suburbs of London, where his dark skin serves for all the credentials he might need.
Karim, his mixed-race, second generation immigrant son doesn’t really suffer from an identity crisis until people tell him to and try to tell him to be this or that. He plays Mowgli in a play and is told by the director to fake an Indian accent to be more authentic. When he joins a different theatre troupe he is reprimanded by fellow ‘people of colour’ for not representing his race the way he should.
But here is the beauty of this book – Karim doesn’t define himself in any way. He does start his book by saying he is an Englishman of a new breed but that’s all you will hear about it. He seems to be attracted to men and women both, but he will never say whether he is heterosexual, or homosexual, or even bisexual. For most of the book he doesn’t seem to need any labels and is bemused by the fact other people need them to categorise their world. All he wants is just to get laid and get out of the suburbs before they smother him. This is what he will go on doing leaving the hard task of making sense of everything to the reader.
As far as coming of age novels go, this one is a gem. This is what Vernon God Little tried to be but failed – a satire that despite being genuinely funny feels also raw and authentic. The emotions don't get lost in caricatures.
There is still the feel of a late day hippy liberalism but with the birth of punk you can already see the signs of proto-Thatcherism and Kureishi captures that zeitgeist superbly.
I have heard that in his later novels Kureishi have shown some sexist tendencies (please note this is only anecdotal and I don’t actually know what I’m talking about), but I can’t see any traces of this in ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ which features a few great female characters who provide us with very interesting background plotlines to concentrate on when the main character needs a break.
All in all, a well rounded debut novel, deservingly described as a kind of modern classic.
February 2, 2014
This is a really neat and actually funny British Asian novel. It's not the best thing since sliced armadilloes but it lies around pleasantly in my memory as a number of other better novels don't. For some reason the relationship between this gal Jamilla and the hapless goon who gets foisted on her in a hideous arranged marriage kind of way has remained with me almost like I met them once. Jamilla is one of the coolest women ever. Or maybe just one of the most bad tempered. She's the punk grand-daughter of Daisy, the unflappable promoter of contraception in The Painter of Signs by Narayan. Some days I think you could spend your life reading Indian novelists. There are lots of worse things to do with your time.
Read
September 14, 2023Ironic-satirical portrayal of the permissive 1970s in Britain, seen from the perspective of the young Karim Amir, son of an 'adventurous' Indian father who turns into a Buddhist guru and a classic British housewife. In essence, this is a coming-of-age story, but with its own accents. The chaotic existence in suburban London, the experimentation with drugs and (bi)sex, the search for one's own cultural identity, the racism and sexism of British society, are the ingredients that spice up this novel. For me this was a bit over the top, it didn't really resonate. Did not finish.
November 15, 2020
Set in England in the 1970s, seventeen-year-old protagonist Karim was born to an English mother and Indian father. The first half of the book takes place in the suburbs and the second half in London. The novel is filled with 1970s pop culture references. It was a time of massive cultural change. It was also a time of emerging forms of self-expression, and Karim decides to become an actor. His friend, Charlie, decides to become a singer. His father, Haroon, is the titular “Buddha of Suburbia,” and Karim’s family dynamics play a key role in the story. It is told from Karim’s perspective, looking back on his youth.
This is a story of a search for identity. Even in multicultural London, Karim cannot escape racial stereotyping. The plot follows Karim’s struggle to fit into a society in which he sees himself as belonging (since he was born there) but is assumed to be “other” based on his appearance. Once he reaches his initial goal of living the city, he finds just as much narrow-mindedness as he encountered in the suburbs.
This book is well-written, witty, and, at times, bawdy. It is filled with irreverent humor. I was not sure I would like it at first since I do not usually have a high tolerance for graphic sexual content but ended up enjoying it immensely. I have never read anything quite like it.
This is a story of a search for identity. Even in multicultural London, Karim cannot escape racial stereotyping. The plot follows Karim’s struggle to fit into a society in which he sees himself as belonging (since he was born there) but is assumed to be “other” based on his appearance. Once he reaches his initial goal of living the city, he finds just as much narrow-mindedness as he encountered in the suburbs.
This book is well-written, witty, and, at times, bawdy. It is filled with irreverent humor. I was not sure I would like it at first since I do not usually have a high tolerance for graphic sexual content but ended up enjoying it immensely. I have never read anything quite like it.
Read
August 8, 2011I've been reading Kureishi backwards, starting with Intimacy, then Something to Tell You, and now his first novel, The Buddha of Suburbia. Intimacy was a traumatic read for me; it was Kureishi's barely fictionalized account of walking out on his partner and his two young sons and it was unapologetic. Intimacy was infuriating, but beautifully written, and it made me want to find out what makes Kureishi tick. Intimacy was very spare, the "action" taking place in just one day, and most of the action was psychological. (Odd, since he's best known for his screenplays like "My Beautiful Laundrette" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid.") By contrast, this first novel revels in detail and takes its time with plot, which can be summed up loosely as a coming of age story. The book is so funny and his perceptions--of race, place (London in the late 70s), class, and sexual desire--are so original and direct that I felt I was chatting with an eccentric friend. Kureishi's boundaries may seem blurred at first--he's attracted to men and women, his family is split and his father is Pakistani and his mother's caucasian--but he's never in a real quandary. He's always the observer, asking questions, making astute perceptions, and his detachment and humor make him bold and confident. He's irresistible!
August 27, 2016
This book taught me that literature can be both incredibly entertaining and soul-piercingly deep.
November 6, 2021
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changez
June 25, 2020
Smart, entertaining and funny with a dry English sense of humor. Sometimes a little bit too theatrical (as in: like a play) for my taste, but I breezed through it. I liked how it dealt with topics of sexuality, cultural identity, and politics with such ease - the main character Karim is bisexual Indian-Englishman from London sometimes milking rich people for 'The party' but not going to the important political protest because he can't be arsed. He stumbles through the novel, permanently without direction beyond immediate needs.
One other small caveat: Some of the sex scenes/talk was a little weird. I think the crudeness and strangeness added humor at times, but other times it was a bit much.
One other small caveat: Some of the sex scenes/talk was a little weird. I think the crudeness and strangeness added humor at times, but other times it was a bit much.
March 7, 2022
za jedan prvijenac, vrlo spretno, hrabro i samouvjereno. kureishi je beskrajno duhovit, baš nadahnut, bez cenzure; dodaj tome zaigrani prijevod borivoja radakovića koji je odradio sjajan posao i vješto prenio dušu teksta... ovo je bilo zabavno do suza.
February 11, 2017
There were three contemporary TV dramas I remember really speaking to me when I was a teenager: The Lakes, The Crow Road and The Buddha of Suburbia. All carried the sound of life revving up and starting to happen, and said that things were about to get a whole lot more interesting.
Now approximately twenty years separates me from watching The Buddha of Suburbia in the 90s, as the same span back then separated the series from its setting in the 70s. I should have read and treasured this book long ago. The first paragraph - and the whole book - still carries that same sense of promise and excitement.
My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost. I am often considered to be a funny kind of Englishman, a new breed as it were, having emerged from two old histories. But I don’t care – Englishman I am (though not proud of it), from the South London suburbs and going somewhere. Perhaps it is the odd mixture of continents and blood, of here and there, of belonging and not, that makes me restless and easily bored. Or perhaps it was being brought up in the suburbs that did it. Anyway, why search the inner room when it’s enough to say that I was looking for trouble, any kind of movement, action and sexual interest I could find, because things were so gloomy, so slow and heavy, in our family, I don’t know why. Quite frankly, it was all getting me down and I was ready for anything.
Maybe he spoke those words at the opening of the first episode - I can't recall for sure and I hadn't dared re-watch it recently. Nevertheless I remember a fantastic first scene in which he was getting changed to the sound of Get It On by T-Rex. These and so many other lines strike a chord or express something perfectly: perhaps it's because of the thrill of nostalgia and because they were formative when I first heard them all that time ago: they are right because to me they are among the originals.
Perhaps that's also why the whole book seems perfectly pitched, sort of an old-fashioned British comic novel of eccentric families and cartoonishly cool friends, yet, unlike that often conservative form (Kingsley Amis etc), it's on the side of characters who are Indian immigrants, bisexuals, left-wingers, hippies and arty types of all stripes. Affectionate satire, like the hint of authorial knowingness in Karim's voice. "I wanted to live always this intensely: mysticism, alcohol, sexual promise, clever people and drugs." You care despite or because his ambition is a teenage cliche (especially from the days before university tuition fees; as one of the last cohort who didn't have to pay, I remember the sudden seriousness of the younger ones who, to our eyes, were doing too much work too early and didn't seem to get - our old-fashioned idea of - what being a student was about).
I suppose there are one or two scenes that don't quite work, and one or two characters who could have been better drawn, yet it barely seems to matter. (There are so many memorable people here and they feel so familiar and magical that it seems daft my trying to list and describe them.) It's academic that I didn't actually read the book twenty years ago; I have all the affection and longing kinship for it that I have for firm favourites from then, such as The Secret History, and often it would make me feel as if everything was still to happen, just as if I'd been reading it two decades ago. And it manages to be funny, sexy, political and grubbily glamorous. It's not like Karim has an entirely easy time, but, as I also keep thinking when I flick through the graphic novel Nelson (which I can't yet bring myself to actually read), in this book is a life I would like to have lived.
Now approximately twenty years separates me from watching The Buddha of Suburbia in the 90s, as the same span back then separated the series from its setting in the 70s. I should have read and treasured this book long ago. The first paragraph - and the whole book - still carries that same sense of promise and excitement.
My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost. I am often considered to be a funny kind of Englishman, a new breed as it were, having emerged from two old histories. But I don’t care – Englishman I am (though not proud of it), from the South London suburbs and going somewhere. Perhaps it is the odd mixture of continents and blood, of here and there, of belonging and not, that makes me restless and easily bored. Or perhaps it was being brought up in the suburbs that did it. Anyway, why search the inner room when it’s enough to say that I was looking for trouble, any kind of movement, action and sexual interest I could find, because things were so gloomy, so slow and heavy, in our family, I don’t know why. Quite frankly, it was all getting me down and I was ready for anything.
Maybe he spoke those words at the opening of the first episode - I can't recall for sure and I hadn't dared re-watch it recently. Nevertheless I remember a fantastic first scene in which he was getting changed to the sound of Get It On by T-Rex. These and so many other lines strike a chord or express something perfectly: perhaps it's because of the thrill of nostalgia and because they were formative when I first heard them all that time ago: they are right because to me they are among the originals.
Perhaps that's also why the whole book seems perfectly pitched, sort of an old-fashioned British comic novel of eccentric families and cartoonishly cool friends, yet, unlike that often conservative form (Kingsley Amis etc), it's on the side of characters who are Indian immigrants, bisexuals, left-wingers, hippies and arty types of all stripes. Affectionate satire, like the hint of authorial knowingness in Karim's voice. "I wanted to live always this intensely: mysticism, alcohol, sexual promise, clever people and drugs." You care despite or because his ambition is a teenage cliche (especially from the days before university tuition fees; as one of the last cohort who didn't have to pay, I remember the sudden seriousness of the younger ones who, to our eyes, were doing too much work too early and didn't seem to get - our old-fashioned idea of - what being a student was about).
I suppose there are one or two scenes that don't quite work, and one or two characters who could have been better drawn, yet it barely seems to matter. (There are so many memorable people here and they feel so familiar and magical that it seems daft my trying to list and describe them.) It's academic that I didn't actually read the book twenty years ago; I have all the affection and longing kinship for it that I have for firm favourites from then, such as The Secret History, and often it would make me feel as if everything was still to happen, just as if I'd been reading it two decades ago. And it manages to be funny, sexy, political and grubbily glamorous. It's not like Karim has an entirely easy time, but, as I also keep thinking when I flick through the graphic novel Nelson (which I can't yet bring myself to actually read), in this book is a life I would like to have lived.
May 21, 2015
Debo decir que no había leído antes nada de Kureishi y que lo que vi en este libro valió totalmente la pena. Por lo poco que sé del autor y su historia personal, puede decirse que aquí, en este libro, se realiza una especie de novela autobiográfica, enmarcada en el contexto específico de los años 70 en adelante en Inglaterra. Entre punk, sexo, drogas y demasiada adrenalina, el libro nos enfrenta directamente con la vida de Karim Amir, Inglés hijo de un hombre paquistaní y una mujer inglesa. La novela nos sitúa directamente en el paso de la juventud a la adultez, con todo el desenfreno, confusión y re-asimilación de los valores verdaderamente importantes que deberían de guiar toda una vida. Más que una fotografía de la vida del personaje principal, el libro presenta un viejo album de fotografía de toda la sociedad inglesa de aquel momento. Entre protestas y ánimos revolucionarios (no olvidemos que estaba cerca todo el espíritu de mayo del 68), sexo desenfrenado, algo de racismo, crestas y la caída de unos valores tradicionales cada vez más desuetos, Inglaterra se muestra como un anciano que ve cómo sus nietos piensan re-pensar toda su vida para que no terminar como su predecesor.
La narración del libro es rápida y precisa, sin nada que le sobre, sin demasiados tropos ni imágenes sofisticadas. La economía del lenguaje prima en toda la novela, y uno casi que se pregunta si no está leyendo a algún realista norteamericano. El lenguaje utilizado, sin llegar a ser escueto, es puntilloso y preciso; sin demasiada filigrana pero con demasiada potencia en los momentos de mayor tensión. Baste decir que esta novela vale la pena; que, si a usted le gusta el punk y tiene curiosidad sobre los ingleses, esta novela es una buena manera de infiltrarse en todo ese mundo europeo que, desde la visión del autor, permite verse sin los mitos y la admiración tercer mundista tan propia de todos aquellos nacidos por estos lados del continente.
La narración del libro es rápida y precisa, sin nada que le sobre, sin demasiados tropos ni imágenes sofisticadas. La economía del lenguaje prima en toda la novela, y uno casi que se pregunta si no está leyendo a algún realista norteamericano. El lenguaje utilizado, sin llegar a ser escueto, es puntilloso y preciso; sin demasiada filigrana pero con demasiada potencia en los momentos de mayor tensión. Baste decir que esta novela vale la pena; que, si a usted le gusta el punk y tiene curiosidad sobre los ingleses, esta novela es una buena manera de infiltrarse en todo ese mundo europeo que, desde la visión del autor, permite verse sin los mitos y la admiración tercer mundista tan propia de todos aquellos nacidos por estos lados del continente.
February 28, 2015
A very entertaining read. Beautifully concrete and precise period detail in the manner of 'One Day' by David Nicholls (although Buddha was written far nearer to the period in which it is set, so is perhaps less of an astonishing performance in this regard). It is sobering for me to realize this book was published 25 years ago now. It hasn't dated; it still feels fresh and new.
A great part of the novel's charm and success is the liveliness, lightness and subtle wit with which Kureishi treats themes of racial politics, the generation gap, gender, sexuality, growing up, and the history of the late 60s and 70s. His characterization is terrific; the book is a cornucopia of well-drawn portraits - sharply perceived and yet affectionate.
A great part of the novel's charm and success is the liveliness, lightness and subtle wit with which Kureishi treats themes of racial politics, the generation gap, gender, sexuality, growing up, and the history of the late 60s and 70s. His characterization is terrific; the book is a cornucopia of well-drawn portraits - sharply perceived and yet affectionate.
April 27, 2017
لو كان هناك ما دون النجمة لحصل عليها هذا الكتاب.
كرهته كثيرا ً، مؤذي لقارئه، حصلت عليه لأنه كان أحد 1001 كتاب التي كان ينصح بيتر بوكسال بقراءتها قبل أن نموت، يبدو أنني أخطأت ولم انتبه إلى ملحق في نهاية الكتاب اسمه كتب لا تقرأها حتى لا تموت، سيتصدرها هذا الكتاب.
كرهته كثيرا ً، مؤذي لقارئه، حصلت عليه لأنه كان أحد 1001 كتاب التي كان ينصح بيتر بوكسال بقراءتها قبل أن نموت، يبدو أنني أخطأت ولم انتبه إلى ملحق في نهاية الكتاب اسمه كتب لا تقرأها حتى لا تموت، سيتصدرها هذا الكتاب.
January 24, 2019
I am put off by the content in this book. The “f” word is repeated so many times, it’s distressing! The use of sex, the descriptions, and the crude words used for body parts is . . . Let’s just say, this book makes me feel depressed, funny (in a bad way), and makes me want to punch the main character in the face. He’s so stupid and SUCH an immature kid! I had to read this for school and no one I knew really liked it—AT ALL. This is actually more bothersome than “There There”. As everyone knows, this is my opinion. If you enjoyed it, that's great, but it's definitely not for me.
August 17, 2019
The Buddha of Suburbia is Hanif Kureishi's debut novel, and the first of his works I've read other than the award-winning screenplay, My Beautiful Laundrette . A big fan of judging books and their covers, I put off this purchase for a long time because of the absolute ugliness of the 2017 edition — and then I found a(n extremely cheap) copy of the original 1990 Faber & Faber edition at the annual May Day sale at MayDay Bookstore and Cafe, Delhi, this year.
The contents are as much of a steal as the cover.
The Buddha of Suburbia is a unique work of postmodern realism built around the subaltern themes of the diasporic, the suburban, and the matters of class set within 1970s England. The narration flows like life flows — real life, and not what life in fiction is carefully moulded into — and progresses in no particular direction; while simultaneously not being all over the place; except for out of the stifling suburbs and into the city full of possibilities, safety and freedom.
At the heart of this book — with its socio-political comment on racism, class, artistic decadence, sexuality, and state-of-the-nation — lies the bildungsroman of the central narrating voice which belongs to Karim Amir, son of a white mother and an Indian father. The book begins with an assertion of Karim's identity and the confusion it brings to him: as a product of a mixed-race union, he is 'too brown' to be English and too foreign to belong to India, where he has never been; the first page witnesses him asserting his British identity three times.
In two parts, the latter 'In The City'; The Buddha of Suburbia talks about what it means to live in a suburban world — one either gets stuck there, or experiences it merely as a transitional phase. From Bromley; where Kureishi himself hails from (as well as H.G. Wells and David Bowie); to Barons' Court in London city, Amir's journey is telling and compelling.
Suburbia is stifling, boring and left behind — as perhaps personified by Karim's mother, Margaret, whose husband, Haroon, leaves her for the 'sophisticated' (in Karim's words) Eva. Eva is a symbol of a certain hunger for refinement and class mobility, the one character who successfully and with ease leaves the suburbs behind her in every way. Eva also moves from an opaque mysticism to a somewhat inane urban materialism.
In fact, what makes this book intensely likeable is that its characters are human: things do not work out for them just because they are set within the covers of a work of fiction. They are as lost, as prone to erring as any; malleable; opportunistic; and materialistic.
In the midst of this well-meaning hullabaloo is the book's namesake. The Buddha of Suburbia; Karim's father, Haroon; is a low-ranking civil servant who becomes a (rather influential) mystic guru , a figure of the nameless many whose work is soulless and alienates them from all meaning. Haroon is drawn towards meaning by these very facts of life. But for all his soul-searching, he is a pampered man from Bombay who can not cook or clean to save his life. As the plot of the book progresses, its namesake somewhat recedes into the background, both in Karim's narration and in Eva's priorities: mysticism has no place in the fast-paced London.
Neither does racism.
Karim feels safe in the city, whereas in the suburbs there were constant racist attacks on 'wogs' and 'pakis', where hairy-backed men set their dogs loose on him and heads of pigs were thrown into the Paradise owned by his relatives, uncle Anwar and aunt Jeeta. The book shows the connections between poverty of means and education and racism plainly in the dust suspended in the light of suburban day.
In London, Karim finds work as an actor in radical theatre, and moves into artistic circles far removed from his lower-middle class origins. Class comparisons abound, and are embedded in everything. London is also the site of Karim's most beautiful musings, passages of the highest literary value in the book. While it is throughout the book that we see Kureishi building context and commentary for pop culture — books, music, fashion and architecture — it is in London that these come together in an awesome convergence. Kureishi traces subtly the nuances of their deep impact on our psyche, and how contact with cultural artefacts shapes our world from the sidelines.
Music, especially, forms the very spine of this book. With references peppered in every descriptive avenue possible, it is as if The Buddha of Suburbia comes with its own in-built soundtrack. Sentiments and settings are given weight to with the help of music, while the Hippie movement and the emergence of Punk and New Wave are as much the grounds on which the narrative unfolds as London itself. Charlie — Karim's childhood crush and later half-brother — is a musician hungry for the 'genius' tag, but as he rises the ranks in that regard, he loses Karim's absolute adoration, stripped down to his selfish self in his mind. Charlie is a fairly decent representative of the modern white man who wants to be very confident of his desires, but in reality is not quite sure.
Sex and drugs, too, are an important element in the narrative — while Karim casually mentions the affects and effects of speed and marijuana, the smell of sex perhaps characterises this book just as well as anything else: it is casual; as with Helen and Jamila; and experimentative, as in Pyke's orgy and Charlie's trying bondage in New York. While the early glimpse of the sexual — a voyeur's view of Haroon and Eva on a bench — is informed by the idea of the family and fidelity, the orgy at Pyke's house is a commentary on upper-class bourgeoisie moral decadence.
The Buddha of Suburbia , with its basis in the decade of union fluctuations and working-class movements, delves into the issue of class and class biases in more ways than one. The descent of Karim's uncle Ted and aunt Jean is a case in point of downward mobility. The narrative further sharply contrasts the ways of the lower-middle class — Haroon and Margaret, and Anwar and Jeeta form this economic strata as well as inform the economic attitudes of the diasporas in an era where one could just emigrate to England and open up a business —; the upper-middle class — with Eva's luxuriant bathroom and her spending money without a care on things she desires —; and the wealthy upper class, characterised by Pyke and his alliance to the 'left' as an artist and to the upper-class as a consumer.
There is also a strong sense of working-class consciousness in the book: Terry, Karim's colleague in a play, works for the party and is confident of a revolution. However, he is perplexed by the practicalities of living in a capitalist world, where he despairingly plays a policeman on television (and is eerily similar in that to the character from Brooklyn 99 ). Terry is further incensed at a part he deserves being given to Karim — and while not inflammatory in his case, undercuts the sentiment of many an englishmen on immigrants (though Karim himself isn't one) and jobs.
Jamila; the daughter of immigrant parents who run a grocery store in Penge; is also a radical character. A feminist, she is an informed New Woman who; though pressurised into marrying by her father Anwar's dramatic fast-unto-death; defies the confining roles created by marriage, gender, class and colour. She organises a March — a central point in the book even though Karim does not attend it — against racist and classist attacks, defies patriarchal expectations by taking control of her sexuality — her refusal to sleep with her husband, Changez, her lesbianism, and her refusal to be monogamised. Jamila defies the idea of family also by finally moving into community living — and giving the community a child.
Sexuality is portrayed as a matter-of-fact in Kureishi's novel — as it should be. Karim is casually bi-sexual, and it does not overtake his identity completely. Jamila loves Joanna just as she loves the father of her child. Changez's longing for his wife and his liasons with Shinko are both legitimately portrayed, although in different intensities.
Changez and Anwar are portraits of the diasporic brown man and their travails. Their entitlement, encouraged and normalised in India, is almost rootless in England. Both Changez and Anwar also experience downward class mobility as they shift from being a part of 'good' families from Bombay to grocers and non-entities in England (Anwar's wife, Jeeta, infact, goes from being a princess to running a cash-till). Anwar's refusal to allow changes in Paradise Stores is telling of his remaining stuck in a long lost time, even as he moves beyond it.
Haroon, The Buddha of Suburbia, too, faces the discomfort of such shifts in identity which do not completely belong anywhere — he is startled to find out, after their divorce, that Margaret is seeing someone and not still sitting miserably in wait for his return.
Karim, as the second-generation diasporic man, is able to see things his father, Anwar and Changez can not — that the white Englishman is not superior to him, and that he is an Englishman. And while no ends are tied at the end — everything is quite messy, but he believes ''it wouldn't always be so" —, we know, through him, that life; with all its weirdness and strange turns; goes on — but much better once out of the squalor and insecurities of suburbia.
[Given its convulted (read: realist) nature, this was a very hard book to review. However, it was an immensely fun read; addressing multiple themes with fluency and resonance; and should be on as many shelves as can be.]
The contents are as much of a steal as the cover.
The Buddha of Suburbia is a unique work of postmodern realism built around the subaltern themes of the diasporic, the suburban, and the matters of class set within 1970s England. The narration flows like life flows — real life, and not what life in fiction is carefully moulded into — and progresses in no particular direction; while simultaneously not being all over the place; except for out of the stifling suburbs and into the city full of possibilities, safety and freedom.
At the heart of this book — with its socio-political comment on racism, class, artistic decadence, sexuality, and state-of-the-nation — lies the bildungsroman of the central narrating voice which belongs to Karim Amir, son of a white mother and an Indian father. The book begins with an assertion of Karim's identity and the confusion it brings to him: as a product of a mixed-race union, he is 'too brown' to be English and too foreign to belong to India, where he has never been; the first page witnesses him asserting his British identity three times.
In two parts, the latter 'In The City'; The Buddha of Suburbia talks about what it means to live in a suburban world — one either gets stuck there, or experiences it merely as a transitional phase. From Bromley; where Kureishi himself hails from (as well as H.G. Wells and David Bowie); to Barons' Court in London city, Amir's journey is telling and compelling.
Suburbia is stifling, boring and left behind — as perhaps personified by Karim's mother, Margaret, whose husband, Haroon, leaves her for the 'sophisticated' (in Karim's words) Eva. Eva is a symbol of a certain hunger for refinement and class mobility, the one character who successfully and with ease leaves the suburbs behind her in every way. Eva also moves from an opaque mysticism to a somewhat inane urban materialism.
In fact, what makes this book intensely likeable is that its characters are human: things do not work out for them just because they are set within the covers of a work of fiction. They are as lost, as prone to erring as any; malleable; opportunistic; and materialistic.
In the midst of this well-meaning hullabaloo is the book's namesake. The Buddha of Suburbia; Karim's father, Haroon; is a low-ranking civil servant who becomes a (rather influential) mystic guru , a figure of the nameless many whose work is soulless and alienates them from all meaning. Haroon is drawn towards meaning by these very facts of life. But for all his soul-searching, he is a pampered man from Bombay who can not cook or clean to save his life. As the plot of the book progresses, its namesake somewhat recedes into the background, both in Karim's narration and in Eva's priorities: mysticism has no place in the fast-paced London.
Neither does racism.
Karim feels safe in the city, whereas in the suburbs there were constant racist attacks on 'wogs' and 'pakis', where hairy-backed men set their dogs loose on him and heads of pigs were thrown into the Paradise owned by his relatives, uncle Anwar and aunt Jeeta. The book shows the connections between poverty of means and education and racism plainly in the dust suspended in the light of suburban day.
In London, Karim finds work as an actor in radical theatre, and moves into artistic circles far removed from his lower-middle class origins. Class comparisons abound, and are embedded in everything. London is also the site of Karim's most beautiful musings, passages of the highest literary value in the book. While it is throughout the book that we see Kureishi building context and commentary for pop culture — books, music, fashion and architecture — it is in London that these come together in an awesome convergence. Kureishi traces subtly the nuances of their deep impact on our psyche, and how contact with cultural artefacts shapes our world from the sidelines.
Music, especially, forms the very spine of this book. With references peppered in every descriptive avenue possible, it is as if The Buddha of Suburbia comes with its own in-built soundtrack. Sentiments and settings are given weight to with the help of music, while the Hippie movement and the emergence of Punk and New Wave are as much the grounds on which the narrative unfolds as London itself. Charlie — Karim's childhood crush and later half-brother — is a musician hungry for the 'genius' tag, but as he rises the ranks in that regard, he loses Karim's absolute adoration, stripped down to his selfish self in his mind. Charlie is a fairly decent representative of the modern white man who wants to be very confident of his desires, but in reality is not quite sure.
Sex and drugs, too, are an important element in the narrative — while Karim casually mentions the affects and effects of speed and marijuana, the smell of sex perhaps characterises this book just as well as anything else: it is casual; as with Helen and Jamila; and experimentative, as in Pyke's orgy and Charlie's trying bondage in New York. While the early glimpse of the sexual — a voyeur's view of Haroon and Eva on a bench — is informed by the idea of the family and fidelity, the orgy at Pyke's house is a commentary on upper-class bourgeoisie moral decadence.
The Buddha of Suburbia , with its basis in the decade of union fluctuations and working-class movements, delves into the issue of class and class biases in more ways than one. The descent of Karim's uncle Ted and aunt Jean is a case in point of downward mobility. The narrative further sharply contrasts the ways of the lower-middle class — Haroon and Margaret, and Anwar and Jeeta form this economic strata as well as inform the economic attitudes of the diasporas in an era where one could just emigrate to England and open up a business —; the upper-middle class — with Eva's luxuriant bathroom and her spending money without a care on things she desires —; and the wealthy upper class, characterised by Pyke and his alliance to the 'left' as an artist and to the upper-class as a consumer.
There is also a strong sense of working-class consciousness in the book: Terry, Karim's colleague in a play, works for the party and is confident of a revolution. However, he is perplexed by the practicalities of living in a capitalist world, where he despairingly plays a policeman on television (and is eerily similar in that to the character from Brooklyn 99 ). Terry is further incensed at a part he deserves being given to Karim — and while not inflammatory in his case, undercuts the sentiment of many an englishmen on immigrants (though Karim himself isn't one) and jobs.
Jamila; the daughter of immigrant parents who run a grocery store in Penge; is also a radical character. A feminist, she is an informed New Woman who; though pressurised into marrying by her father Anwar's dramatic fast-unto-death; defies the confining roles created by marriage, gender, class and colour. She organises a March — a central point in the book even though Karim does not attend it — against racist and classist attacks, defies patriarchal expectations by taking control of her sexuality — her refusal to sleep with her husband, Changez, her lesbianism, and her refusal to be monogamised. Jamila defies the idea of family also by finally moving into community living — and giving the community a child.
Sexuality is portrayed as a matter-of-fact in Kureishi's novel — as it should be. Karim is casually bi-sexual, and it does not overtake his identity completely. Jamila loves Joanna just as she loves the father of her child. Changez's longing for his wife and his liasons with Shinko are both legitimately portrayed, although in different intensities.
Changez and Anwar are portraits of the diasporic brown man and their travails. Their entitlement, encouraged and normalised in India, is almost rootless in England. Both Changez and Anwar also experience downward class mobility as they shift from being a part of 'good' families from Bombay to grocers and non-entities in England (Anwar's wife, Jeeta, infact, goes from being a princess to running a cash-till). Anwar's refusal to allow changes in Paradise Stores is telling of his remaining stuck in a long lost time, even as he moves beyond it.
Haroon, The Buddha of Suburbia, too, faces the discomfort of such shifts in identity which do not completely belong anywhere — he is startled to find out, after their divorce, that Margaret is seeing someone and not still sitting miserably in wait for his return.
Karim, as the second-generation diasporic man, is able to see things his father, Anwar and Changez can not — that the white Englishman is not superior to him, and that he is an Englishman. And while no ends are tied at the end — everything is quite messy, but he believes ''it wouldn't always be so" —, we know, through him, that life; with all its weirdness and strange turns; goes on — but much better once out of the squalor and insecurities of suburbia.
[Given its convulted (read: realist) nature, this was a very hard book to review. However, it was an immensely fun read; addressing multiple themes with fluency and resonance; and should be on as many shelves as can be.]
July 23, 2012
I read this book for my English 348 class. I was surprised by the choice, but as I continued to read... the choice became perfectly clear. My professor is in love with the idea of "national identity." It is a passion of his that he expressed to me when I interviewed him for a features article in The Carolinian. He also seems to have an interest and loves to debate about the interpretation of sex in literature. Several poems and as the novels continue through the semester, sex has become quite prominent. The Buddha of Suburbia is no exception.
At first, I was not a fan of the novel. A half Indian, half British teen is growing up in the suburbs of England with his bizarre father who is carrying on an affair behind the back of the miserable, pathetic mother. Karim, the teen, tries to find out who he is in a country that sees him as black and treats him like a foreigner. He's complicated, strange, and messed up from his kinky sexuality and his Indian father leaving his British mother for a very commercial, flamboyant woman named Eva. His parents' relationship and their fall-out is complicated and ugly. One of my favorite moments in the text comes from a visit to the upper class aunt and uncle's house.
"Once I remember Mum looking reproachfully at Dad, as if to say: What husband are you to give me so little when the other men, the Alans and Barrys and Peters and Roys, provide cars, houses, holidays, central heating and jewellery? They can at least put up shelves or fix the fence. What can you do" (29)?
Karim continues to wonder about the differences between what Eva calls "interesting" and "ugly people" later in the text after his parents split.
"When Eva had gone and I lay for the first time in the same house as Charlie and Eva and my father, I thought about the difference between interesting people and the nice people. And how they can't always be identical. The interesting people you wanted to be with - their minds were unusual, you saw things freshly with them and all was not deadness and repetition... Then there were the nice people who weren't interesting, and you didn't want to know what they thought of anything. Like Mum, they were good and meek and deserved more love. But it was the interesting ones, like Eva with her hard, taking edge, who ended up with everything, and in bed with my father" (93).
The novel is very adult and debates the idea of how to identify with who you are based on other people's interpretation of you.
I'd recommend it for people who are more interested in reading about deep characters than they are a storyline or an interesting, exciting plot. Nothing really much happens in the novel, but the characters are deep like something of Michael Cummingham's.
Works Cited:
Kureishi, Hanif. The Buddha of Suburbia. New York:
The Penguin Group, 1990. Print.
At first, I was not a fan of the novel. A half Indian, half British teen is growing up in the suburbs of England with his bizarre father who is carrying on an affair behind the back of the miserable, pathetic mother. Karim, the teen, tries to find out who he is in a country that sees him as black and treats him like a foreigner. He's complicated, strange, and messed up from his kinky sexuality and his Indian father leaving his British mother for a very commercial, flamboyant woman named Eva. His parents' relationship and their fall-out is complicated and ugly. One of my favorite moments in the text comes from a visit to the upper class aunt and uncle's house.
"Once I remember Mum looking reproachfully at Dad, as if to say: What husband are you to give me so little when the other men, the Alans and Barrys and Peters and Roys, provide cars, houses, holidays, central heating and jewellery? They can at least put up shelves or fix the fence. What can you do" (29)?
Karim continues to wonder about the differences between what Eva calls "interesting" and "ugly people" later in the text after his parents split.
"When Eva had gone and I lay for the first time in the same house as Charlie and Eva and my father, I thought about the difference between interesting people and the nice people. And how they can't always be identical. The interesting people you wanted to be with - their minds were unusual, you saw things freshly with them and all was not deadness and repetition... Then there were the nice people who weren't interesting, and you didn't want to know what they thought of anything. Like Mum, they were good and meek and deserved more love. But it was the interesting ones, like Eva with her hard, taking edge, who ended up with everything, and in bed with my father" (93).
The novel is very adult and debates the idea of how to identify with who you are based on other people's interpretation of you.
I'd recommend it for people who are more interested in reading about deep characters than they are a storyline or an interesting, exciting plot. Nothing really much happens in the novel, but the characters are deep like something of Michael Cummingham's.
Works Cited:
Kureishi, Hanif. The Buddha of Suburbia. New York:
The Penguin Group, 1990. Print.
May 22, 2017
“Someone to whom jokes are never told soon contracts enthusiasm deficiency.”
In man respects this is a coming of age novel set mainly in 1970's London against a background of the emergence of Punk Rock and political turmoil leading to the rise to ascendancy of Margaret Thatcher. The ''Buddha'' of the title is Haroon, father of Karim, the narrator, who works as a mundane Government bureaucrat until he deserts his British wife, Margaret, and moves in with socially climbing Eva giving out advice in the evening like some mystic guru to largely other bored Londoners. However Haroon is a fairly peripheral figure in the book. He is not even the most memorable.
Rather the story centres on his son Karim. Karim is a sort of hybrid. He was born in England to Indian and English parents yet has never even visited India so regards himself to be English yet because of his colour is not treated as such. He is struggling to find his place in British society having feet in two separate camps. Moving from "suburbia" to London, with its promise of drugs, sex and excitement, Karim discovers a talent for acting which sets him on a path to the first of many disillusionments over love and politics.
Tucked within is a real gem of a secondary tale. This is the story of Jamila, a liberated, sexually free and politically radical British-born Muslim woman and Changez, the Indian groom chosen for her by her father. Changez is twice her age, physically repulsive and emotionally retarded. Yet Jamila and Changez eventually seem to come to an unusual but seemingly amicable arrangement.
There is no neat ending and at times reads autobiographical. Rather the novel is pointedly political and highly critical of British racism making it at times uncomfortable reading . On the whole I enjoyed the author's writing style and I often found myself reading it with a smile on my face despite not overly taking to any of the main characters. Yet how it portrays teenage life in 1970s London, confronting disturbing home truths about British attitudes towards immigrants, which still remain within a section of British society today, means that this book deserves to be more widely read.
In man respects this is a coming of age novel set mainly in 1970's London against a background of the emergence of Punk Rock and political turmoil leading to the rise to ascendancy of Margaret Thatcher. The ''Buddha'' of the title is Haroon, father of Karim, the narrator, who works as a mundane Government bureaucrat until he deserts his British wife, Margaret, and moves in with socially climbing Eva giving out advice in the evening like some mystic guru to largely other bored Londoners. However Haroon is a fairly peripheral figure in the book. He is not even the most memorable.
Rather the story centres on his son Karim. Karim is a sort of hybrid. He was born in England to Indian and English parents yet has never even visited India so regards himself to be English yet because of his colour is not treated as such. He is struggling to find his place in British society having feet in two separate camps. Moving from "suburbia" to London, with its promise of drugs, sex and excitement, Karim discovers a talent for acting which sets him on a path to the first of many disillusionments over love and politics.
Tucked within is a real gem of a secondary tale. This is the story of Jamila, a liberated, sexually free and politically radical British-born Muslim woman and Changez, the Indian groom chosen for her by her father. Changez is twice her age, physically repulsive and emotionally retarded. Yet Jamila and Changez eventually seem to come to an unusual but seemingly amicable arrangement.
There is no neat ending and at times reads autobiographical. Rather the novel is pointedly political and highly critical of British racism making it at times uncomfortable reading . On the whole I enjoyed the author's writing style and I often found myself reading it with a smile on my face despite not overly taking to any of the main characters. Yet how it portrays teenage life in 1970s London, confronting disturbing home truths about British attitudes towards immigrants, which still remain within a section of British society today, means that this book deserves to be more widely read.
January 16, 2016
خاجة جميلة بديعة، في الغالب المرحلة الجاية هجيب كل اعمال حنيف قرشي
رغم الخدع السحرية في البداية، لكن بعد كدا بتتحول لرواية اجتماعية انجليزية حديثة عادية عن الصراع الطبقي والاجتماعى، لكن مع ذلك كنت مسحور جدا بالدراما الاجتماعية على غير العادة، مكنش ممكن اتخيل انى ممكن اقرا رواية واقعية بالسهولة والانسايبة دى
فيه في الخلفية اشباح لمدعى النبوة والآلهه، ولديفيد بوي، وللحركات اليسارية السرية الجو دا كان اجمل حاجة في الرواية
رغم الخدع السحرية في البداية، لكن بعد كدا بتتحول لرواية اجتماعية انجليزية حديثة عادية عن الصراع الطبقي والاجتماعى، لكن مع ذلك كنت مسحور جدا بالدراما الاجتماعية على غير العادة، مكنش ممكن اتخيل انى ممكن اقرا رواية واقعية بالسهولة والانسايبة دى
فيه في الخلفية اشباح لمدعى النبوة والآلهه، ولديفيد بوي، وللحركات اليسارية السرية الجو دا كان اجمل حاجة في الرواية
June 17, 2023
Pakistanlı bir babayla İngiliz bir annenin oğlu olarak İngiltere’de doğup büyüyen Hanif Kureishi’nin ilk romanı Varoşların Buda’sı, tahmin edilebileceği gibi çokça yazarın kendi hayatına dayanıyor. Göçmenliği merkeze almakla beraber aslında toplumsal meselelere geniş bir perspektiften bakan ve başarılı bir dönem panoraması çizen roman, Kureishi’nin mizahi anlatımı sebebiyle oldukça keyifli, hatta çoğu zaman komik.
Kitap, iki bölümden oluşuyor. İlk bölümde, Hindistan’dan üniversite eğitimi için İngiltere’ye göç etmiş, sonrasında da ülkesine hiç dönmemiş ve İngiliz bir kadınla evlenip devlet memuru olarak kendine burada yeni bir hayat kurmuş göçmen bir baba ve onun ailesinin hikayesi anlatılıyor ağırlıklı olarak. Ailenin genç oğlunun ağzından okuduğumuz hikayede babanın ve en yakın arkadaşının göç hikayesiyle geriye gidip iki göçmenin serüvenine tanık olurken, bugününde de anlatıcımızın ebeveynlerinin evlililiğinin çözülüş hikayesini okuyoruz. Londra’nın şehir merkezinin epey uzağında, varoşlarda yaşayan, alt sosyoekonomik sınıfa mensup bu ailenin hikayesiyle beraber ikinci kuşak göçmen olmak, ırkçılık ve sınıf ayrımını masaya yatırıyor yazar. Bir Birinci Dünya ülkesi olan İngiltere’nin İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrasında yaşadığı ekonomik toparlanma sürecini, dışarıdan bakıldığında refah ve bolluk içinde gibi görünen ülkede sosyal sınıflar arasındaki uçurumlarla beraber ırkçılık ve ayrımcılığı bütün çıplaklığıyla ele alıp, çok mizahi bir şekilde yazıya dökmüş.
İkinci bölümde ise artık bir yetişkin olan ve Londra’nın merkezine taşınan anlatıcımız 1970’ler İngiltere’sinin bir panoramasını çiziyor. Onun ünlü bir oyuncu olma serüveni ekseninde yazar, ülkenin sanatçı ve aydın kesimini yine tüm çıplaklığıyla ele alıyor; tutarsızlıkları, ahlaki erozyonları ve siyasi duruş ya da omurgasızlıklarıyla anlatıcının içine girmeye çalıştığı camiayı resmediyor. Hayli müstehcen sahnelerin de olduğu bölümde, sanat çevreleri ekseninde dönemin siyasi ve toplumsal havasını okura solutuyor; arka planda Thatcher’ın iktidara gelmesinin hemen öncesinde ülkedeki sağ ve sol arasındaki çatışmayla Cinsel Devrim’in toplumsal ve siyasi etkilerini de okuyoruz.
Kitabın ilk bölümünü çok, çok sevdim. Hanif Kureishi’nin, ırkçılık, toplumsal eşitsizlik, aidiyet gibi önemli ve dramatik meseleleri okura yer yer kahkaha attıracak kadar ince ve başarılı bir mizahla sunmayı başarmasına hayran oldum. Özellikle İngiliz mizahını sevenlerin bu kısımdan çok keyif alacağını düşünüyorum. İkinci bölümü biraz uzatılmış buldum, belki de ilk bölüm o kadar iyiydi ki bu bölüm ister istemez onun gölgesinde kaldı. Ama genel olarak çok keyif aldığım bir kitap oldu Varoşların Buda’sı. Göçmenlik ve aidiyet konularında kurgulardan hoşlananlara mutlaka tavsiye ederim.
Kitap, iki bölümden oluşuyor. İlk bölümde, Hindistan’dan üniversite eğitimi için İngiltere’ye göç etmiş, sonrasında da ülkesine hiç dönmemiş ve İngiliz bir kadınla evlenip devlet memuru olarak kendine burada yeni bir hayat kurmuş göçmen bir baba ve onun ailesinin hikayesi anlatılıyor ağırlıklı olarak. Ailenin genç oğlunun ağzından okuduğumuz hikayede babanın ve en yakın arkadaşının göç hikayesiyle geriye gidip iki göçmenin serüvenine tanık olurken, bugününde de anlatıcımızın ebeveynlerinin evlililiğinin çözülüş hikayesini okuyoruz. Londra’nın şehir merkezinin epey uzağında, varoşlarda yaşayan, alt sosyoekonomik sınıfa mensup bu ailenin hikayesiyle beraber ikinci kuşak göçmen olmak, ırkçılık ve sınıf ayrımını masaya yatırıyor yazar. Bir Birinci Dünya ülkesi olan İngiltere’nin İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrasında yaşadığı ekonomik toparlanma sürecini, dışarıdan bakıldığında refah ve bolluk içinde gibi görünen ülkede sosyal sınıflar arasındaki uçurumlarla beraber ırkçılık ve ayrımcılığı bütün çıplaklığıyla ele alıp, çok mizahi bir şekilde yazıya dökmüş.
İkinci bölümde ise artık bir yetişkin olan ve Londra’nın merkezine taşınan anlatıcımız 1970’ler İngiltere’sinin bir panoramasını çiziyor. Onun ünlü bir oyuncu olma serüveni ekseninde yazar, ülkenin sanatçı ve aydın kesimini yine tüm çıplaklığıyla ele alıyor; tutarsızlıkları, ahlaki erozyonları ve siyasi duruş ya da omurgasızlıklarıyla anlatıcının içine girmeye çalıştığı camiayı resmediyor. Hayli müstehcen sahnelerin de olduğu bölümde, sanat çevreleri ekseninde dönemin siyasi ve toplumsal havasını okura solutuyor; arka planda Thatcher’ın iktidara gelmesinin hemen öncesinde ülkedeki sağ ve sol arasındaki çatışmayla Cinsel Devrim’in toplumsal ve siyasi etkilerini de okuyoruz.
Kitabın ilk bölümünü çok, çok sevdim. Hanif Kureishi’nin, ırkçılık, toplumsal eşitsizlik, aidiyet gibi önemli ve dramatik meseleleri okura yer yer kahkaha attıracak kadar ince ve başarılı bir mizahla sunmayı başarmasına hayran oldum. Özellikle İngiliz mizahını sevenlerin bu kısımdan çok keyif alacağını düşünüyorum. İkinci bölümü biraz uzatılmış buldum, belki de ilk bölüm o kadar iyiydi ki bu bölüm ister istemez onun gölgesinde kaldı. Ama genel olarak çok keyif aldığım bir kitap oldu Varoşların Buda’sı. Göçmenlik ve aidiyet konularında kurgulardan hoşlananlara mutlaka tavsiye ederim.
July 13, 2019
Hrdinom Kureishiho prvého románu je zasnený tínedžer Karim, zúfalo sa snažiaci uniknúť z londýnskeho predmestia a vychutnať si zakázané ovocie, ktoré ponúkajú 70. roky. Keď sa mu podarí zapadnúť medzi mladých hercov, čakajú ho udalosti, po akých toľko túžil - aj keď mnohé z nich budú veľmi divoké a drsné.
Podľa odporúčaní je táto kniha:
"Jeden z najzábavnejších románov o dospievaní a jedna z najostrejších satír o rasových vzťahoch v Británii."
Independent on Sunday
"Veľmi neúctivý a veľmi neslušný, ale aj dojemný a úprimný román. A popri tom mimoriadne zábavný."
Salman Rushdie
Tak asi tak.... Osobne by som ho nenazvala najzábavnejším románom, určite je veľmi ostrou satirou až rasistickým pohľadom do južného predmestia Londýna. A celkom iste, je neúctivý a aj neslušný záber indicko-anglickej rodiny zo 70.rokov. A obsahuje veľa explicitného sexu. Celý dej knihy sa točí okolo mladého Karima a jeho života v indicko-anglickom prostredí, nižšej strednej vrstvy, z ktorej sa silou mocou snaží vymaniť. Dej sa začína niekde v momente odhalenia otcovej nevery a jej následkov na rodinu.
Karim sa každou svojou akciou snaží vymaniť zo svojej nejednoznačnosti, farbe pleti, veku, príslušnosti k vrstve, miestu bydliska, veriac, že v Londýne to proste bude iné a hlavne lepšie. Kniha je aj delená na 2 časti, úvodnú, kde sa zoznamujeme s celou jeho rodinou i ďalšími postavami a druhou, ktorá sleduje jeho život v centre diania.
Je takmer heslo, ktorým sa náš hrdina riadi, byť v opozícii proti všetkému a všetkým, cítiac sa ako ten komu je najviac ublížené a tomu, koho vlastne nik nechápe a nepodporuje..... to znie vlastne ako typický tínedžer, čo by bolo aj celkom fajn, berúc do úvahy, že dej sa odohráva v 70.rokoch, kde sa na výchovu asi pozeralo inak (alebo som len ja nudná konzerva). Veľmi zjednodušene povedané, náš Karim je egoistický sebec, ktorý je dôležitý len sám pre seba a svoje potreby. I keď niekde ku koncu knihy sa stáva aspoň kúsok normálnejším.
Príbeh je výsekom zo života mladíka, ktorý nevie kam smeruje a ani kam by chcel smerovať, ale chce sa odlíšiť a ak sa dá tak potrtkať každú ženu na ktorú natrafí.... Popri tomto nám autor odhaľuje aj veľa z rasovej diskriminácie v daných časoch a miestach, čo mi v určitých momentoch prišlo až šokujúce. Aj keď niektoré momenty sú bohužiaľ stále platné a to už nie sú ani 80. či 90. roky. Celkovo je príbeh ľahko spísaný, jazyk je veľmi hovorový a plynulý, preklad je živý (predsa len slovenčina má viac výrazov ako klasické anglické f..k). Našla som len jeden preklep čo mi udrel do očí, keď sa Croydon stal Corydonom.
Prvá veta: Volám sa Karim Amir a som rodený Angličan - takmer.
Posledná veta: Rozmýšľal som nad tým, aký je to všetko chaos, ale že to tak nezostane navždy.
Goodreads Challenge 2019: 52. kniha
Podľa odporúčaní je táto kniha:
"Jeden z najzábavnejších románov o dospievaní a jedna z najostrejších satír o rasových vzťahoch v Británii."
Independent on Sunday
"Veľmi neúctivý a veľmi neslušný, ale aj dojemný a úprimný román. A popri tom mimoriadne zábavný."
Salman Rushdie
Tak asi tak.... Osobne by som ho nenazvala najzábavnejším románom, určite je veľmi ostrou satirou až rasistickým pohľadom do južného predmestia Londýna. A celkom iste, je neúctivý a aj neslušný záber indicko-anglickej rodiny zo 70.rokov. A obsahuje veľa explicitného sexu. Celý dej knihy sa točí okolo mladého Karima a jeho života v indicko-anglickom prostredí, nižšej strednej vrstvy, z ktorej sa silou mocou snaží vymaniť. Dej sa začína niekde v momente odhalenia otcovej nevery a jej následkov na rodinu.
Láska v ich rukách vyzerala ako slepá neprístupná sebecká sviniarka, čo si užíva na účet ženy, ktorá teraz leží v posteli v dome tety Jean a na jej život nikto neberie ohľad. Mamino nešťastie bolo cenou, ktorú sa ocko rozhodol zaplatiť za svoje šťastie. Ako to mohol urobiť?
Karim sa každou svojou akciou snaží vymaniť zo svojej nejednoznačnosti, farbe pleti, veku, príslušnosti k vrstve, miestu bydliska, veriac, že v Londýne to proste bude iné a hlavne lepšie. Kniha je aj delená na 2 časti, úvodnú, kde sa zoznamujeme s celou jeho rodinou i ďalšími postavami a druhou, ktorá sleduje jeho život v centre diania.
Budúcnosť by nemala obsahovať priveľa z minulosti.
Je takmer heslo, ktorým sa náš hrdina riadi, byť v opozícii proti všetkému a všetkým, cítiac sa ako ten komu je najviac ublížené a tomu, koho vlastne nik nechápe a nepodporuje..... to znie vlastne ako typický tínedžer, čo by bolo aj celkom fajn, berúc do úvahy, že dej sa odohráva v 70.rokoch, kde sa na výchovu asi pozeralo inak (alebo som len ja nudná konzerva). Veľmi zjednodušene povedané, náš Karim je egoistický sebec, ktorý je dôležitý len sám pre seba a svoje potreby. I keď niekde ku koncu knihy sa stáva aspoň kúsok normálnejším.
....ale ja som sa veľakrát nevyznal v ľuďoch, v tomto som bol somár.
Príbeh je výsekom zo života mladíka, ktorý nevie kam smeruje a ani kam by chcel smerovať, ale chce sa odlíšiť a ak sa dá tak potrtkať každú ženu na ktorú natrafí.... Popri tomto nám autor odhaľuje aj veľa z rasovej diskriminácie v daných časoch a miestach, čo mi v určitých momentoch prišlo až šokujúce. Aj keď niektoré momenty sú bohužiaľ stále platné a to už nie sú ani 80. či 90. roky. Celkovo je príbeh ľahko spísaný, jazyk je veľmi hovorový a plynulý, preklad je živý (predsa len slovenčina má viac výrazov ako klasické anglické f..k). Našla som len jeden preklep čo mi udrel do očí, keď sa Croydon stal Corydonom.
Prvá veta: Volám sa Karim Amir a som rodený Angličan - takmer.
Posledná veta: Rozmýšľal som nad tým, aký je to všetko chaos, ale že to tak nezostane navždy.
Goodreads Challenge 2019: 52. kniha
December 10, 2014
Karim Amirs indiske far träffar en ny kvinna, familjelivet vänds upp och ner och Karims värld med. Han flyttar från förorten till London, det ät sjuttiotalet och punktiden. Boken ger inblick i "the swinging London" (som det står på baksidan), samtidigt är det en uppväxtskildring och en relationsroman. Det är också raskonflikter, kulturkrockar, feminism, arbetslösheten som finns med i bilden.
Men det är inte handlingen som är märkvärdig. Det är snarare bokens svagaste punkt, för att det är lite väl rörigt ibland.
Det är karaktärerna (min favorit är Karims barndoms vännina Jamila) och språket som jag älskar. Och så humoren.
Boken har sina brister men jag vill ge den en femma för att det var en ren njutning att läsa.
Men det är inte handlingen som är märkvärdig. Det är snarare bokens svagaste punkt, för att det är lite väl rörigt ibland.
Det är karaktärerna (min favorit är Karims barndoms vännina Jamila) och språket som jag älskar. Och så humoren.
Boken har sina brister men jag vill ge den en femma för att det var en ren njutning att läsa.
July 16, 2017
Besides the fact that reading Kureishi's novels are as tasty as drinking ice-tea with a splash of rum on a hot day this wasn't a story that made any kind of impact on me the way for example his "The Body" did. First half of the book was remotely interesting and actually had something to do with 'the buddha of suburbia' subject but afterwards story just dissolve into ramblings of a young, lost and confused bisexual kid. It was predictable and unfortunately boring.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,184 reviews