"I’m one of those readers who is in the habit of trying to read more than one book at a time. Usually I try to have one work of fiction and one of non-fiction on the go, (and I often have an audiobook underway as well). This is a 400-page novel and I found the first 150 pages or so were, to use an appropriate metaphor, bowled at medium pace. I found my non-fiction reads more appealing and the result was slow progress with this one, until I gave the book the attention it deserved.

Set in Sri-Lanka in the 1990s, W.G. Kuranasena is a retired, alcoholic and terminally ill sportswriter who decides, as a last project, to find out what happened to a (fictional) cricket player called Pradeep Mathew, whom he regards as the best spin bowler he ever saw, but who disappeared after playing only 4 Tests for Sri-Lanka. He is assisted by his close friend and neighbour Ari Byrd, and by another friend, an Englishman called Jonny Gilhooley, who works at the British High Commission. Jonny is one of several characters in the book about whom the truth is unclear. Another is a man called Kuga or Kugarajah, who may be a gangster, a government agent or a senior commander with the Tamil Tigers (or all three).

In general, truth proves a difficult thing for W.G. to get hold of. In his attempts to trace Pradeep, he encounters all sorts of stories from people keen to make money out of his interest. Pradeep is a Tamil and, this being the 1990s, there is a backdrop of the civil war between the government and the Tamil Tigers, and W.G.’s enquiries also lead him into the murky world of sports betting. The novel also touches on the role of sport in society, as well as Kuranasena’s relationship with his wife and his difficult relationship with his son. This is really a multi-layered story.

I enjoyed the use of Sri-Lankan English in the spoken dialogue.

I would say that knowing a bit about cricket would probably help with the enjoyment of this novel. I’m not a particular cricket fan but I know the basics, so for example I know the difference between Third Man and Fine Leg, or what cricketers mean when they talk about bowling a maiden over. (Fnar! Fnar!) The novel does explain the game to the uninitiated, but the author also makes references to both real and fictional players, and to real and fictional matches. It might help to know which is which. The book’s title is derived from a particular type of delivery from a spin bowler, although the term is now no longer used for obvious reasons.

So, after a slowish start (mainly my own fault) I got to like this, and went through the second half of the book pretty quickly. On one level a novel about cricket and cricketers, and another a novel about what we decide to do with our lives.
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"The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka is not an easy book to review. It’s not an easy book to read. I am sure that the last thing its author wanted was a text that ‘pleased� the reader. By the end anyone willing to complete this experience will be better informed about the history and the nature of the conflict that has plagued Sri Lanka for fifty years, but no reader will be wiser, will be closer to understanding the nature of the conflict, will probably be further away from an ability to describe it, and, assuredly, will have retreated from any prior opinion that might have suggested solution.

The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida is about death: death in Sri Lanka, death as a result of conflict, we assume. Many of the characters in this book are dead, many also waiting for the expiry of seven moons, or seven days, to learn their longer-term fate, whether that might be admission to the Light or condemnation to the other place. There is talk of in-between state, but this unending purgatory does not itself seem threatening when the dead are maimed, often headless, often beaten around the face to hide their identity, often short of a limb or two. Life seems to be same as death. You stay as you lived. You stay as you died, often close to the place where it happened.

On reflection, I feel that a reader without prior knowledge of Sri Lanka’s history will not get close to this book’s complexities. And in the case of Sri Lanka, those complexities cannot be simplified. Even the principal character’s name is a confusion of influences. He tells us on page one that his business card labels him as Maali Almeida, Photographer, Gambler, Slut, while his gravestone would say, Malinda Albert Kabalana, 1955-1990. Now Almeida is Portuguese. Albert relates to the English, despite the famous prince being German. Maali is a girl’s name in Australia, signifying a black swan, while Kabalana is the name of the beach resort in Galle in Sri Lanka’s once tourist south. Maali tells us late in the book to Sinhalise a Tamil name one must drop the final consonant. Kabalanan dies not seem to be a Tamil name, as far as I can see, but it does mean ‘holiness� in Filipino. If this seems over complicated, please note the Sri Lanka’s conflict arises from a history involving Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians, Sinhalese, Tamils, Portuguese, Dutch, British and Indian, colonialism, conquest, migration, imported workers, cash crops for export, trade, power, politics, religion, and gender. I may have left out some important things� That means it’s like most places on the planet. It is a confused society arising from a confused history. There exist many coping strategies. Sri Lanka’s has been to fight over ownership of identity. Ironic, isn’t it? The only way to assert control over life is to end it� As Maali Almeida remarks towards the end of his seven moons, the kindest thing you can say about life is that it is nothing.

My own interest in the island’s politics and its apparently perennial conflict stem from several years of helping to produce a monthly newsletter to provide a distillation of events that often did not appear in the international press. As a result, many of the scenarios, many of the atrocities, many of the military campaigns, many of the issues, many of the historical characters that appear in The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida were already known to me, perhaps too familiarly... I think that a reader without this prior knowledge might struggle to appreciate the significance of Maali Almeida‘s thoughts. On the other hand, my previous involvement may also have prevented me from fully entering the fantasy element of the work.

Maali is a gay photographer. He describes many of his sexual encounters, several of his fantasies and a whole host of his photographs. He also describes many of the places and events that he captured via the lens of his increasingly battered Nikon. Several of these images, he believes, are themselves explosive, politically explosive.

He is dead from the start, having been murdered and had his body tossed into the Beira Lake in Colombo. He doesn’t know who killed him or how, but he thinks he knows why. He is aware that his photos could ruin someone. He has seven moons to relive, if that’s possible for a corpse, his final hours, to haunt those who had contact with him in order to establish just a few facts. Or, indeed, to preserve the existence of those photos.

He revisits as a spirit many experiences from his past, particularly those events that led to his abduction, in an attempt to establish the truth. Shehan Karunatilaka thus weaves a wonderful mixture of reality and fantasy to create a rich, colourful, but heavily bloodstained tapestry. Don’t expect the images to be clear, because in a conflict as complex as Sri Lanka’s clarity is mere illusion. In the end, we know more about Sri Lanka, much more about its conflict and we do uncover what happened to Maali Almeida. Shehan Karunatilaka’s vision does tend to be pessimistic, and the dénouement does not offer hope. Amid conflict, this is a personal journey. It captivates, but the suffering goes on."

"I was unaware of Veblen’s ideas until a recent edition of In Our Time on BBC Radio 4 devoted an hour of discussion to his life and work. So stimulating did I find the discussion that I immediately found a copy of The Theory of the Leisure Class and read it.

Thorstein Veblen’s ideas crystallised in the last quarter of the nineteenth century when the infamous “robber barons� of emergent American capitalism were at the height of their power and ownership. Not only did they form a social class, but these multi-millionaires also created social norms that many desired to emulate. A measure of success in the popular mind became how closely an individual might aspire to emulate their lives of great riches and, at least when viewed from the outside, great leisure. Conspicuous consumption, following their example, became an economic goal and a measure of success. Veblen related this tendency of upper social classes to remnants of “barbarianism�, stemming from “tribal� societies. Everything was related to ownership resulting from conquest and warfare, in which the defeated were enslaved so that the victors could benefit from the fruits of their labour. On page two, Veblen identifies broad occupations and activities in contemporary society that derive from this ancient tendency. “These non-industrial upper-class occupations may be roughly comprised under government, warfare, religious observances and sports.� The label “non-industrial� differentiated these people from the vast majority of the population, who laboured cooperatively for the common good by producing things that increased human capabilities and well-being.

There thus develops in Veblen’s work a theory of economic production and distribution that is derived from psychological traits and has sociological implications. He extends his ideas about non-cooperative barbarism and “predatory� tendencies to illustrate how making oneself useless can become a sign of ultimate power and success. Though the social class that is guilty of this flagrant over-consumption of goods and services is demonstrated as being anti-social, as far as the interests of the industrial classes are concerned, Veblen never alludes to any possible conflict that might arise. This is what differentiates his ideas from those of Marx.

The psychological and behavioural aspects are explored, alongside and their consequences for economic and social class differences. He develops a theory of “manners� that allow members of the upper classes to identify themselves to one another. “There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum; and so far have we progressed in the direction of imputing intrinsic utility to the ceremonial observances of etiquette that few of us, if any, can dissociate an offence against etiquette from a sense of the substantial unworthiness of the offender. A breach of faith may be condoned, but a breach of decorum can not. “Manners maketh the man�.� Again, he is not doing any of this in order to poke fun or satirise individuals. He does, however, make it clear that the existence of the upper classes does work against the interests of the industrial classes, who are labouring to make everyone’s life better.

The industrial classes, though privately desiring to emulate their social betters, however, at least try to maintain their own values. “The popular reprobation of waste goes to say that in order to be at peace with himself the common man must be able to see in any and all human effort and human enjoyment an enhancement of life and well-being on the whole � Relative or competitive advantage of one individual or comparison with another does not satisfy the economic conscience and the form of competitive expenditure has not the approval of his conscience.�

Conspicuous consumption amongst the ownership classes drives them to value political ideas, laws and social practices that allow them to maintain their lifestyle. This inevitably results in political and social conservatism. “This conservatism of the wealthy class is so obvious a feature that it has even become recognised as a mark of respectability.� Privately, the industrial classes still aspire to the conspicuous consumption and leisure of the wealthy and so have a tendency to espouse their conservatism in the hope that one day they might achieve similar status.

All forms of religious establishment, military rank, political and even sporting success are manifestations of this over-consumption to the detriment of the industrial class, throwbacks to the barbarism and predatory nature of a society based on conflict. But here I find a weakness in Veblen’s argument. He does not see capitalist consumerism’s pursuit of individualism as necessarily fostering the creation of the leisure class. Furthermore, he assumes that pre-industrial, pre-scientific, societies are all based upon predation, but offers scant evidence to illustrate this.

As a fan of “classical� music, I was intrigued by a passage that defined the term. ““Classic� always carries this connotation of wasteful and archaic, whether it is used to denote the dead languages or the obsolete or obsolescent forms of thought and diction in the living language, or to denote other items of scholarly activity or apparatus to which it is applied with aptness.� Capitalism cannot sell “classical� music. Calling it thus, even when the label only applies to about sixty years in the thousand-year history of European-style music is thus clearly a way of marginalising it.

Veblen’s ideas are now in sharp focus because of environmental degradation. The role of “consumption as status� needs to be uppermost in everyone’s mind. The less consumption, the less pressure is placed on the environment. The consequence of lower consumption would probably be the collapse of capitalism and it is this aspect, this consequence of his theories that is sadly rather lacking from Veblen’s work."