Karim lives with his English mother and ex-pat Indian father. That is, at least until his
father starts to attain some reputation as a wise Oriental in their
suburban English neighbourhood. (I'm using Oriental intentionally, with
the reference to Orientalism, the romanticization of the other, and the
mishmash of different traditions the father combines.) Then he leaves
his wife for a younger woman. Meanwhile, Karim tries to become an
actor, and encounters all sorts of stereotypes of what he should be and
what roles are available for him to play. His cousin is faced
with an arranged marriage, with her father bringing over a prospective
bridegroom from India, and although she marries him, the results are
fairly far from what you could imagine.
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.
I feel like I'm doing a lousy job of explaining the
feel of this book. It's frequently very funny, and the eye Kureishi
turns on all his characters, no matter their background, is sharp and
merciless, yet somehow never cruel. Karim at one point runs into an
issue where he can't portray the character he wants to in a collective
creation, even though he has based it on his uncle, because another cast
member objects to how it shows non-white people in a negative light.
Kureishi accepts no such limitations.
And yet, you fall for
these characters anyway, because their foibles make them endearing, and
their mucking about, trying to find themselves in many different ways
are entertaining and sometimes touching. Life doesn't unfold the way you
want it to. Life is frequently more absurd than you thought possible.
And failure happens, and doesn't have to be the end of the world.
Success can be measured a hundred different ways. And perhaps neither is
as important as we think.
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