Jay es un escritor y guionista cinematográfico de cuarenta y pocos años. Tiene todo lo que se puede desear a su edad: una carrera exitosa, ha sido nominado al Oscar por uno de sus guiones, una mujer ambiciosa e inteligente que trabaja en la industria editorial, dos hijos pequeños a los que quiere, una hermosa casa donde cada día, mientras Susan marcha a su trabajo, él se queda a escribir. Pero después de seis años de vida en común, Jay ha decidido que aquello se acaba. Hoy es la última noche de una etapa ya concluida de su vida. Hace tiempo que viene pensándolo, y mañana se marchará de casa para siempre, aunque Susan todavía no lo sabe. Cuando ella se vaya al trabajo, Jay pondrá unas pocas cosas en una maleta y sin que nadie lo vea se irá a vivir temporalmente a casa de Victor, un amigo de su misma edad que ya lleva algún tiempo divorciado. Es una decisión que le pone entre la espada y la pared; abandonar a sus hijos le resulta insoportable, pero quedarse significa resignarse a la infelicidad cotidiana, a una rutinaria vida de la que pasión y placer parecen haberse ausentado definitivamente.

Semi-autobiographical first hand account of a borderline sociopath who is completely self obsessed and not remotely self-aware.

Well okay, the main character is a piece of sh*t, but that's true of a lot of great novels.
It is written very simply -I thought at first maybe it was a bad translation from another language- but I liked the style once I got used to it.
It's a good length.
When I wasn't holding back the urge to fling it across the room or burn it it was pretty enjoyable. It's interesting to try and understand the thought process behind someone doing something like this. But I can't help but feel that the vast majority of humans have more emotional depth than this character, and that the motivations for leaving a family must be far more complex for a proper human being.

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For example:

He says that he has to be the one to leave. As if his wife were incapable of running away. As if her staying with the children was the result of being trapped in some kind of cage, rather than a choice she made every day which he was eventually too weak to make.

He says that he did her a favor by cheating on her as it allowed him to stay with her longer. But he started cheating before their first son was born, so if he had been honest from the start she wouldn't have had children with someone more interested in his own convenience than anything else on earth.

His insights into his own culture and the time he grew up are shallow and empty. Everything is a game to him. Everything is about being accepted, admired. There is no sign at any point of a real connection with another human being. The son was of no interest until he was old enough to begin to worship the father.


He is a coward, because it suits him.

For example:

He is too intimidated to talk to her and explain why he's leaving. He knows he can make it easier for her but instead he makes it easier for himself.
Too selfish to sew the seeds of friendship with his wife which could allow the separation to be less stressful for his children, for all of them.




( )

"Without love, most of life remains concealed. Nothing is as fascinating as love"

'Intimacy' is about adult dissatisfaction and takes the form of the narrator's, Jay, extended meditation on the disintegration of his marriage. The book opens with the line ''It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back.'' and Jay goes on to explain why he is abandoning Susan, his wife, and their two young sons, aged 5 and 3 and goes on to expound his views on monogamy, parenthood, unhappiness and, of course, intimacy.

Jay is a screenwriter living in a comfortable house in London with his family but he has come dissatisfied with his life and in particular Susan who is the complete antithesis of his girlfriend, Nina, who wears ''cheap, light, hippie clothes'' and would ''go any distance for a rave.''

Jay seeks counsel from two friends who represent polarising philosophies. Victor, a divorcee, living in a shabby apartment, a hectic social life and a string of sexual conquests. Asif, a married man who adores his wife and children and despite marital differences wouldn't dream of abandoning it. It is a cot at Victor's place that Jay will move on to.

There is a certain humour in Jay's ruminations but sadly I found him shallow and charmless. For all his obsessive thinking, he understands very little. He is a misogynist who seems incapable of realising that it his own behaviour that has caused the rift in his marriage, making both himself and Susan unhappy in the process. In the end I felt whether or not Jay left Susan became irrelevant. ''I have been trying to convince myself that leaving someone isn't the worst thing you can do to them,'' he says. In Jay's case, it would probably be the best she would be far better off in the long run without him.

"Love cannot be measured by its duration."

So what did I make of the book? Frankly not much. Like Jay it felt shallow, self-indulgent and insubstantial. I felt that the author wanted to shock and titillate rather than be what the blurb seems to suggest, "the most astute and painful dissection of male sexual restlessness". On the plus side my copy was only 155 pages long which I was swiftly able to get through. I suspect that this is something of a marmite book, you will either love or hate it, but personally I cannot understand quite why this book is on the 1001 list because I am sure that there are far better books of a similar vein out there. ( )

Reflexió en una nit d'un home que ha decidit separar-se de la seva parella. ( )

¿Por qué un hombre deja de amar a una muje? En una novela desesperadamente honesta, Kureishi cuenta la historias de una separación. Cróica del fin del amor y el comienzo del odio. ( )