Comment: I brought this book from the library simply because the blurb gave me a certain expectation on what this book would be about. I had not heard of the author before and I wouldn't have known it had won the 2022 Booker Prize if it had not been written in the cover.
In this story we have the story of Maali Almeida, a Sri Lankan photographer who has been recently murdered and the plot is centered on his attempts, as a ghost, to discover what happened to him and who killed him. As he does this, he is told he has seven moons (days) to do what he must and after that he will have to make a choice, which means he needs to hurry to find a way to contact those he loved so they can help him and also so they can reveal the secrets in some of his hidden photographs. However, even in the afterlife there are dangers and prohibitions... will Maali be able to learn what he needs before he is out of moons?
As I've said, I wasn't even aware of this book's existence before seeing in at the library. I was seduced by the blurb, which I read quickly and that immediately led me to assume the plot would focus on protagonist Maali, a man who is many things in a country where many of those things are not legal, and how he had lived until his death. I saw the reference to the country's politics being a key element but I really imagined a scenario in my head this would be a more emotional and heartbreaking novel, not one as intensely oriented towards social commentary.
I also noticed, when holding the book in my hands, the obvious inclusion of Portuguese words. Almeida is still one of the most common Portuguese surnames in my country and I could see that there would be references to Portuguese, and perhaps to the occupation of certain areas in India in past centuries and, it seems, also the influence it had in what is now Sri Lanka. I was captivated by the idea of having some kind of Portuguese content and since I didn't know much about Sri Lanka, I thought this book would mix up interesting themes.
Right away, it became obvious the author was experimenting with genres and narratives, and this story is told in second person singular. Dead Maali was thinking things to himself and commenting stuff to his alive self with the reader listening in. After finishing the book, as I often do with books I like less or that I fail to see the appeal, I've read reviews of other readers who disliked it and a common critique is precisely about the narrator's voice, that it is too weird. Well, I can understand why but I wasn't really bothered by it. In terms of fluidity, I don't think the story was affected by this. One gets used to it, I'd say.
My disappointment with this novel is very simple: I thought this would be a story about misunderstood Maali, a gay man in a society where this is not well received, and how his actions and apparent love interests would have impacted his life. I thought this would be a sad, perhaps even depressing novel, about his heartbreaks and impossible interactions with others, including his family. I was rather prepared to be sad, angry on his behalf and the fact this had won a prize certainly would mean the literary aspects of the narrative would not be focusing on sweet, romantic issues.
Instead, this was a novel about Maali being the embodiment of a faction of people who is misunderstood but still a critic of society and how corrupted everything is around. I can accept this, and a lot of the information related to the deaths and the suffering and the injustice the author included in this novel must be devastating to assimilate as a reality. It's even worse when we think these things happen everywhere and it's not only a cultural thing and often it's not possible to change the state of things.
However, the plot was too closely influenced by these things. This means the author used a lot of situations that felt had no end, where we could see the cause and effect of the different political fractions in play, the way things were done, the way repression killed so many people, the utter suffering of the whole country. Yes, heartbreak was achieved but to me, the story failed in the sense that while these elements were certainly necessary to be mentioned, I felt they took over the story, they took over Maali as a protagonist. To summarize, the setting and the politics were too dire and Maali's character too darkly presented in what happened to him that I lost interest in looking for the "light".
I also disliked how the afterlife situation Maali sees himself in was so confusing. One moment here, another there, this ghost was this alive character, but the other one is just a ghost, then it was not, and the hows and the whys stopped making sense. Of course it didn't help that some names are just too different and that doesn't help me maintaining the focus to distinguish who is who. The author included a list of characters in the beginning which helped, but not always. It came to a point that not even wanting to know the identity of Maali's killer was enough to grab my attention.... I've finished the book with the sense of "finally, the task is completed" and not the "on no, the story is already over".
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