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Sandglass

by

Romesh Gunesekera
Published by Granta

Reviewed
by
Salil Tripathi

 
Over the years, south Asian novelists have combined their innate gift of the gab with the territorial advantage their region offers--a region fertile with conflict, drama, tension and history--to produce memorable results. Not a year goes by without some Indian author winning another prestigious award. But increasingly, voices from Pakistan, like Bapsi Sidhwa and Sara Suleri, and now Sri Lanka, like Romesh Gunesekera, Shyam Selvadurai, A. Sivanandan, and, lest we forget, Michael Ondaatje, have shown that there is more to the subcontinent's literary gifts than the overshadowing presence of India.

Yet, these writers are not part of a literary movement. They may good-humouredly pose together for photographs and tolerate dissertations that seek to find common influences in their work. But too many of them are distinct from one another to allow for any generalization. Last year, Gunesekera gallantly posed with nearly a dozen Indian authors in a portrait published in the Bill Buford-edited controversial summer special of the New Yorker. Gunesekera was flanked by Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Vikram Chandra, Amit Chowdhury, and others. What made him stand apart in that portrait was not just his nationality; but also his distinctive, almost un-Indian approach to writing.

Unlike some Indian authors, who feel obliged to write the Big Book each time they start a novel, Gunesekera doesn't feel that urge. His books are slim by the standards of the subcontinent, but they sparkle nonetheless. His writing is not self-conscious or clever, nor does it insist that the subcontinent is so unique that a novel would fall flat if it does not exaggerate reality. Gunesekera is clinical and sparing in his prose; he does not clutter the page with polysyllabic words.

To understand that, consider where he comes from. Gunesekera said once that Sri Lankan authors have more in common with authors from other islands, rather than with their bigger neighbours. There is indeed a bit of the late Shiva Naipaul in Gunesekera. Born on a small island, not overwhelmed by a 5,000 year old civilization, Gunesekera is able to focus on the lives of a few individuals, and use the violent reality of Sri Lanka as an ever-present backdrop, not as a dominating leitmotif. The tales do work; he doesn't need history to let them stand.

In his bleak, dark second novel, Sandglass, Gunesekera takes his writing to a more sombre, less lyrical plane than in his impressive Reef (1994) which came close to winning the Booker Prize. In so doing, his tone takes on a contemplative, philosophical edge, underlining the pathos, agony and uncertainty surrounding Sri Lanka's future.
Gunesekera daunts the readers at first, with a sprawling family tree of Ducals and Vatunases, whose entangled lives dominate the tale. The Vatunas family represents old money and the meanness it develops along with decay; the Ducals are nouveau riche, keen to acquire the trappings of wealth and modernity, and more important, class and power.

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