The Buddha of Suburbia

From the Editors

A love story for at least two generstions, 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. "A wickedly funny novel that's at once a traditional comedy of manners and a scathing satire on race relations in Britain."--The New York Times.
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Customer Response

Good.
The product was in good condition, hardly used at all in fact. The delivery was prompt. I would order from this person again.

Great book!!
This is a great book. It tells the story about the bi-sexual Karim who is the son of an immigrant Indian man and British mother in the UK. That being said Hanif Kureishi is not a new Kafka, Proust, Joyce or Blixen. The genre of the book must be described as daring mainstream. But I dare say this is as good as mainstream can get. Like the clever dicks have said about Shakespeare: There is something for both the peasant and the king. The book describes life in the 70's and 80's London. Seen from the perspective of a guy with immigrant background but at the same time deeply involved with the current trends in art, theatre, music and litterature. There is some unforgettable moments where Hanif describes his meetings with drugs, sex and the new trends in culture. Especially the arival of punk with the Sex Pistols in the late 70's scene with love and peace/political left wing culture, Hanif describes staggering. It's great with this precise account of British culture, yet having this ethnic twist. The one drawback of the book is perhaps that it draws a too rosery image of the moslem immigants in Europe. There is no mention of moslem violence and crime in the book, the moslems are described as victims of white British racism, skinheads and neo-fasiscm. Also the rising islamism, which I guess was already going on in the 70's and 80's is not mentioned at all. In the book an islamic man is forcing his daughter to marry an unkown Indian man who arrives straight from Bombay, this is treated in a very light hearted fashion, like all is well. Honour killings of women in many Europe countries commited by islamic men has later shown that all is not well. Also the percentage of violent crime commited by people with moslem background in Europe today is far higher, in proportion, than violent crime commited by people of native European origin. So the discription of the immigrant with moslem background in the book seems somewhat biased. Well properly the situation was different in the 60's, 70's when the writer grew up. Otherwise it's a really great book. I dare say a modern classic. I was impressed.

One of the best coming-of-age stories I've ever read, it wonderfully evokes London of the mid-'70s
Read and loved it in the early '90s. Re-read it when I found out Kureishi's coming to my area on a book tour. One of the best coming-of-age stories I've ever read, it wonderfully evokes London of the mid-'70s through the use of one of my favorite things - pop culture. The rare book which cries out for a sequel.

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

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

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