Cozy murder mystery
Shehan Karunatilaka’s 2022 Booker-winning novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is an absurd life-after-death romp about a young man who, against the better judgement of wiser ghosts, goes in search of his killers. It’s a whodunit set in Sri Lanka in the late 80s, during the civil war. It’s irreverent, unsentimental, and uproarious.
At one point I was reading on my deck, laughing uncontrollably. My neighbours were like WHAT is so funny? But here’s the thing… it’s impossible to explain. Part of my glee has to do with language. Karunatilaka sprinkles in Sinhala words here and there - without italics or explanation, hallelujah - and for once I, a famously unilingual person, actually understand. Here’s what I was laughing at: Boru Facts.
Boru means lies and just seeing this word, that I’ve never seen before in print, caused an immediate dopamine hit. It conjured up memories of my mother’s voice. Boru. As children we were forever telling, or being accused of telling, lies. Layered over my mother’s voice are uncles and aunts, shouting and laughing, cutting someone off mid-sentence to exclaim: Boru! Because when the adults got together to reminisce or gossip, the accusations of exaggeration and fabrication flew. Boru means lies but it also means bull shit, I guess. I don’t know. It’s difficult to translate, especially when my Sinhala is at the level of a slow witted six year old. Six is when we moved to Canada and stopped speaking Sinhala in the house. Sin, no men?*
It’s not only that I understand the novel’s second language, it’s that the Sinhala is imbued with auditory memory, making the book feel familiar and homey. Did I just call a novel about a young man who spends his short life travelling around a war zone, taking photos of men, women, and infants being butchered, only to be killed himself, then chopped into pieces and thrown into a putrid lake, cozy? I did. Yes.
When a book is written for you, it feels like home. And even though the novel helps the reader along - for example, with humorous lists that break down the acronyms and political divisions - a lot is left untranslated and unexplained. It’s one of the great strengths of the book, the author’s confidence, that he trusts the reader to do some of the work.
In an interview, after winning what is arguably the most important literary prize in the western world, Karunatilaka said he had trouble finding an international publisher. “A lot of them passed on it, saying that Sri Lankan politics was quite esoteric and confusing. Some said that the mythology and worldbuilding was impenetrable, and difficult for Western readers.” Boru facts!
*Why do Sri Lankans add the word men to the end of random sentences? Who knows, men.
