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More reviews by Melanie Ho
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Love Marriage by V.V. Ganeshananthan
It is rare to find a novel whose narrator could have been a classmate, an acquaintance, perhaps even a friend. Narrators are usually far removed from my life, separated (among other factors) by age and geography and its is difficult to imagine a scenario where we could be behind one another in a line-up for morning bagels and coffee on the way to school.
I was delighted to find such a narrator in LOVE MARRIAGE. And while Love Marriage is enticing for much more than a common narrator in Yalini, I did find myself trying to imagine myself reacting to a similar situation.
V.V. GANESHANANTHAN's first novel is an enchanting and beautiful read. There are parts, particularly near the end, with which I was less taken by and felt less attentive towards, but in general the writing was enjoyable, the story of culture, love and war, quite moving.
Yalini was born to Sri Lankan parents in New England in the summer of 1983 on a day coinciding with Sri Lanka's Black July. Years later, she is asked to Toronto by her doctor father and teacher mother to help care for her mother's dying elder brother Kumaran, a former militant Tamil Tiger, and Yalini's family history unravels. Ganeshananthan weaves tragedy with marriage, specifically the varying kinds of marriage that has put this family in the position it is today.
As the title teases, the two marital extremes are those marriages which are arranged and those born of love. But many other situational marriages fall in between, including the marriage that does not happen and the marriage to the wrong man. Yalini's family history of marriage is kept up-to-date by Kumaran's teenaged daughter who has marriage is also being arranged.
Ganeshananthan writes the novel as a series of vignettes, which are then slotted into larger sections. Some stand on their own and some of these are perhaps the best of the collection. Some of the most moving vignettes land on an abrupt two pages, rhythmic sentences still echoing.
Yalini's family's history arranged marriages and love marriages is as familiar a narrative as flight and immigration and I was left questioning my own lineage. It perhaps shouldn't matter that a narrator who fits my profile, my age and understands the concept of cold and a blistering snowstorm. But Yalini does and while it is not the reason the book attracts, having her as a narrator struck a particular chord.
But above all is the writing: the technique of writing exclusively in vignettes made the novel melodic, sophisticated and almost quaint, even when the subject matter is quite cruel.
Melanie Ho
13/12/2008
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Melanie Ho is a writer who has reviewed for publications in Hong Kong and Canada. |
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