<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but only half the story on men
Review: "Intimacy" is rightly valued for its dispassionate presentation of the duplicity and selfishness of men in love. Intimacy is both the goal and destroyer of monogamy, Kureishi seems to being saying, and he certainly pulls no punches when it comes to explaining why. Men always want someone else. Blame nature, blame nurture, blame contemporary social demands incompatible with six hundred millennia of evolutionary development. Whatever the case, we seem to be programmed to break women's hearts and to ruin our own happiness in the process. Kureishi gives an agonizingly candid insight into the machinations of male ego and self-justification. My problem with it is that many happily married men would probably say, "Speak for yourself, Hanif." And rightly so. What of the men who live perfectly happy lives devoted to their wives and children? It doesn't mean they aren't attracted to other women, it doesn't mean they don't ever think of straying. It just means they don't go through with it. Are they all repressed? Are they all kidding themselves? Do they secretly hate their wives and resent their children? Or have they learned that the infantile fantasy of endlessly variable sexual experience is precisely that, and therefore not worth pursuing? Kureishi doesn't seem to allow that such men might exist. He tells only half the story on men, and so this tragi-comic articulation of male infidelity comes very close to celebrating it as natural, inevitable and therefore of little consequence. I'm not taking the moral high ground here. I'm just acknowledging what Kureishi refuses to: that some men aren't cheating dogs. My only other quibble is that this novel is too long, even at 120 pages. It wouldn't seem that way if I hadn't previously read an exquisitely edited extract, published as a short story in The New Yorker, which said everything the novel says, but better. It was less totalizing, less cockily assured of its own position - and therefore closer to the truth. (It's still available in "The Art Of The Story", edited by Daniel Halpern - a collection well worth a look.)
Rating: 
Summary: Stellar.
Review: Hanif Kureishi has managed to pack more honesty, pain, and intimacy into this small, 120 page novel than any author I have read. It's brutally honest as well as heartbreaking, and captures the feelings of many people who are in relationships and struggling to stay together in our modern times. Hanif vividly describes the fears, desires and challenges a man must face when he decides one night to leave his wife and two children, as he feels there is no more passion left in their relationship. Is he making the right decision? How will it effect his wife and children? The fears and challenges the whole family faces, and how it all turns out, is surely an emotional read, and a lesson for anyone going through similar problems in a relationship.
This is a great follow-up story from the author who wrote "MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE" and "THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA", and should not be missed. Although I found myself reading way past the midnight hour, it was worth it. This is a book I will always remember.
Joe Hanssen
Rating: 
Summary: Painfully Honest and Intimate!
Review: Hanif Kureishi has managed to pack more honesty, pain, and intimacy into this small, 120 page novel than any author I have read. It's brutally honest as well as heartbreaking, and captures the feelings of many people who are in relationships and struggling to stay together in our modern times. Hanif vividly describes the fears, desires and challenges a man must face when he decides one night to leave his wife and two children, as he feels there is no more passion left in their relationship. Is he making the right decision? How will it effect his wife and children? The fears and challenges the whole family faces, and how it all turns out, is surely an emotional read, and a lesson for anyone going through similar problems in a relationship.
This is a great follow-up story from the author who wrote "MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE" and "THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA", and should not be missed. Although I found myself reading way past the midnight hour, it was worth it. This is a book I will always remember.
Joe Hanssen
Rating:
Summary: The book speaks
Review: Hanif Kureishi's Intimacy is a book I have been waiting for in years to help me speak the indecipherable feelings inside my heart. This novella contains a very simple plot - a man who has decided to leave his wife in the next morning because he does not love her anymore. Just because he does not love her anymore? There are times for each of us, as a lover and reader, to break up with someone for some reasons, or no reasons. But the feelings cannot be simply described. Despite this, we can all find it all inside the book. Intimacy is about the internal thinking of the departing husband. It is a page turner with brilliantly-written lines. How many of us need to "defer the deferral" to break up? When we are dumped, we decide to remain in solitude - "if one can live with loneliness, we don't need friends anymore". Intimacy is a must-read for those who are (going to be) out of love.
Rating: 
Summary: Trite.
Review: I found this book to be appalingly shallow and, taken as a whole, rather dull. There is no thought-provoking content introduced here; just the sad, silly ramblings of a typical self-absorbed post-modernist urban male trying to recapture the youthful zeal of a past rememberd but never lived. Not only did I fail to sympathize with the narrator, I did not care what he was saying or why.
I did not have a problem with the novel's content - infidelity has been the topic of novels, films and plays too numerous to mention, many of which I've enjoyed. The successful ones broach the subject with a clear eye or fresh voice (or both), and shed light on what is generally overlooked or ignored. INTIMACY does none of those things.
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining read
Review: INTIMACY is a very fun book about the agonies of a man who can't quite bring himself to leave, though he's persuaded himself this is exactly what he wants. Not a terribly deep book but a good, light read with brains.
Rating:
Summary: An Unromantic Look At Romantic Love
Review: Kureishi is undoubtedly a wonderful storyteller. To get a better idea of his work and the vast scope it covers, I'd suggest reading "Buddha of Suburbia" first, because of how it deals with so many more issues like race and immigracy. But "Intimacy" is a quicker, easier read, and a work which is compelling. At the heart of it, is a love story. It is a philosophical questioning of love, marriage, sex and fidelity. One of the things that marks Kureishi's writing is how he philosophizes in a manner that is not heavy, how he is able to doubt himself and acknowledge his morals and prejudices. The views might be dark and cynical sometimes, but always freshingly realistic. The plot is quick, the language is tight and the characters are complex and fascinating, to say the least. "Intimacy" is a book I'm going to keep for my library.
Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars for book 0 for concept
Review: Ok i am a woman! And the reason im giving this 0 stars for concept is NOT cause i got scared or because i got upset of the REALITY of this book.
I thought the book was VERY well written and the character was very nicely drown out and very real and as i was reading this book i was SURE that most men would identify themselves with it.
The thing that irritated me the most is that the writter was trying to make me feel bad about this 'struggle' of a man that isnt sattisfied anymore with HIS decision to get married to a woman he NOW realises he's maybe never been inlove with at the first place! And decides to leave 'like a COMPLETE coward' without telling his wife or kids (which is the LEAST he can possibly do, if he's going to leave he should leave like a man, have some BA**S and face the music). This is a man who cant face the concequences of his action (to get married AND have kids and decides to leave them all) and then, cant face the conceqences of his action to leave (and leaves without telling anyone).
What? Dont women ever find themselves in this situation? Especually women who most men say are never sattisfied with sex alone (while this guy at some point catches himself thinking that if she has sex with him at that specific time, he wont leave). If a woman was in this situation would that be worth writting a book about? Probably not because a woman would probably take the kids with her and not ababdon them as well.
I liked reading this book but after it was over i just felt i just waisted my time reading about the most selfish and egocentric 'little' man who wants everything and cares about nobody but himself. His 'struggle' to leave? Boo- hoo! He does what he wants at the end right? Whether he's happy or not it was his decision to get married and his decision to leave, so he always does what he wants. At least he gets to leave with the concequences his OWN decisions. His wife and kids are just left to deal with somebody elses decision.
<< 1 >>
|
