Ambitious, with passages that stand up to that ambition. A tad too long, a tad too elaborate, but very gripping and quite enjoyable...

Read this after loving Seven Moons. Another equally brilliant satire, using cricket and a tale of a lost great (fictional) Sri Lankan spin bowler as a vehicle to explore the country’s politics, culture and colonial history. Funny, quirky and enthralling.

For anyone who loves cricket this is must read!

‘Sport can unite worlds, tear down walls and transcend race, the past and all probability. Unlike life, sport matters’

This is one of the books recommended to me when I visited the Oxford Bookstore in Delhi, just before the Covid pandemic put a stop to travel. I wasn’t sure at first whether this novel would be a little too much cricket for me. My previous understanding of the game was limited to knowing Sir Geoffrey Boycott was the greatest batsman ever (I was born in Yorkshire, and met him when I was a boy!) and that the best wicket keeper is Johnny Bairstow (he happened to be my mum’s next-door neighbour). Needless to say, my knowledge of cricket (and arrack) has been greatly expanded thanks to Shehan Karunatilaka’s charming debut novel “Chinaman”.

WG Karunasena, or Wije, is a retired cricket journalist, active alcoholic and unreliable narrator. Aspiring to add a crowning achievement to his faded career, he sets out with his friend Ari to track down the little known but legendary bowler Pradeep Mathew. Wije claims that Mathew was a cricketing genius, expert at bowling the tricky left-hand spin “chinaman” delivery. Their quest to find him appears to be constantly thwarted by cricket officials, coaches and ex-players and leads us to doubt whether he still lives in Sri Lanka, if he is alive or, indeed whether the elusive Mathew ever really existed.

This is ultimately a novel that tells us as much about Sri Lanka, a country I love, as it does about cricket. Apart from cricket coaches and officials, we meet seedy bookmakers, government ministers, gangsters and terrorists.

First of all, a chinaman is a bowl that came from a racist coinage about a West Indian spinner of Asian descent. This novel bends genre and never claims to be telling the full truth, but at the same time has a very honest and personal tone. It taught me to appreciate cricket, a game I have only made fun of up until now. I adore the W.G. (Wije) that he presents along with the disclaimer that he doesn't remember everything clearly because of his alcoholism. This book made me laugh aloud at times and caught me up in the mystery, but there was a bit too much meandering at times. However, the randomness of the narrative is totally in character for an alcoholic in his sixties who is obsessed with a mystery, facing death, and lamenting, while avoiding the ways he has screwed up his career and family. My husband's father was a lot like Wije only more screwed up.

The most interesting part of the book for me involved the political analysis of cricket and how this allowed the author to examine Sri Lanka's history, racism, war, and corruption. The meaning of winning at sport for former colonies who aren't European is something I really hadn't considered. Although there are numerous examples of how cricket was racist in the past, it isn't really a colonial rivalry in this book, but more of a division between the development levels of countries or that of white and "other" people. This is partly because Wije is mostly focused on SL playing the Aussies. In his portrayal, England's cricket sucks (up to around 2000) . As Wije explained, Sri Lanka doesn't really have a rivalry like India-Pakistan because though the Lankans hate Australia's team, Australia can't really be bothered with the Lankans. You can't have an arch rivalry unless both sides care. Australia is shown as so dominant that they don't really hate anyone. Anyway, the Lankans felt like they had a lot to prove. One great scene illustrates these relationships very well. Pradeep is being interviewed about a game with Australia by a Yorkshiremen that most speakers of English find hard to understand. Pradeep had been instructed just to say stock phrases to avoid making mistakes in English, but the interviewer is acting like a prick because he is asking really specific and critical questions. Finally, Pradeep can't stand it any longer and just rips into the commentator with brilliant use of English. This scene is emblematic of the kind of analysis the book provides.

Here is a great quote from the book of a more philosophical bent. From his hospital bed, he wonders:

"That night I think of unknowables. How much love does one need in a lifetime? Is there a quantity of brain space that is allocated to love? And for those of us who have loved less, does this space become occupied by something else? Like cricket, or religion, perhaps."

Finally, I want to warn you that the ending takes an unexpected turn if you decide to read it.

I waffle between a 3 and 4 for this book. It is exceptionally well written, but it references a sport about which I know -- or knew, for I've picked up a few things -- absolutely nothing. Prior to this reading, my entire knowledge of cricket has come from watching Jane Austen movies.

Cricket is to Sri Lanka what baseball is to the United States. Men sit around with a drink in hand creating their fantasy team -- the best players through the years. It is this -- the drinking and the list making -- that launches W.G. Karunasena to complete his bucket list item, to write the story of his favorite cricketer, Pradeep Mathew.

Shehan Karunatilaka has written a beautiful story honoring the country of Sri Lanka and the sport of Cricket. That I didn't understand sections of this book should be blamed on my ignorance of the culture and sport and not on his writing ability.

If you're a cricket fan, or possibly a baseball fan, you'll appreciate the dedication of W.G. Karunasena, and the skill of Pradeep Mathew.

A bit like if Salman Rushdie wrote a book about cricket... and was Sri Lankan

I really enjoyed this - very creative and full of great characters and twists. Not sure how much someone who wasn't obsessed with cricket would like it