The Buddha of Suburbia, by Hanif Kureishi

I recently read The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi's first novel. For the first half of the book I was pleasantly expecting it to be like Londonstani, by Gautam Malkani, a book I really enjoyed. (Incidentally, when you put "Londonstani" into Amazon.com as a search word, the second item on the list of 18 hits is The Buddha of Suburbia - by a different author, and with no obvious connexction. Obviously I'm not the only person who saw the similarity!).

The Buddha of Suburbia is not, unfortunately, anything like as good as Londonstani. It starts with promise, but the characters fail to develop, the plot never really comes together, and the story quickly becomes unbelievable and, frankly, silly. Although Kureishi may be drawing on his own experiences (though I doubt this), it certainly doesn't resemble what I know of the lives of Indians in England in the 1970s (and I was there during that time, and knew Indians).

The book's publisher, Faber and Faber, on their website say that "The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi's first novel, is a tour de force of comic invention, a bizarre, often hilarious, and totally original picture of the life of a young Pakistani growing up in 1970s Britain".

Oh dear ... they haven't even read their own book. One of the recurring threads in the book is Karim's annoyance at being called a "Paki" - he is, of course, Indian (the frequent references to Bombay may also give this away). Like this little fact, the rest of their self-serving review is also wrong - it is not a tour de force - more of a forced first novel. Read it if you want, but it isn't worth the price of a new book (I bought mine second-hand, of course).