The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

Winning author Shehan Karunatilaka

And so we move onto The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida – our book for April. The author Shehan Karunatilaka made a splash a decade ago with his debut novel Chinaman.

His Booker winning satire, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, returns to 1980s Sri Lanka featuring Maali, an itinerant photographer who loves his trusted Nikon camera; a gambler, a gay man and an atheist - and at the start of the novel, he wakes up dead.

Thinking he has swallowed ‘silly pills’ given to him by a friend, he soon realizes he really is dead, and locked into an underworld. Other souls surround him, with dismembered limbs and blood-stained clothes; innocent victims of the violence that plagued Sri Lanka in the 80s, including a Tamil university lecturer who was gunned down for criticising militant separatist group the Tamil Tigers.

‘Beneath the literary flourishes is a true and terrifying reality: the carnage of Sri Lanka’s civil wars. Karunatilaka has done artistic justice to a terrible period in his country’s history.’ Tomiwa Owolade, Guardian

March – The Vegetarian by Han Kang

A great debate ensued following this book - it was unusual and I thought it would be divisive. - I love how everyone saw it differently. What was the point to it, must be the first question? It wasn't about being vegetarian. But that was the catalyst for Yeong-hye to break out from under the thumb that was quashing her for far too long.

Essentially we thought the point of it was a comment on society, or, to be more blunt, the patriachy that has governed us for so long. It's that which affects women so negatively, in history, now and probably in the near future. Let's hope it stops there. Both Yeong-hye and In-hye's lives are negatively impacted by the men in their lives - asserting such cruel dominance over them. And jeez, what cruel bastards they were - husband and father both.

Was Yeong-hye sick - or was she just a normal, albeit sensitive, person, persecuted by a sick society?

If we see her as sick, her brother-in-law was an abuser. If she wasn't he was infatuated by her and she him?

Whatever our opinions, and there were a few, we all found the ending too depressing and insignificant. We would have loved a more striking finale, perhaps she was consumed by nature when she died, turned into a tree perhaps?

Either way, a fabulous book for stimulating a colourful discussion. We are now looking forward to The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka which we will discuss on 7th May.

February - The Enigma of Room 622 by Joel Dicker

 

January 2023 - World War Z by Max Brooks

 

December - Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

 

November - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

 

October - The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin

 

September - Wild by Cheryl Strayed