kaushalaperera's reviews
93 reviews

"All the good in the world you can fit inside a rambutan. And still have enough room for you and me" 🏏

WG Karunasena is a retired sportswriter who is on the verge of death thanks to his drinking habits. Like many of us Sri Lankans, he is a hedgehog for Cricket. His final wish is to write a memoir of the unsung spin bowler Pradeep Mathew, whom he believes to be the greatest cricketer to walk the earth. On his journey to find about this unrecorded bowler, he manages to unveil staggering truths about SL cricket, political involvements and himself🥃

The novel is quite descriptive because WG cannot write without a shot of arrack in hand. But it's amusing. I personally like the author's writing including his dark humour and sarcasm. So, obviously I enjoyed the lengthy journey 🫶🏻 
As the story wavers between the truth and fiction, it provides an insight on SL Cricket with chinaman, lissa, carrom flick, floater, double bounce balls, alongside the secrets and dealings during the late 90's. Apart from cricket, WG goes on with his ramblings about family, society, humans and the crooked island. The island where cricket has become an innocent religion which is believed to have no caste, class or boundaries, but indeed has its margins and cruelties 🏝️

"Explain the differences between Sinhalese and Tamils? I cannot. The truth is, whatever differences there may be, they are not large enough to burn down libraries, blow up banks, or send children onto minefields. They are not significant enough to waste hundreds of months firing millions of bullets into thousands of bodies."

#Chinaman is highly critical about the country, just the way I expected, with its criticism of the perpetual racism in SL. It is kind of a mysterious review on cricket, life, choices and the greyness in the world. The characters are neither good or bad. The author doesn't even try to make one look good. Everyone is flawed and dented with their own story to tell, something I love about #ShehanKarunatilaka 's writing! 🧩

"Promises uttered by Sri Lankans ending in the word definitely have a high likelihood of being broken."
And now I can't help but to smirk at anything that ends with definitely! 😆

"Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded; one was alone. There was an embrace in death."⌛

'Mrs Dalloway' sets on a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in 1923 as she prepares to host a party in the evening. Within a day we encounter several different people who are interconnected in some way. Clarissa Dalloway, the protagonist is a high society lady in her early fiftees with all the comforts in life. Her day is interrupted by her former lover Peter Walsh who seems to be lost after Clarissa rejected him. Flashbacks of their lives come to play as the story goes on. Meanwhile, Septimus Warren Smith is a war veteran who is suffering from shell shock. Doctors consider him to be mad and try to separate him from the rest of the world. The author goes on mentioning about other characters, their flashbacks and inner monologues that take place throughout this hot summer day🥂

I must say that the story is absolutely interesting as it is intertwined with various themes such as time, death, class, psychology and a little bit of homosexuality, which was quite uncommon at that time. The writing style of Mrs Dalloway is known as 'stream of consciousness' where the main focus lies on the inner voices of these complex characters. Virginia Woolf is known for her modernist work of literature. She perfectly depicts the post war mentality in England, where life seems to be meaningless and monotonous. Characters seek comfort in day to day changes and their past experiences when things get too tedious. They are often distracted. Their minds are present and absent at the same time as they try to convince themselves that life is good and they are enjoying the moment. The way she describes mental illness is unusually gorgeous. Even the least significant bits of the day face great significance by her way of writing, be it a random stranger falling asleep on a park bench or the warm wind in mid June. 
The same qualities that make this book so special made it a little bit difficult to get through. There's a lot of things happening at once and I needed some time to process in between. After all, isn't that how our mind works? Spinning around continuously and endlessly until we get stuck in a loop of thoughts? ❤️

"Still, the sun was hot. Still, one got over things. Still, life had a way of adding day to day."🍃

The novel is written in several povs and runs in two timelines - 2008 and 1200s. Having multiple perspectives is almost always something that makes a story more interesting. There are pretty good views on love and life in the form of those forty rules. Spirituality here is based on 'naf' (self), and love. But why did I feel that 'love' was a little too naive here!? 😅
The reader can have a glimpse of Islam and Sufism through this but the fact that this is a work of fiction has to be kept in mind. I believe that this is not an entirely accurate description about Rumi, Shams or religion. Anyway that's how fiction works right!? No offense but it felt like a westernization of something oriental and the oriental culture was abandoned for the sake of pleasing western readers 🫠
The writing wasn't satisfactory, at least for me. I found it a bit boring to get through the writing as it lacks life and passion. It was lukewarm for me; it wasn't bad but not as exhilarating as what I call an excellent novel that would have me drowning in its words. Also, it would've been better if the author hadn't spoiled the ending in the very beginning of the book! 
I honestly enjoyed the book and I wanted to enjoy it more, but to me, it's just 3/5 ⭐