The Buddha of Suburbia

Having recently come across the 1990's film, "My Beautiful Laundrette" streaming on a subscription channel a few weeks ago, I was inspired to delve back into other writing's by the movie's screenwriter, Hanif Kureishi. That connected me with another of his excellent works, the novel "The Buddha of Suburbia" which I had originally read not long after it was first published in 1990. I ordered the book, reread it, and was perhaps more impressed this time than I was with the first reading all those years ago.The central character of his novel is Karim Amir, a young man who is just finishing his public schooling and whose parents hope that he is headed toward enrolling in a university. Karim is an English youth living in the suburbs of London with his English mother, "Mum," a plump, unassuming woman who manages the house and takes care of the needs of Karim and his younger brother, Ali, and their father, Haroon. Mum also works part-time at a shoe store to help supplement the family income. Karim and Ali have never been to India, the birthplace of their father, but they have dark skin and Indian features and are home in the British Indian community.Haroon, Karim's father, is the title character of the novel. He was born in Bombay as one of the younger children of a wealthy doctor, and emigrated to Britain on his own as a teen. Haroon, who grew up privileged with a full assortment of servants, found work in England as a paper-pusher in a government office, but when he is home he is content to relax and let Mum wait on him hand-and foot. As the story opens, Haroon has been studying the teachings of the Buddha and has been attending upscale parties hosted by his new friend, Eva. Haroon sits on the floor at these parties and, in the character of the Buddha, begins imparting Indian and Buddhist pholosophies on the entranced guests.Karim, who has a habit of falling enthusiastically in love with women or men, as long as they are interesting and attractive, is in love with his old schoolmate, Charlie, who is Eva's son. Charlie is a singer with his own band - and he has dreams of becoming a rock star on the order of David Bowie. One evening after Karim and Charlie have had a close, but not quite overtly sexual, encounter in Charlie's room in his mother's attic, and while Haroon has been doing his Buddha thing for Eva's guests downstairs, Karim goes outside for a solitary walk in Eva's garden. It is there that he see's Haroon and Eva having sex on a garden bench, and it is there that Karim realizes that his life will soon change forever."The Buddha of Suburbia" is a beautifully written story that explores life and love in Great Britain as the country is slipping from it Victorian grandeur into the graffiti-sprayed world of modern times. It explores the suburban existence, immigrant communities, life in London and New York, the theatre scene, rock culture, communal living, the drug culture, and life in "squats." But perhaps more than anything else, "The Buddha of Suburbia" is a treatise on race and culture written at a time when walls appeared to be crumbling.Hanif Kureishi is an amazing writer. You will not be disappointed in any of his works.

I first read this book as a teenager, and then again about ten years later. There was a lot to recommend this book at bother periods in my life, although I saw different things in it. As a teenager, I was mostly focused on the Bildungsroman aspects of the novel. The anxious, self-conscious, wants-so-bad-to-be-cool protagonist who is embarrassed by his father and just wants to get high and have sex, and maybe figure out what adulthood even is sometime. It was good enough to warrant me reading it again, and this time I was blown away by the social commentary that I missed the first time around. Karim is an Englishman, almost, as he declares in the opening line, but it would be just as useful to say he is nothing at all, or everything. He is bi-racial and bi-sexual, two things more shocking in the 1970s than they are today, a fact that places him at the fringe of society, allowing him to look in both directions and critique the entire social order.Karim's father has led a fairly boring life and is now enjoying a moment of fame as a sort of guru for over-privelged white people, even though he doesn't actually believe the "Eastern wisdom" he's espousing at their house parties. What his pretensions allow him is a key into the kind of world he cannot, as an immigrant, go, but he must degrade himself in order to do so, become a caricature. Karim's lover, Eleanor, is practically slumming it with Karim, by wanting to be anything other than the upper class girl she is, and his first real crush, his father's mistress's famous son, might be a bit more pathetic than he initially appears, not to mention his best friend, a radical feminist forced to choose between her ideals and her father's love. It's a novel about race and how things don't have to be violent to be not-right, about growing up and the growing specter of Thatcherism, but it's also a novel about identity, and the lengths we go through to achieve the one we want.This book isn't perfect. It can be a bit uneven and may have more going side concerns than it can handle, but it is a solid, interesting read that will make you laugh even as it makes you think, and if that doesn't make it worth the buy, I don't know what will.

My purchase was good. It was used, and I may have purposely bought it like that, even though I only try to purchase books that are "like new" or "new." It was sent on time and I have no issues, besides the quality of the outside of the book.Okay, this book is probably one of the greatest pieces of contemporary literature that is available today. It follows Karim, born in England as a second generation Indian to parents, both with ties back to that country. The mother wants to remain tied, but the father loves the idea of this new, first-world ideals and freedom. Karim goes through life now knowing where he belongs, because of his obvious skin tone and his surroundings. It takes place over many years and you see various things happen to Karim. This book has drug use, sexuality, sensuality, and more, but it is just one of those coming-of-age novels that is BRILLIANT. It is a must-read for those who like to read, have an identity crisis, or anything. It's that good and it is something that should be read by most adults.

Took me quite a while to read and had a hard time focusing on the books. Bought for a college Enlglish class

What an amazing book! Truly one of a kind. Kureishi did a wonderful job of toning down some of the horrible and painful aspects of the story through Karim's comically insightful lens. The book is vivid and uninhibited. The characters are all so interesting in how they interact with each other and with their world. They're so full of life that I couldn't help but imagine that they were real people. A genuinely funny and thought-provoking novel.

This novel, published in 1990 but set in the 1970s, offers a view of life, love and growing up by Karim Amir, a mixed raced teenaged son of an Asian father and English mother living in Beckenham in the south east London suburbs (in the borough of Bromley, next door to my own borough of Bexley). Karim is a few years older than me, but I can identify with many of his (non-racial) cultural reference points as a fellow product of the 1970s suburbs. This is also of course, though, a novel about the naked racism faced by Asian and black people particularly severely at this time, when the National Front held frequent marches and in an era long before the Stephen Lawrence murder when the police frequently appeared to be, and no doubt in many cases actually were, indifferent to or even casually sceptical of the racist violence suffered by families like the Amirs: "The lives of Anwar and Jeeta and Jamila were pervaded by fear of violence. I'm sure it was something they thought about every day. Jeeta kept buckets of water around her bed in case the shop was firebombed in the night." This is not a heavy novel, though; Kureishi writes with a lightness of touch and a humour about the situations and the very rounded, realistic and believable characters. Their lives are complex - Karim's father leaves his mother and moves in with another white woman, Eva, while Karim's cousin Jamila is forced into marriage with a stranger from India after her father Anwar nearly kills himself on a hunger strike to bend her to his will. I found the first half of the novel in Beckenham very enjoyable, but when Karim grows up, moves to London and gets involved with the acting fraternity, my interest tended to wane; while still written very well, I didn't really care for any of these characters. Karim falls in and out of numerous sexual relationships with both women and men, but still feels somewhat of an outsider. After a brief sojourn with his acting circle in New York, he returns gratefully to London, where despite his problems, he feels much more at home. With its quintessential 70s setting in cultural and political terms, the novel ends with the watershed election of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1979. A very good read and a superb recreation of a time and place.

When 'The Buddha of Suburbia' was first released at the beginning of the nineties, it became popular almost immediately. I was working and living in London at the time and kept seeing it everywhere I went but never had the time to get it or read a copy. Having just gotten round nearly thirty years later to reading it, I am impressed and can only recommend it massively. It's enjoyable and kind of shocking in parts, but the writing is excellent as the story is begun through Karim's seventeen years-old perspective. The book evolves from the suburbs of Kent/South London and then progresses through to West Kensington, where I once lived. Hanif Kureishi is a brilliant writer and manages to give lovable descriptions of the various characters and relatives in Karim's life and shows them as inspiration for his life. It's a unique book and Hanif isn't afraid of using colourful language to get his story across to the reader. Essentially it's a really good book which does a lot of good to remind you that London is a unique part of the world and as Karim experiences the 'big smoke' it manages to convey just how broad-minded he is and also how positive he remains throughout the story. 'The Buddha of Suburbia' is worth a read and shows that after 30 years, it still has the impact of when it first came out in print.

I liked this book very much and, although it is 30 years since it was published, it hasn't lost it's edge.It illustrates well the struggle to be a part of two cultures; easier for Kureishi who was born herebut first generation immigrants had a hard time adapting to what must have seemed to some ofthem, an alien culture. It still resonates today.

What a story. Difficult to extricate if you are a desi in Inglistan. don't believe me? Check this out.'In the suburbs people rarely dreamed of striking out for happiness. It was all familiarity and endurance: security and safety were the reward of dullness.' Huh, what do you think? Want more, here is a bit of a dialogue between an old immigrant (Anwer, owner of grocery store) and his freshly imported son in law (Changez) from India, specially brought in as extra help with the shop.Anwer had reclaimed Changez and was patiently explaining to him about the shop, the wholesaler and financial situation. Changez stood there looking out of the window and scratching his arse, completely ignoring his father in law, who had no choice but to carry on with his explanation. As Anwer was talking Changez turned to him and said, 'I thought that it would much more freezing in England than this?'Anwer was bewildered, irritated by his non sequitur.'But I was speaking about the price of vegetables,' said Aner.'What for?' asked Chagez in bewilderment. 'I am mailny a meat-eater.'The book is filled with many tensions in the immigrant community of Asians in England. Between themselves, the Whites, and fresh arrivals like Changez.

London suburbs of the 70s , a wandering mindless but at times funny rambling tale of a lad growing up in suburbiaPlease spend a moment hitting the like button and make my review worth writing 🥰