I finished this book in time for this afternoon's radio programme! Of late, I always seem to be a few days late and use the BBC's "Listen Again" facility. So, I guess this was quite an easy read.
The story is about Karim Amir, a teenage boy with an Indian father and English mother growing up in London in the '70s. Although humorous in many ways, there are lots of observations on society at that time [and now perhaps] and the attitudes to ethnic minorities. It's broadly optimistic, but not without its dark moments.
I found Karim hard to identify with or even like. He led, by my standards, a rather chaotic lifestyle, but I don't think that is particularly unrealistic. Perhaps I am now unable to get inside the head of a teenager. There is a lot of sex in the book. I am tempted to say too much, as, although some is very relevant to the story, I'm not sure that it all is.
I was intrigued by a random fact that I learned from the book [I like to think that I can learn things from fiction]. Some people's eyebrows are linked across the top of their nose - like they have one long eyebrow. It seems that the Romans thought this a sign of nobility; the Greeks thought of it as a sign of treachery.
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