The Body: A Novel

A theory loving friend of mine once argued that the notion of portraits or the concept of ‘physical self’ must have developed around the same time as the invention of mirrors in the sixteenth century. This led me to wonder how people had considered their own image, face, and body; and appreciated the 'difference' from the other. Is this notion a reversal of the kind where instead of consciousness awakening to the subjective sense of ‘I’, the accumulated sensations and objective bodily perception leads to a joyous eruption of self-awareness? Is that why everyone is laboring over their bodies, as if the mind’s longing and anxieties can be cured via the body? I would always argue against this, yet this book made me think through the story of Adam. Adam is an old and famous playwright who decides to trade his aged body for young flesh while preserving his brain in the new body. Kureishi narrates Adam's life from there on..The first thing that Kureishi made me notice, though indirectly, was the idea of using the body as an ‘object’. Whereas, Adam’s monologue was about how important a young body is and he was rather drawn to the way youngsters accessorize their bodies. My perspective is that bodies can be ‘communicative in many varieties’, they can be deceptive at the same time in giving away about your mood, your personality and anxieties- by the kind of tattoo you wear, what you expose, why must you expose, how much you groom….Some bodies are inviting, some repulsive and others discreet. In hindsight, if the book made me think this much, then I think Kureishi is praise worthy. And then, maybe I ought to ignore the little judgmental voice in my head that just loves to run its hypothetical mouth. Yet, I cannot stop mentioning that the book had some excellent sections and occasionally contemplative prose, I could only grasp a fraction of Kurieshi’s idea behind this book. His science fiction plot of the book was a trial, and, I endured it. In return of his torture with the obscurities and abstruse ending that distracted me from musing; I pour all of my anger in this review. Kureishi did not develop the plot as much and I found him skirting along the intricacies that the story deserved. If he was not interested in taking the story a bit seriously, he could have simply written an essay! Conclusively, I disagree with Kurieshi (Adam) on every thing!I was particularly displeased with the Adam’s perspective of elderly-‘how young terrify the old with their incomprehensibly hip vocabulary and threatening presence’-which led him to get his brain surgically placed in a younger man's body. Actually, Kureishi attempted to build the idea of using the body as an object to buy youthful years. It led me to think how a possibility of extending life or staying alive or being young can make one’s present and past mundane. I wish, people (both young and old) could look beyond wrinkles, sagging flesh, the clouded eyes and the sparse hair; to the rich histories they have created and the tapestries of a life well lived and the adventures they will undertake which can keep them entertained for as long they live!If you want to think as hard as I did for the sake of a review, you can read this book for its prose, the plot however, is flimsy. Not recommended.

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How often have we said, ourselves, or heard someone else say, "If only I could be twenty again and know what I know now?" That is precisely what happens in Hanif Kureishi's novel THE BODY. Adam, a successful writer on the wrong side of sixty describes himself as a man with hemorrhoids, an ulcer and cataracts, whose bed is his "boat across these final years." Fortunately he's a "cheap drunk" and still has sex occasionally with his wife. His two children are grown and have left home. Then he gets the chance to have his brain removed from his old body and put into a dead but preserved young body of his choice. Although he could even choose the body of a young woman or someone of another race, he selects a young humpy Alain Delon look-alike.This is one of those novels where knowing too much of the plot spoils the story and what a story it is. While you may anticipate some of what happens to Adam, the author in his usual brilliance has a surprise or two for you. In the best science fiction tradition of Kafka's METAMORPHOSIS, Ishiguro's NEVER LET ME GO or even Joyce Carol Oates' recent macabre short story "Wild Nights"-- although like the works of these other world-class writers, Kureishi's fiction is certainly fine literature as well and rises above the genre of science fiction-- he raises questions about our obsession with youth, the dereliction of society of the aged, the loneliness and isolation of being different, the basic human need to be loved and in the circle of friends and finally what he calls the "nightmare of eternal life."THE BODY is at once a horrific and fantastic gem of a novel.

I love his style of writing. This book deff makes you think considering the world we live in. I thought the ending was meh but the meat of the book was great.