I read V.V. Ganeshananthan's first novel, a few months back, as one of the last books for 2024. The primary reason for reading Love Marriage ( https://me-and-err.blogspot.com/2025/01/love-marriage-vv-ganeshananthan.html ), was as a step in preparation for her latest, more renowned work. It won the Women's Prize for Fiction, 2024, and the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, 2024.
Firstly, I hope that this novel is translated to Sinhala and Thamil, and I hope that as many people of Sri Lankan origin read this book. This, because I believe that this is as neutral an account of our civil war, as could be presented via a work of historical fiction as possible. I will not dwell much, on why it is important for many Sri Lankans (or of that origin ) to read it, other than say, that our fellow Thamil citizens suffered much, much more than most of us could imagine as a community, and was at the receiving end of not only the Sri Lankan Government Forces, the Indian Peace Keeping Force, but unfortunately the Tamil militants whom they once believed were their saviours. It is a very sad situation when you have no where to turn to, and in that respect I am at a loss for words for what they as a community have gone through.
To come to the novel; In the first quarter of the book, I had some reservations of the approach of the book. It differed not much from "Love Marriage" in the detailed style that she wrote. Shashi's happy life with her family soon starts to go awfully wrong, and the reader can't help but stick to the narration with a heavy heart, as most of my generation know of the shameless 1983 pogroms to some detail. But still, personally, it didn't have the flow that I typically favour, as more often than not it felt like a faithful account of the times that were, presented by our narrator, Shashi. Shashi suffers multiple personal losses in her life, across this book. But it was when she treats them from her helpless personal perspective that the novel shone for me.
"She thought Periannai's death was her fault, and I thought it was my fault, and when our paths crossed in the Jaffna house, she averted her eyes and neither of us spoke of it." (page 88)
"And then I breathed again, and K did not. It was the first moment in which such a thing was possible, and the sharp quickening pain of it stunned me. How swiftly the world reshaped itself? Perhaps someone you know has died and you have a sense of what I mean: the horror of knowing that everything is going to continue very nearly as it did before" ( page 254)
There are many incidents that we can recognize across this narration , and a few characters whom we can identify. I was just eight years old when the 1983 riots took place, and we lived through the risk of being at the wrong place at the wrong time during a countless number of LTTE terrorist attacks from that time onwards. Hence, it naturally makes it a personal reading experience for my generation, as the memories of a few who lost their lives in these bomb attacks resurface. But it has to be admitted that hitherto the few incidents of the sufferings of our Thamil community were confined to those shared by our friends - but nothing as heart wrenching as this. In that sense, it is these details of a community wronged by at least three parties, plus when the narration takes on a very personal bent as depicted in the above quotes, that the book worked for me. True, it is not my favourite type of novel - heady, satire mixed with self-criticism, is what I enjoy much - like The Finkler Question, The Netanyahus, The Buddha of Suburbia, or the subtle confessions of Remains of the Day. But the pain is too close to home and mulling over with a stoic philosophical bent like I did with those books is not an option here. Sometimes the pain is very necessary for a reader.
Rating: ****
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