Author: Michael Oondatje

Title: Anil's Ghost

Published: 2000

Available in Finnish as Anilin varjo (varjo = shadow)

 

Okay, it took me longer than law allows to read this book and get this blog updated. My apologies, I've been busy with school and personal life, I've hardly had time to read. Anyway.

I chose this book because I'm interested in other cultures, and for some reason I enjoy the culture more when it's in chaos. I like historical prose, whether it's fictional or not.

When I picked this book up - actually its Finnish translation - I was a bit... skeptical. It was hard to pick up with the plot and the dialogue (as if there is no real plot but just some events put together and then the characters' thoughts about the events and each other). The story jumps from present to past and the other way around all the time, you can't really tell what is happening now and what happened then, it's all mixed. It didn't help much that I know almost nothing about Sri Lanka...

Well, then I got the English version and all of a sudden it was much easier to pick up the plot, the dialogues. It flows better in this language.

Sooo... This book is about Anil Tissera, who returns to her home island after spending fifteen years abroad, in the West (Europe and US). She's a forensic anthropologist sent to Sri Lanka by an international human rights group, to investigate deaths that seem like organized murders. The human rights officials haven't had much luck in Sri Lanka, so Anil isn't hoping for too much either.

She's accompanied by a local anthropologist, Sarath Diyasena, whose actual area of interest is the Medieval era. Anil doesn't know whether to trust the man or not, but she doesn't have a choice, really. It's to work with Sarath or go back empty-handed.

One funny thing about the differences between English and Finnish. In Finnish, we only have one pronoun for both genders, 'hän'. We need much more information than English readers reading an English text to decipher which gender the text is about. And that's why, while reading the Finnish translation, I thought that Anil's lover Cullis was another woman - the name is foreign and I wasn't sure whether it was a first name or a surname, and for some reason my brains decided, OK, this a surname, and it's a woman. I was very, very surprised to read that Cullis was a man, and married too of course. I must facepalm at myself now, just a moment please.

*a bit later* Facepalm done. Moving on.

There's not much descriptions of locations, and even if there are, they are more poetry-like than prose-like, I think. They give me images, but those images cannot be attached to any spesific location, really. It's like... mind-flow. As if this was written during an inspiration flow, you know. I like to write when I have a stream like that alive within me, it's when my best texts are done. 

It's hard to describe the characters. They don't seem to be in the main spot of this book. They are there because they need to be there. They are distant, but the events of the book - the war all around the place - they are more close to me than Anil or Sarath or any other character mentioned, the events are more clear in my head. It affects me more to know what happens while Anil and Sarath are doing their job, that people are dying all around them two and the government denies it all, everybody denies it and investigations like Anil's are wiped under the carpet. We humans are horrible to each other.

Anil and Sarath are trying to figure out the identity of one skeleton, which they name as Sailor. Sailor had obviously been murdered, buried, dug up, and removed to an older grave, his killers hoping people would mistake him as an ancient skeleton and not as a political victim. The unidentified Sailor is the evidence that people can simply disappear, because of a wrong belief, wrong word in a wrong place at a wrong time, or whatever other reason there might be... so they disappear, never to be found again - or even if they are found their faces and bodies may be mutilated beyond recognition. How an individual vanishes among others alike.

Also, in the end, when Sailor has been identified, Anil reports to the officials but faces more trouble: Sarath is against her... or is he... anyway... What happened then proves that a government, or any other powerful authority, can wipe out evidence, and no one will stop them. How easily the truth is twisted... Only those who have been there know the truth, everyone else gets a lie. It made me think.... What to believe in? Whose words should I trust? Why to trust that authority but not the another?

The ending also made me wonder why the book had been titles as Anil's Ghost. All along I was expecting something bad to happen to her, but as far as I can interpret from the ending, she gets out Sri Lanka just fine. But on the page 305 it says: "He and the woman Anil would always carry the ghost of Sarath Diyasena." Why, why, is all I can think of! Oh well. Loved the book, beautifully written.

 

Started:  Nov 13, 2010

Finished:  Dec 12, 2010

Recommended for:  everyone. EVERY one.