The Buddha of Suburbia

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 [...]

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in England, and mixes in second generation immigrant issues And a lot of sex.Note The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in policy and enforcement You can read why [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 daught [...]

O her i do primeiro romance de Hanif Kureishi Karim, um adolescente jovem adulto sonhador, desesperado por abandonar os sub rbios do sul de Londres e experimentar os frutos proibidos que a poca de finais de 1970 tinha para oferecer em Inglaterra o fim dos hippies, o aparecimento do punk e da new wave, a liberdade da experimenta o de estilos de vida alternativos em termos sexuais e sociais a est ria do seu percurso desde os sub rbios de Londres o anonimato at ao centro da cidade, em paralelo com [...]

1001 .

This book taught me that literature can be both incredibly entertaining and soul piercingly deep.

I 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 [...]

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 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 [...]

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 Th [...]

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 ra [...]

A coming of age story Maybe A brief expos of race class issues in 70s England A bit But it isn t going anywhere Some good comedy mixed with confused soul searching I m bored The title is a bit misleading Speaking of his Indian functionnaire pseudo guru father, the narrator sums it up I wondered if he were going to con them and sit there for an hour in silence perhaps just popping out one mystical phrase such as, Dried excrement sits on the pigeon s head before putting his car coat on and trampin [...]

One of the best and funniest coming of age stories I have ever read

The title to this one is a bit misleading since the buddha of suburbia is only present during the first half of the book And he doesn t get the role of narrator either his story, the parts of it that you do get, are told by his son.The Buddha of the title is the father of Karim Amir, the narrator of the story His father and uncles emigrated from India as young men his father married an white woman and his uncle another Indian Uncle Anwar ran a store with his wife and daughter Jamila while Karim [...]

I grew up in Beckenham, the exact part of London suburbia in which this novel is set To my knowledge it s the only time a novel has ever been set in Beckenham in fact, it s probably the only time a novel has even mentioned Beckenham in passing.So I very much enjoyed the opening chapters of the book, narrated by the teenaged Karim and telling of his father who becomes the Buddha of Suburbia I loved the way that the father is presumed to know the secrets of Eastern wisdom simply because he is Indi [...]

Karim Amirs indiske far tr ffar en ny kvinna, familjelivet v nds upp och ner och Karims v rld med Han flyttar fr n f rorten till London, det t sjuttiotalet och punktiden Boken ger inblick i the swinging London som det st r p baksidan , samtidigt r det en uppv xtskildring och en relationsroman Det r ocks raskonflikter, kulturkrockar, feminism, arbetsl sheten som finns med i bilden Men det r inte handlingen som r m rkv rdig Det r snarare bokens svagaste punkt, f r att det r lite v l r rigt ibland. [...]

I m being generous here This is only for the portion that I ve read, which is most of it But I just didn t like this book It was disgusting in its sexually graphic nature, and so depressing I hope it gets better not that I ll be reading it if I end up having to do an essay on it then maybe I ll read it but I just don t see it happening Sorry Kureshi.

Racy, although no Anais Nin, witty and thoroughly absorbing I d have to recommend this book Although, after while the impetus does get a bit lost

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.

I ve been putting this off for nearly 20 years, and finally, I am underwhelmed It s ok It s lightly entertaining, but is hardly as wild and hilarious as the praise on the cover would make out I think I laughed at page 278 It s a novel about people doing things, and there s not much of a subtext, or a story, really Stuff just happens, none of it matters It s Bildungsroman writ modest and, in the end, in the most suburban way possible that is, inconsequentially It s the kind of book you might ask [...]

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 eve [...]

Karim is a mixed race teenager, son to a Indian father who is working as a dull bureaucrat, and an English mother and living in the South London suburbs His only aim is to escape to the bright lights of the city, not far geographically, but a place of opportunity and excitement Having finished school he has no idea what he wants to do, and when the chance of becoming an actor presents itself, he jumps at the chance.In the meantime his parents have split up His father has moved in with a lady cal [...]

I m of two minds at least here On the one hand this had some of the sharpest and funniest lines I ve read in a while, and I kept reaching for my pencil to jot them down On the other, it s terrifically dated in a way that kind of makes it wearing to read after a while On an additional hand, it s a keen and merciless and illuminating and necessary look inside the world of immigrants and the social barriers that confine and confound human society, and an interesting exploration of people and cultur [...]

This very well loved copy fell into my hands through a scavenging adventure with my husband I have always wanted to read My Beautiful Laundrette but have yet to pick it up, and this book is written by the same author It s rare for me to enjoy a book with such a dislikable lead character And it s a real trick to make me CARE about such a dislikable lead character And care about Karim, I did I read this book pretty quickly, to find out where it all leads And not surprisingly, it doesn t really lea [...]

Zacz am czyta t ksi k w sumie z powodu p omiennej przedmowy Zadie Smith s owo daj , gdyby ta kobieta poleci a ostatnie wydanie ksi ki telefonicznej, by abym pierwsza w kolejce Z pocz tku by am troch rozczarowana i wmawia am sobie, e skoro ZADIE to poleca, to to musi by genialne, to ze mn jest co nie tak Troch odrzuca a mnie plastyczno opis w, troch denerwowa y mnie postacie mo e to dobrze , troch odrzuca mnie g wny bohater, momentami wyrachowany i cyniczny.Jednak z ka d kolejn stron , im bardzie [...]

mind your language .

Great characters and wonderfully nostalgia inducing setting in the late 70 s In the center of the story is Karim, in his late teens, trying to grow up and to find his place in existence while a lot of things he cannot control complicates things for him His parents changing his father entering the unexpected role as the Buddha of the title Really liked the book, had it been possible to read it when I was in my own late teens, I m sure I would have loved it