Editorial Short Story Travel Short Story Book Review Humour US Round-up Music & Art Poetry Prev Issue Next Issue

An emerald isle in an azure ocean, the land is densely covered with a carpet of lush green vegetation. The island bears witness to a history that is as old as many ancient civilizations in the world. Home to the ancient kingdom of Ravana, the testament to megalithic cultures. The teardrop shaped island at the foot of the Indian peninsula, Sri Lanka is a pristine palace of the natural gods of a forgotten mythology.

And yet, somewhere along the lines, this beautiful land lost its innocence. Torn by a bloody civil war, Sri Lanka has today become a land that weeps for its children.

It is this weeping land that forms the main character of Michael Ondaatje's novel, "Anil's Ghost". A book that is intensely human, "Anil's Ghost" deals with the insanity if war and violence, using the civil war in Sri Lanka as a backdrop. Ondaatje explores the deeply human reactions ordinary people have when thrust into the midst of madness. Deeply distressing, you can almost smell blood on every page. Never does this incredible sense of unimaginable trauma leave you throughout the novel.

Ondaatje uses a common enough leitmotif: an emigrant returning home; the prodigal offspring returning to the fold. Anil Tissera is a forensic scientist, used to working in conflict torn places around the world. Returning to a country that is ripped apart by factional wars and clashes, she is sent to Sri Lanka to investigate human rights abuses. She is designated to work with an archaeologist, Sarath, and the two soon form an incongruous, enigmatic team; the art and the science, the day and night, but also the chand and chakora. Their absolute difference is what makes them click, in a strange, esoteric sense. It is not as if they communicate, but they work well together.

The plot develops with the discovery of four skeletons within a government-protected archaeological reserve. One skeleton has been very obviously planted there, having been originally been buried somewhere else. The entire story traces how Anil's attempts at solving the mystery behind these murders send her and Sarath into a web pregnant with deceit, violence, love, friendship and loss. Sarath's brother, Gamini, is also woven into the narrative, a lost, tragic soul who fills the void in his life with the medicine he practices in a government hospital.

There is nothing fancy or elaborate about the plot. In fact, there are links you can generally figure out by the middle of the book. The real beauty of the book is how such a standard and straightforward plot can make such profound sense. Ondaatje's narrative is minimalist in style, and he uses no frills to make this an extravaganza. The characters are well fleshed, his descriptions are precise, and his artistry is best described by the passages where he delineates the madness of love in a world plunged into conflict.

Ondaatje manages to distress and disturb, with each page steeped in the smell of fresh blood and formaldehyde. The violence is more emotional than physical, with the absence of knowledge a greater torture than the worst instruments known to the inquisitors.

Ondaatje asks very human questions: what cause could be worth the kind of pain that is unleashed on a hapless and innocent populace? And at the end of it all, is there really any side that has won? What is the price of war anyway? Who is to blame for it; the one at the top, or the man at the bottom?

Ondaatje achieves a literary feat; he makes a statement on a political issue without taking sides. He ensures that no side emerges unstained; the government, the Tamil separatists, or the insurgents to the south. No party to the conflict is as innocent as their supporters have made them out to be. Each side is tarred with the same brush. Ondaatje makes a very strong case against violence, and uses his pen with ease in doing so.

At the same time, the novel is not all bleak. There are moments of great poignancy in the narrative, and the much vaunted painting of the eyes of the Buddha make for very beautiful reading. The epilogue is particularly touching. Ondaatje shows how the strength of human emotion is capable of surmounting the worst barriers. Pain is natural; love is supreme; humanism can always triumph.

Ondaatje has always managed to write beautifully and poignantly. His "The English Patient" was a literary chimera, a book which truly touched you. "Anil's Ghost" is no less a beauty, the literary dreamscape resplendent in the colors of pathos, grief and utterly human emotion. Truly a literary masterpiece.

Start a discussion on this article