The Buddha of Suburbia

By: Hanif Kureishi

Narrated by: Christopher Simpson

Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

The hero of Hanif Kureishi's debut novel is a dreamy teenager, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving, albeit with some rude and raucous results.

©1990 Hanif Kureishi (P)2003 BBC Audiobooks Ltd

Critic reviews

"An astonishing book, full of intelligence and elan." (Publishers Weekly)

Fantastic Story, Terrible Recording

Like most of the reviews left on here, I enjoyed the story and voice actor tremendously! I loved all of the voices for each character. It was incredibly delightful to listen to. However, the quality of the recording sounds terrible. the chapters are all mixed up and the sound mixing will change every now and again.

Noteworthy

This book is somewhat reminiscent of "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith. Both deal with meeting of immigrant (Indian in Kureishi's novel, Bangladeshi and Jamaican in "White Teeth") and European cultures. This is shown happening across several generations. Immigrants have children and the traditional generation gap that arises is still widened by civilization differences. The children often face identity problem.

The reader is competent. Not too fast not too slow, and doing a good job with accents. The only downside to this production is the quality of sound. Various parts of this audio give the impression of being recorded in different environments of which I was able to distinguish a dungeon and a bathroom.

Great book, great reader, back production quality

This book is amazing, the person reading did a great job. But the production quality sucks. First of all the chapters are not marked right, which is a pain in butt and second of all you can hear people talking in the background and the audio randomly cuts off and restarts in a different setting every so often.

Bloody marvelous

Life in the '70s remembers well. This is such a great read, shows what London in the '70s was really like. Not a PC read, lots of foul language (which was how it was then), and so correct in its depiction of racial harassment and the difficulties some ethnic cultures suffered. Well narrated, given this is an old 1970's series this narration took me back.
Great listen

Recommended with qualifications.

The second half of the novel, in particular the development of the relationship between Karim and Charlie loses credibility whereas the early part. structured around Karim's family and the conflicts of loyalty he experiences, feels very authentic.

The generally high quality of the narration was somewhat marred by a mismatch in timing compared with the digital display of chapters.

Terrible production quality

Any additional comments?

Audio is fuzzy and static-y. More annoying is the constant sound of people talking in the background, very distracting if you're listening on headphones. There are no pauses between chapters, so it feels as though we launch into the next chapter seemingly mid-sentence! Different sections of the audio sound markedly different, so different it seems like a different narrator has taken over. The narration itself is fine but the sloppy production quality made this very, very hard going for me. Do not buy.

I am unhappy with the audio.

Would you try another book from Hanif Kureishi and/or Christopher Simpson?

yes

Has The Buddha of Suburbia turned you off from other books in this genre?

no..

How could the performance have been better?

I love Hanif Kureishi's work, but the audible was very bad. There is a nagging background noise of a dripping tap and various other muffled sounds. It just ruined the listening experience for me...

Any additional comments?

Audible needs to do a review on the quality before the consumer commits to a purchase.
Its a catch 22, 1st you like the author so you buy the book to listen to his/her work & 2nd since its paid for one is stuck with poor audio quality. I find this unacceptable.

A bit disappointing

I had read the Book and I had seen the BBC Miniseries amd I liked both very much. The problem with this Audiobook is the Reader. To be frank, he sounds as he was about to fall asleep. I have heard many brilliant british Readers. This one, is not one of them.