Intimacy and Midnight All Day: A Novel and Stories

Excellent!!!!.-It's one of the best book I've read lately.-Kureishi let us enter into a phase of crisis in a man of his generation.-Love, pasion,friendship, sex,are some of the items that permit us to share the turning point in the life of a man that is seeking for more....Fully recomended.

I can still so clearly remember the afternoon I first read the Hanif Kureishi story that became INTIMACY---in the New Yorker in 1997 or 1998---and how I was so elated by it that I phoned an editor friend in another city who, like me, was a single mother whose children were officially grown up (but still trying to grow up) just as we were two women who were officially grown up (but still trying to grow up) and although we both belonged to a category of readers who should despise this book (women who've sometimes had a rough time in their relationships with sexually charismatic men) we just couldn't stop talking about it and singing its praises. But we didn't have to want a man like this in our lives (not any more, we didn't) to value that kind of man's incarnation as a character in an extraordinary novel. It's true that when INTIMACY was first published in Britain, it ignited a firestorm in both Kureishi's family and in the press, with one of its many critics denouncing it as "this short, odious book." And it's also true that INTIMACY'S narrator, Jay (a scriptwriter) is wilful, childish, narcissistic and wild. And, yes, odious too; he even does the occasional parent-teacher interview in his "latest favourite suit, on acid" and even though he's the father of very young children he keeps Ecstasy, LSD, and an old bottle of amyl nitrate in the fridge. But he's also a man who is tender, introspective, witty, and exuberantly honest. Herein lies the book's reckless charm and elating momentum. INTIMACY also joins a long line of 20th-century novels that tell the story of men leaving home, beginning with the husband in John Updike's Too Far to Go, a man who, before leaving his wife and children, repairs hinges and latches: "a Houdini making things snug before his escape..." In novels by Richard Stern and Bernard Malamud and any number of other male writers on the theme of men who are also ambivalently on the run, the women being left behind are dark-haired, enduring, and sexually withholding, while the mistresses are fair-haired, adoring, and quick to offer sexual comfort. These blondes travel with a vast array of cosmetic and herbal supplies; in the case of Jay's mistress Nina--a shrewdly wistful phantom forever kept off-stage in her pale, hippie clothes--it's a bag stocked with nipple cream, tapes of the sound of the sea, postcards of cats, packets of camomile tea, and other bits of the equipment so vital to "mobile girls." "Soon we will be like strangers," Jay tells us, speaking of Susan, the mother of his children. But no, they can never be that. "Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history." Jay also fears dying--he's invited to more funerals than dinner parties--and so has little use for women who are also too quickly growing older, as he makes clear when he ironically asks what's wrong with maturity. "Think of the conversations I could have--about literature and bitterness--with a forty-ye

I read 'Intimacy' a number of years ago. I'm a slow reader, but I found myself on its last pages a mere two days after picking it up for the first time. I have since read it several more times, and sometimes still pick it up at random to read a page or two in passing. This book (its hardcover edition) inspired me to read more, and I searched for other novels that might touch me as 'Intimacy' did, but it wasn't until recently that I found another. I like Kureishi's tone, I like this story: depressing and hopeful at the same time. It does feel, as others have said, very autobiographical, but I believe that's what allows the reader to relate so easily. I admire the protagonist, and I believe that a great many readers will as well. Why? He does something which many of us think about at one point or another, but do not have the courage to do. He refuses to settle, to be trapped by a life devoid of true happiness and fulfillment. He believes that betrayal can be a hopeful act, that life goes on and has a greater than ever potential of being what we've always hoped it could be. He defies convention. But whether you admire or hate him, your reaction to the main character and his choices in life will surely unveil to you something about yourself, and that is the true beauty of any good book... at least for me.

This is the 2nd book I have read by this author and although it does not entertain to the same extent as BUDDHA the writing is clear sharp, honest and original. The story of INTIMACY is very one dimensional and therefore reads very autobiographical. There is very little characterisation of anyone in the book except the protagonist, which almost confirms the autobiographic theory. I liked the honesty, the weakness, the selfishness, the sheer madness of the thoughts and situation - it all rings very true from what I felt. It was like reading someones diary almost so the voyeurs out there will love it. There is plenty to dislike in the book but I read it in a day and a half and i dont do that often, the ending for example is weak, pathetic and superficial, bit like the author really, I am not saying this in a bad way, the character is just not very likable, no wonder his life is a disaster! Read it and be glad that you are not him.

At first impression this story may appear banal and self-centered, however it is really a rich network of ideas interwoven with self-betrayal, passion, exile and abject realism. Kureishi manages to swirl you around with images from your own life so much that you may find it difficult to stop reading this passionate tale of dark inner truths. You will feel for the main protagonist, be able to relate to his insecurities, be shocked by his behaviour and resent him, sometimes all in one go. This is one of my favourite Kureishi books. I would encourage you to read it if you've ever been in love, ever been fed up with your life circumstances, ever not wanted to go to work or ever dreamt of living on a beach and escaping it all.