Intimacy

Written by Hanif Kureishi

Published in 1999.

This was a wonderful read. It was a short but extremely astute book. It is a first person narrative of a man's thoughts the night before he leaves his wife. We read so many books and watch so many movies about men leaving, but they are all from the perspectives of the wife or children; the man who leaves is always the villain. This book puts you in the leaving man's shoes: you experience his uncertainty, his guilt and desperation, as well as his hope and desire for something more than what his life has become. It is an extremely intelligent portrait of a generation of men who are turning old as society begins to allow freedoms and pleasures that were inconceivable in their youth. It is the modern heterosexual male's psyche and sexuality dissected and put under a microscope. Plus, it had a great many amazing quotes. I am writing down some of my favorites:

"One makes mistakes, gets led astray, digresses. If one could see one's crooked progress as a kind of experiment, without wishing for an impossible security – nothing interesting happens without daring – some kind of stillness might be attained."

"Fear is something I recognize. My childhood still tastes of fear; of hours, days, and months of fear. Fear of parents, aunts and uncles, of vicars, police and teachers, and of being kicked, abused and insulted by other children. The fear of getting into trouble, of being discovered, and the fear of being castigated, smacked, ignored, locked in, locked out, as well as the numerous other punishments that surrounded everything you attempted. There is, too, the fear of what you wanted, hated and desired; the fear of your own anger, the fear of retaliation and of annihilation. There is habit, convention and morality, as well as the fear of who you might become. It isn't surprising that you become accustomed to doing what you are told while making a safe place inside yourself, and living a secret life. Perhaps that is why stories of spies and double lives are so compelling. It is, surely, a miracle that anyone ever does anything original."

These are just two really profound passages. The book as a whole is a lot less sweeping and very much attuned to the individual character, even if it does remain for its 155 pages mostly contemplative in tone.