Intimacy is
a novel that begins with a conclusion. Kureishi's
narrator Jay has made a decision, the kind of decision that is usually reserved
for the end of a novel, to leave his partner and his children. Jay has decided
to walk out on his cosy life of middle-class,
Guardian reading domesticity, in order to pursue his dreams. His dreams are
nebulous, self-deluding and driven in the most part by a desire for freedom,
for blank pages in his diary and for a young girl around whom he has built a rather
shaky edifice of erotic and romantic fantasy. It is early evening when the
novel begins. He has resolved to leave in the morning. This is a narrative of
waiting, a long night of painful self analysis, of resentment, confusion, love
and fear. Its brilliance lies in Kureishi's ability
to allow the reader total empathy with but almost no sympathy for his
protagonist. Jay is by turns childlike, childish, adolescent and bitterly
adult. Above all, he is unrelievedly self absorbed. He is a man so well
acquainted with himself (though sadly lacking in self-knowledge) that his
painstakingly depicted masturbation is like an act of tired, well-worn and
loveless marital sex.
This is an
almost unbearably sad novel, an appallingly honest and almost anatomical
dissection of 'the modern relationship'. The novel's central and irretrievably
broken partnership is balanced by the marriage of the narrator's oldest friend,
a man evangelically committed to fine ideals such as life-long partnership, honour and free education, a man who sits content in his
conservatory whilst he and his beautiful wife read Christina Rossetti to one
another. Kurieshi, however, presents this
relationship as a kind of misplaced fragment of Victoriana, a sliver of
palatable fiction in the midst of his harshly realist and contemporary
narrative.
If this
novel is autobiography then one can only wince in sympathy for Kurieshi's partner (presumably now ex), exposed in all her
flawed vulnerability by his childish cruelty and unremittingly personal criticisms.
If it is pure fiction then one must admire Kureishi's
ability to project himself so entirely and convincingly into the role of
middle-class, middle-aged, middle-brow loser. If, as I suspect, Intimacy, comes
under the beautifully ambiguous genre of fictive autobiography, then Kureishi deserves praise for resisting the temptation to aggrandise his own fictional persona. No one comes out of
this novel looking worse than the protagonist himself. This is a book of
unnerving honesty; disturbing, powerful and intensely personal, a novel that
runs on the aggressive energy of self-loathing. Though occasionally bitterly
funny, Intimacy is pretty much relentlessly dark. he ambiguity of the ending
does nothing to alleviate the gloom. Don't expect too much Kureishi's
usual charm from this novel. This is a real departure from the norm. Don't
expect to be cheered or heartwarmed either. If you
feel that you need confirmation that the modern heterosexual relationship is an
unsustainable anomaly, then this is the book for you.
Reviewed by
Polly Rance
© richmondreview.co.uk/books/intimacy.html Academic
year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Giuseppe Improta
imgiu@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de Valčncia
Press