Fact As Fiction

Which is not to say that there's any similarity between the two. On the contrary. Where Ford is thick-hearted, self-pitying and omphaloskeptic to the point of onanism, Kureishi is dry-eyed and concise. Weighing in at a mere 118 pages, this is a slim epilogue to a lifelong relationship. Yet, it seems Kureishi wrote it in a month and took about the same time to revise and prepare it for publication. But since when has time taken to pen prose really made a difference to its intrinsic worth? Angus Wilson wrote his debut novel in three short weeks. The critics didn't seem to mind.

But then again, Wilson wasn't writing about the end of a marriage. He didn't have an irate ex-wife and a hugely pissed-off ex-ma-in-law to contend with. Apparently, the publication of Kureishi's book has been opposed by both parties, noisily arguing against the ethics of a novelist venting his spleen in print about an essentially private relationship. It's an old argument: that writers have the "power" of the pen. That what happens behind closed doors is not the world's business. That by presenting one point of view, an author is being grossly unfair.

I almost sympathised with the wife. Until I read the book. And the book, as usually is the case, just doesn't seem worth the bother. Not because it isn't good—we'll come to that shortly—but because it isn't the vituperative bile-blaster you might expect. Now, I don't know Kureishi from adam. As for his wife and their marriage, I'm clueless. But that is the whole point. Surely we've made too much of this The Author Is The Book obsession? Surely we can just pick up a book and read it for what it is? Surely we can judge a book by the several thousand words contained between its covers, not that one picture of a grinning geek on the back?

So, I said, to hell with the wife. And the ma-in-law. To hell with Kureishi too. And his life, and marriage, and that whole sordid reality. We're trying to read a novel here. Do you mind? And as a novel, this works. Surprisingly well. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably Kureishi's best novel. Without once lapsing into sentimentality, without even committing the perhaps understandable infraction of analysing too harshly the character faults of either character, he manages to produce a lucid, compact, deeply felt and wisely observed portrait of a relationship. Not a dead relationship, because that would have been pointless, but one that still bristles with the stinging nettles of attraction, conflict and plain old habit.

In a series of epigraphic paragraphs, he takes us through a night in a man's life. The night before he walks out on his wife and children forever. Using a skill mastered undoubtedly in his twin profession as a screenwriter, Kureishi scripts a compelling, pleasurably intrusive telefilm of a marriage's last hours. A long night's journey into another, darker night. Because while Kureishi peppers his narrative with endless aphorisms and little wise Canfield-Hansen observations on love, marriage and parenthood, he never quite lapses into maudlin emotion. And that itself is a tightrope act worth watching.

"It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back." With this opening line, the narrator Jay begins his tale of a one-night stand-off, a one-man moral wrestling match, a micro-saga of wistfulness, regret, faded desire, and bitterness. As he leads us gently through that single night, we're made privy to Jay's deepest thoughts. Nothing is withheld, including defecation, urination and masturbation.

Interestingly, Jay never describes himself as being of Indian origin. Although he makes several observations about India, it's not clear if this is based on observations of his close friend Asif and his family or on Jay's own past life. Still, there's a pervading sense of self-pity, resignation and utter desolation that is deliciously Indian. It is the quintessential confusion of the Indian male, rappelled between modern lusts and ancient dharma. Perhaps Kureishi's greatest feat lies in his ability to convey Jay's own sentimentality (particularly in the scenes with his children) without lapsing into schmaltz himself. This slender, sad, elegy to a relationship is reminiscent at its best of Saul Bellow's novellas, which in my reckoning at least, is praise enough.

If you've ever been in a relationship, good or bad, this book is a must-read. And never mind what Mrs Kureishi and her mother say: it's a novel.