The Buddha of Suburbia

I am in love with this book. I think it's shameful how Hanif Kureishi went from writing this wonderful book, to an OK book like the Black Album (his second novel) to a long string of novels that really did not even stick in memory. Maybe this is one of those cases where good is in the eye of the beholder. I had met Victoria, my first girlfriend, one night in the Imperial College's Falmouth-Keogh Halls of Residence at Princes' Gate Gardens. It was the first or second month into my maths B.Sc., and was coming home late from some drinking session or other. I was only slightly tipsy. There's this cute, long-haired, very english-looking girl crying over someone's shoulder near the public telephones. I eye them a little and from the body show more language I understand that this someone is not anyone she's crying over, but just a passer-by. Good, I tell myself. Let's DO this! So I quickly sent him on his way (he was actually relieved, he'd had enough of her tears I guess) and proceded to console the distraught girl. We have been together for three years and then split up when I moved back to Italy after the end of the B.Sc. One and a half years into our relationship, she lent me her copy of the Buddha of Suburbia, and I've been reading it once every two years on average ever since. I have a weak spot for books relating stories from the seventies. A lot of individuals have the feeling they've been born a generation too late. From what I was told and read about being a young twentysomething during the seventies, it sure looked like a fun period to be alive in. Ideals drove politics that drove economy, whilst nowadays it's imperfect market laws driving economy driving politics. People discussed books, stories, and culture. Experimented with sex and art. Fought political battles demonstrating from the streets against the Powers That Be. When I attended demonstrations, they had already become marginal events (in the economic sense). They'd gone from the workers' struggles to the university struggles down to high school level. I was fourteen. What can a shy, sexually immature, hormone-imbalanced fourteen year old possibly demonstrate about? Like many other kids, I think I went to demonstrations partially to avoid one day of school and partially to try and catch girls' attention (going to demonstrations for sexual reasons was wildly popular, at least in Italy, as related by both Umberto Eco in Foucault's Pendulum and in Ravera and Radice's Porci con le Ali). I was successful in the first feat, largely by default, whilst I was a failure in the much more important girl-scoring area. Never mind. So I would have liked to attend demonstrations which were not just copies of copies of copies. I would have liked to see and live the real thing. I read books and books and I think I can refer to seventies' idols and trends in a hip, knowing way, without ever having been there. Now I'm an adult, I tell myself that if I'd lived during the seventies, I'd have probably stayed on the side anyway, and dreamt of how nice it would have been to be living in the fifties. The Buddha of Suburbia told me a seventies' story from two novel points of view: that of geography (I'd only ever known about the seventies in Italy) and race (which was not an issue in Italy, but was very much an issue in the UK). And it did so whilst transmitting a curiosity towards all that is Indian, for all the black (well, Indian really) characters in the book are interesting and much more alive than the white ones. This book gave me a key to interpreting a lot of current English behaviour. Having been bullied by English people myself, without really being able to explain why --- since there was very little bullying in Italy --- I'd always been extremely puzzled about it. Now I started to understand the backlash of the colonies, the poverty of the basest home-grown culture confronted with the most enterprising individuals choosing the difficult task of moving from India to England, and the resulting defeat. Jobs were robbed and competition became fiercer at the margins, but the competitors from outside had already proven to be of sturdier stock. This generated hate. Besides, England being an island, they were always somewhat prone to xenophobia. Helen's father saying ``we're with Enoch'' was a sentence that always perplexed me. I recently found out about Enoch Powell and his movement. This book had a way of introducing me to things and events that English people in the nineties did not talk about --- maybe simply because Enoch was far from making the news in the 1990s --- but all knew, and sometimes referred to implicitly. I also took in all the good hints like touching girls' ears to see if they're ready for sex (actually, after much experimenting, I think this is false). I was fascinated by the sexual relationship between the cousins, and could see the difference between real London and that described in the book. West Kensington was much less run-down, for example. But Earls' court, although more upscale, was still ambivalent about its social status. And all these places were within walking distance from Imperial College! How much better can you get huh? Furthermore, although I hate books without a definite ending, I make an exception for this one. Yes, the story actually ends without strictly needing to. But there is a sense of conclusion to it. Like an age has been told, there may be strands of the past age drawing into the new one, but fundamentally the boy's gotten out of adolescence and into adulthood. show less

In the early 70's, South London, we meet teenager Karim, the son of an English mother and Indian father, Haroon, whom Karim nicknames both "God" and "Buddha of Suburbia" after Haroon begins leading groups of middle-class English suburbanites in his brand of living room Eastern mysticism. That the woman who is encouraging Haroon in the new career is also seducing him away from his family is obviously to Karim, who wants his family to survive but who also is entranced by both the woman and her handsome teenage son and wants to see what will unfold.
Over the next few years the reader follows Karim as he drops out of college, lies to his parents, gets brutally truthful at times, and has various crushes and encounters with both men and women, show more and makes good on his pronounced desire to be an actor. There's an awful lot of graphic sex, and some hilarious scenes, especially with Changez, a physically repulsive and lazy man who Karim's uncle was tricked into bringing over from Bombay to marry his daughter and help with the family business. That everyone else loathes Changez just makes him more interesting to the contrary Karim. show less

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi is a wide-ranging coming-of-age tale whose narrator, young Karim Amir, discovers life and love in a series of picaresque adventures. With likable characters who change and grow in response to developments in their situations, I found this novel to be an irresistible read. The story is set in the London suburbs of the 70's and 80's and is replete with the cultural icons, musical and otherwise, of the times. Kureishi has a deft touch with both quirky characters and erotic situations, spun with a style that is infused with his cinematic eye. I look forward to his newest screenplay, Venus, for the movie starring Peter O'Toole.

I am very late to the party with this book, but I got there in the end and what a book.

It grabs you by the lapels and drags you along: it's funny, dark and full of sex. Karim is stuck out in the suburbs of south London and bored. Bored with his life, with school, with his parents until his father starts to sit cross-legged at Eva's house and pass on his wisdom from years of chanting and meditating. His father, Haroon, falls in love with Eva and eventually leaves his wife, Karim's mother, and starts a new life, moving out of the suburbs and into London.

Meanwhile, Karim's uncle, Anwar, becomes insistent that his daughter have an arranged marriage; he even goes on hunger strike to get his way and so here we have two Indian men who behave show more differently. One takes up the freedom and lack of Indian traditions and the other clings to them slavishly with little thought for his daughter.

Karim escapes the suburbs, becoming successful as an actor, staying in London and living the life. It's just that it turns out it isn't the life he wants, which is often the case, and so he returns home. Escape is everything in this book from Jammila finding a way to live with and escape her arranged marriage to Eva and Haroon living in London and holding parties for people who are semi-famous.

As my darling new mother (whom I loved) moved radiantly about the room introducing Derek, who had just directed Equus at the Contact Theatre, to Robert, who was a designer; as she spoke of the new Dylan album and what Riverside Studios was doing, I saw that she wanted to scour that suburban stigma right off her body. She didn't realize it was in the blood and not on the skin; she didn't see there could be nothing more suburban that suburbanites repudiating themselves.

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There are times when the book is uncomfortable if not a little blunt, particularly about the British and our attitutdes to foreigners, but it is also follows on in the tradition of claiming that suburbia is boring, constraining and needs to be escaped whereas the city is exciting, diverse and a place for experimentation. Plot wise, this is an A to B to A story with a gradual acceptance from Karim that he is shaped by suburbia and the people who love him. It is a story of a new type of Britishness, one where cultural and self-identity are less clear but accepts the fact that the majority of us are suburban. show less

“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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less

It was great to revisit this book and discuss it with my book group. It's as much about class and social mobility as about race and sexuality, but there is plenty of all these things. Karim is a great character, young and reckless, open to everything that comes his way. In fact all the characters are larger than life and leap off the page.
It's set pretty locally to where I live which adds to the fun, though its probably a bit less grim and racist round here these days.
It's really evocative of the music, permissiveness and chaos of 1970s London alongside the gritty grey reality of the suburbs.