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Venus
With "Venus", Hanif Kureishi - celebrated author of "My Beautiful Laundrette" - turns his piercing glance onto the pains of old age. Maurice (played by Peter O'Toole) and Ian (Leslie Phillips) are veteran stage actors whose slow, inevitable decline is disrupted by the arrival in their lives of Ian's niece Jessie (Jodie Whittaker). While Jodie's house-keeping skills become a bone of contention between her and Ian, Maurice, on the other hand, finds himself attracted to Jodie and seeks a more intimate relationship with her. The dialogue between them is, by turns, humorous, painful and touching as Youth struggles with Age. Also included in this volume is an Introduction by Kureishi in which he reveals the inspiration for the screenplay in the work of the Japanese master Tanizaki.
Paperback
First published October 23, 2014
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About the author
Hanif Kureishi
128 books1,123 followersHanif Kureishi is the author of novels (including The Buddha of Suburbia, The Black Album and Intimacy), story collections (Love in a Blue Time, Midnight All Day, The Body), plays (including Outskirts, Borderline and Sleep With Me), and screenplays (including My Beautiful Laundrette, My Son the Fanatic and Venus). Among his other publications are the collection of essays Dreaming and Scheming, The Word and the Bomb and the memoir My Ear at His Heart.
Kureishi was born in London to a Pakistani father and an English mother. His father, Rafiushan, was from a wealthy Madras family, most of whose members moved to Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. He came to Britain to study law but soon abandoned his studies. After meeting and marrying Kureishi’s mother Audrey, Rafiushan settled in Bromley, where Kureishi was born, and worked at the Pakistan Embassy.
Kureishi attended Bromley Technical High School where David Bowie had also been a pupil and after taking his A levels at a local sixth form college, he spent a year studying philosophy at Lancaster University before dropping out. Later he attended King’s College London and took a degree in philosophy. In 1985 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, a screenplay about a gay Pakistani-British boy growing up in 1980’s London for a film directed by Stephen Frears. It won the New York Film Critics Best Screenplay Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay.
His book The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Award for the best first novel, and was also made into a BBC television series with a soundtrack by David Bowie. The next year, 1991, saw the release of the feature film entitled London Kills Me; a film written and directed Kureishi.
His novel Intimacy (1998) revolved around the story of a man leaving his wife and two young sons after feeling physically and emotionally rejected by his wife. This created certain controversy as Kureishi himself had recently left his wife and two young sons. It is assumed to be at least semi-autobiographical. In 2000/2001 the novel was loosely adapted to a movie Intimacy by Patrice Chéreau, which won two Bears at the Berlin Film Festival: a Golden Bear for Best Film, and a Silver Bear for Best Actress (Kerry Fox). It was controversial for its unreserved sex scenes. The book was translated into Persian by Niki Karimi in 2005.
He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.
Kureishi is married and has a pair of twins and a younger son.
Kureishi was born in London to a Pakistani father and an English mother. His father, Rafiushan, was from a wealthy Madras family, most of whose members moved to Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. He came to Britain to study law but soon abandoned his studies. After meeting and marrying Kureishi’s mother Audrey, Rafiushan settled in Bromley, where Kureishi was born, and worked at the Pakistan Embassy.
Kureishi attended Bromley Technical High School where David Bowie had also been a pupil and after taking his A levels at a local sixth form college, he spent a year studying philosophy at Lancaster University before dropping out. Later he attended King’s College London and took a degree in philosophy. In 1985 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, a screenplay about a gay Pakistani-British boy growing up in 1980’s London for a film directed by Stephen Frears. It won the New York Film Critics Best Screenplay Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay.
His book The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Award for the best first novel, and was also made into a BBC television series with a soundtrack by David Bowie. The next year, 1991, saw the release of the feature film entitled London Kills Me; a film written and directed Kureishi.
His novel Intimacy (1998) revolved around the story of a man leaving his wife and two young sons after feeling physically and emotionally rejected by his wife. This created certain controversy as Kureishi himself had recently left his wife and two young sons. It is assumed to be at least semi-autobiographical. In 2000/2001 the novel was loosely adapted to a movie Intimacy by Patrice Chéreau, which won two Bears at the Berlin Film Festival: a Golden Bear for Best Film, and a Silver Bear for Best Actress (Kerry Fox). It was controversial for its unreserved sex scenes. The book was translated into Persian by Niki Karimi in 2005.
He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.
Kureishi is married and has a pair of twins and a younger son.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 22, 2024
Realistically about 4.5 stars—this is one of my favorite movies to begin with so I added the screenplay to my Kureishi deep dive, and it’s at once an unusual and complex and completely standard story. Older man screws up marriage because he can’t resist women, older man becomes attracted to younger woman because he can’t resist women, older man dies anyway. Venus would make a great double feature with Moonstruck.
As a read—this moves so smoothly and so quickly, and Peter O’Toole played Maurice perfectly, to the extent I’d assume the part was written for him. I can envision him perfectly on the page. I’d also forgotten a couple of subtle details (Jessie’s abortion, the reason for Maurice and Valerie’s divorce) so reading the screenplay where everything is clearly on the page helped fill in some memory gaps that better develop these characters. Where I technically deduct a half star is that the screenplay version of Jessie is a bit more ambiguous at first. I read her as a bit flirty and manic pixie, a bit more manipulative from the get go than in the movie. On screen Jodie Whittaker played her a bit more realistically—starts off as a regular young person, disgusted by the flirty old man, and then decides to exploit him until the turning point hits.
As a read—this moves so smoothly and so quickly, and Peter O’Toole played Maurice perfectly, to the extent I’d assume the part was written for him. I can envision him perfectly on the page. I’d also forgotten a couple of subtle details (Jessie’s abortion, the reason for Maurice and Valerie’s divorce) so reading the screenplay where everything is clearly on the page helped fill in some memory gaps that better develop these characters. Where I technically deduct a half star is that the screenplay version of Jessie is a bit more ambiguous at first. I read her as a bit flirty and manic pixie, a bit more manipulative from the get go than in the movie. On screen Jodie Whittaker played her a bit more realistically—starts off as a regular young person, disgusted by the flirty old man, and then decides to exploit him until the turning point hits.
October 30, 2016
تا آنجا که به یاد دارم، یعنی تا اواخر دهه ی پنجاه شمسی، کاری ارزشمند از حنیف قریشی به فارسی برگردانده نشده بود. و این یک تاسف بزرگ برای زبان فارسی است چرا که قریشی (یک پاکستانی مقیم انگلیس) می تواند الگوی خوبی برای نویسندگان و غلاقمندان ادبیات در ایران باشد.
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August 4, 2011A melancholic and rather depressing screenplay about the old age and the depredations of time.
November 13, 2022
I enjoyed this more than other books I’ve given 3 stars but it definitely wasn’t good enough to give 4 ! Funny and clever and sad and pointless! It has raised the bar for 3 star book’s immensely … it makes the other 3 star books feel like 2 star books ! I liked it I would read more kureishi and the introduction was a compelling argument of why I should read Tanizaki… he sounds like a much more interesting writer I think
July 24, 2022
i also aim in life to be so sexy that it literally kills old men lmao
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews