A passage north by anuk arudpragasam

Name of Book: A Passage North

Author: Anuk Arudpragasam 

ISBN: 978-0-593-23070-1

Publisher: Hogarth 

Type of book: Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan civil war, university, modern times, India, death, life, sacrifice, philosophy, meditation, rituals, relationships, complexity 

Year it was published: 2021

Summary:

A young man journeys into Sri Lanka's war-torn north in this searing novel of longing, loss, and the legacy of war from the award-winning author of The Story of a Brief Marriage.

A Passage North begins with a message from out of the blue: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother's caretaker, Rani, has died under unexpected circumstances--found at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an impassioned yet aloof activist Krishnan fell in love with years before while living in Delhi, stirring old memories and desires from a world he left behind.

As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for Rani's funeral, so begins an astonishing passage into the innermost reaches of a country. At once a powerful meditation on absence and longing, as well as an unsparing account of the legacy of Sri Lanka's thirty-year civil war, this procession to a pyre "at the end of the earth" lays bare the imprints of an island's past, the unattainable distances between who we are and what we seek.

Written with precision and grace, Anuk Arudpragasam's masterful new novel is an attempt to come to terms with life in the wake of devastation, and a poignant memorial for those lost and those still alive.

Characters:

Main characters include Krishan, youngest son who has liberal leanings towards life. He is deep, introspective, and quite often seems to fear to say what might be on his mind. He seeks knowledge and desires to find perfection. He also does drugs like smoking weed and cigarettes. He is often torn between past and present and future. Krishans grandmother is truly a woman  to admire because she is stubborn, tenacious and in my opinion is in denial when it comes to her age or her abilities and lack of them. Grandmother is a strong woman. Anjum is best described as a complex soul of paradoxes who seemed to be dedicated to different causes and identifies as either a lesbian or bisexual. Rani is a carer for Krishans grandmother and has suffered a lot of tragedy during Sri Lankan civil war, namely the death of her two beloved sons, and she has been attempting to move on from her past.  

Theme:

Life is a journey 

Plot:

The story is in third person narrative from Krishans point of view. Krishan is a college student from Sri Lanka, a nation torn by strife and civil war. ( I would like to mention for a bit more information about Sri Lankan civil war, please check out Roma Tearnes book THE ROAD TO URBINO....) and recently he has gotten back to his mother and grandmother. However, a call comes that his grandma's carer has passed away, and an email came that a long lost lover wants to catch up with him. Through those two instances, the reader begins to learn of the complex web that governs his life as well as the history he has with each of the four strong women.  

Author Information:
(From goodreads)

Anuk Arudpragasam is a Sri Lankan Tamil novelist. He studied philosophy in the United States, receiving a doctorate at Columbia University. His first novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage, was translated into seven languages, won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Opinion:

In a good way, this tale of philosophy and meditation is truly something that I hadn't read before. First of all, it's not an action packed tale, and it asks the reader to slow down in life as well as meditate on the images that are presented, in particular of the three main relationships between one young man and the four women, namely his mother and grandmother as well as his girlfriend and a carer who went through a lot of hardship. More than anything, I saw it as a life cycle of story, that of birth/ return, making own way and growing up and last is death. There is also a lot to unpack and ponder when reading this wonderful tale, from meaning of staring to meaning of rituals and death. I sincerely hope that one day this book will end up as an unforgettable classic that many will look through. 

This was given for a review 

5 out of 5

(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)