A Passage North - Anuk Arudpragasam

This book in summary is a series of reflections - a self reflection by our protagonist, Krishan, a reflection on the life of people that he has met and has had an impact on him, in his short life - be it Rani, his grand mother's companion, who tried unsuccessfully to over come her trauma, or his girl friend, Anjum, who decides to forego what was possibly a beautiful relationship, since her yearning tells her that her liberation is in a different path, and the two black tiger cadres - Dharshika and Puhal - who he reflects upon, upon seeing them  in a documentary.

And liberation ? Liberation will mean different things to different people at different stages of their lives. The sexual undertones of the friendship between Dharshika and Puhal in unmistakable, and it suggests that their cause - a liberation for a new home land, was not the only liberation they were seeking - a mixture of desire and a yearning - two separate longings, which the author goes to some detail to elaborate towards the end of the book. Rani, after all she has lived through is convinced that there is only one liberation for her. She has only one yearning - to escape..

"...what Rani's life had been like since the end of the war, physically located in a world that was shorn of the people she loved and unable therefore to participate in it, her mode of existence more akin to that of ghosts than humans, even if she'd existed in a body that possessed weight and could move physically through space, even if she'd remained capable of love and pain, laughter and generosity..." ( page 280)

 The novel is devoid of any dialogues. The narration is through an implicit third person, but this narrator presents to us the sentiments of our protagonist, Krishan. We understand how troubled he was during the last years of the war, how the allegations which the narrator tells us, Krishan  was not willing to accept, was subsequently "proven to him" with the BBC channel four video.  That he's been following up what the diaspora has been saying, is again informed us by this narrator. As a reader, trying  to read this book as closely and  objectively as much as possible, despite it talking about a war  against the separatists, ( in which I clearly backed the State - let me admit,) I didn't find any of the protagonist's stances surprising. I don't even think of it as an out and out biased account, just a natural one, given the background of Krishan.

The success of this novel is in Anuk's ability to apply his writing skill to detail out each of the areas of his focus ( that it is also his downfall, reminds me of a master batsman perishing to his pet shot) - be it in the detail of Krishan's relationship with Anjum, or even Krishan's grandmother's traits and character ( which admittedly is not much different to many old women, who hunger for attention, with life automatically moving them to a role of relative inactivity ), which Anuk spends many pages explaining in detail, which to my surprise I found myself reading with surprising interest.  There is a six page summary of cloud messenger, or the meghadutha, a classical Sanskrit poem, a favourite of Krishan's. There is a recollection of a few incidents on a particular  new year's eve in which Krishan  understands how Rani goes through life  - this memory comes to him while staring at a funeral pyre - the memory takes nine pages to describe, whereas what is needed for the novel is how Rani lived her life without actual participation in it. But we must know much more - how defeated Krishan felt that night, how much he smoked - this kind of detai is the only major problem I have with this novel. Anuk can construct, long, half a page sentences, in which he successfully retains the reader. This is the beauty of a the book, in which the main theme is reflection on subjects like liberation, yearning, and death. Yet, later, I joked with a friend of mine who read this book a few weeks before me, that I really needed to know every detail about Krishan's grandmother's temperament. I further joked with her that, Anuk is such a writer that he can explain the daily life of a sloth in such detail that the reader will be with him for most of that while - until she realises the pace, and questions, did I really need to know all that ? - translated as:  'Did I really need to know how high he was that night ?', 'Did I really need to know each and every detail of Appamma (Krishan's gran) ?', 'Did we really need to hear a summary of the directions that the cloud received in the poem, cloud messenger ?', 'Did we really need to know the early life of Sidhdhartha Gauthama in such detail ( which is easily found for anyone with interest ?' Clearly, thirty to forty pages could've been docked from this book, while maintaining Anuk's fine style of long sentences, his finesse in reflecting, and nuances  in philosophy which he has inserted with much skill. For this am constrained to dock him half a star, from an otherwise four star book). Yet some of those long detailing work in Anuk's favour. Both Kuttumani's story and the fore-mentioned Dharshika/ Puhal narrations. Even his digress into the Therigatha, using Hallisey's translation throws in subtle meaning to the idea of freedom. There is a comparison between the two ideas of liberation - that of the early Buddhist nuns, and the tigers. The subtle sexual undertone build a common base, and a subtle deploying of sociological contexts,  is used with some skill here. The reader too needs to read this area with caution,  to save herself from a  superficial comparison.

In essence this is a book I want to love - for its reflections. But I only end up liking it ( i.e. see why I docked half a star above). One could say that the account in the excesses of the war is largely one sided - but then it is presented from the viewpoint of our protagonist, who seeks a path of liberation by serving in the North and the East, to overcome a sense of guilt for the safety he lived in, in the South, further fueled by an idealistic girl, who won't let a good thing take fruit. Plus, Rani's story is harrowing - and I cannot possibly contest that such things that she faced didn't happen, even though am reluctant to accept the figures quoted by that channel 4 video. So, my take is, this work of fiction ( or any work of fiction)  is not the ideal ground to build up an argument on who were the bigger monsters in a long stretched civil war.

All in all, am glad that a Sri Lankan is nominated as a Booker finalist, that he crafts such long, reflective sentences, which brings to mind Michael Ondaatje, for the pure beauty of the language used. I was also overwhelmed with this particular book cover which shows our cheap train tickets to an international readership, with our local language scripts and all - for which reason itself I bought a physical copy of this book ( I usually prefer reading on my kindle). That it was a book I enjoyed, caps it all. I hope Anuk Arudpragasam all success, ( and may he save us from the details of any grand parents that his future fictional characters should have ).

Rating: ***1/2