Review: Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka
by Iman Qureshi
Cricket for Sri Lankans is not just a sport. It’s the national religion, the national currency, the national identity. So why not the national literature? Sri Lankan writer, Shehan Karunatilaka’s novel Chinaman is both an adoring homage to cricket and a marvellous national opus.
Through vibrant tales of cricket and obsession, Karunatilaka paints the rich landscape of the beautiful and remarkably complex tear-shaped island, capturing its sights and sounds down to the very last “howzat!”
The novel’s (anti?) hero, W.G. Karunasena—a retired sportswriter who has very nearly drunk himself to death—spends his final months drinking, gambling and obsessing over the mysterious disappearance of a cricketer Pradeep S. Mathew, a Tamil spin bowler and, according to W.G., “the greatest cricketer to walk the earth.” Obnoxious and self-indulgent, reckless and dishonest, W.G. is the most delightful unreliable narrator to hit our pages since Midnight’s Children’s Saleem Sinai. But where Saleem failed to win our sympathy, W.G. is perfectly pitched so that he is, at once, utterly detestable and irresistibly appealing.
Blasé as Chinaman is with its light-hearted narrative, scrawled diagrams, pervasive wit and impeccably rendered Sri Lankan voices, the darker side of Sri Lankan culture, politics, and indeed cricket, forces its way through the cracks of an inevitably imperfect world. Ethnic tensions, political agendas and ruthless, bloody wars are intricately weaved into the deft narrative and constantly threaten to tear apart the fabric of society.
Karunatilaka’s attempt to portray Sri Lanka’s grievous political predicament using cricket as a conduit is a tremendous gamble that ultimately pays off. Crucially, Chinaman’s brilliance lies in its ability to appeal to the obsessive cricketing fundamentalist just as strongly as it would to a shoulder-shrugging apathetic – it has everything and nothing to do with the famed sport.
Both a passionate celebration and gentle critique of Sri Lankan cricket and culture, Karunatilaka has undoubtedly penned a masterpiece. And just like a gloriously unpredictable bowler, Chinaman is all pace one minute and hurling a googly at you the next. Despite being a rather lackadaisical cricket enthusiast, I was as addicted to the book as its protagonist is to arrack, and found myself necking the novel with near reckless abandon.
Chinaman is published by Jonathan Cape in the UK on 28 April 2011
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