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A review by jooniperd
On Sal Mal Lane by Ru Freeman
3.0
i am trying to collect my thoughts in order to express how i feel after having just finished the read. the end of this book, a section titled 1983, which is 93 pages long, was nearly perfect. a few moments of too much telling is my only criticism of this part of the book. (as i was reading, i had reached the same ideas and messages. i felt them implied in the prose. freeman, though, chose to lay some things out very specifically, and i felt most of these incidents to be obvious - so the telling/explaining wasn't necessary to me.) 1983 contains so much heartbreak and beauty. while i didn't cry... i nearly cried. i could feel the tears trying to push their way out. which surprised me, this response, because none of the action in the last section of the book was unexpected at all. i knew where this was going because the fist 276 pages of the novel are spent ominously foreshadowing disaster. so the fact freeman could elicit such an emotional response, even though i knew it was coming, impressed me.
i tell you, though, that first 276 pages... it was a tough go. i wasn't feeling much interest in the story. i was very taken with the time and history of which freeman is writing. and i enjoyed some of the characters very much. but the passivity - which i recognize may be very purposeful as the characters are waiting and waiting for events to unfold - was frustrating at times. i also found freeman's writing a bit inconsistent. she had these absolutely beautiful, wonderful sentences, at moments. then, at other moments, they felt very awkward, or overwritten. as well, the issue i already noted about telling/explaining occurs in the earlier parts of the novel too.
so, before i got to the final section, i was thinking this was another disappointing 2-star read for me. but that last section. man. i am now trying to think about ways the book - which is very ambitious in trying to give fictional context to this very sad and difficult time in sri lanka's history - could have been tightened up. i just read about online, to gain some sense of how others responded to this read. i found this statement in a publishers weekly review (uncredited): "...had this saga—which is three-quarters foreboding, one-quarter violent, heartbreaking denouement—been more concise, it could almost have been called a masterpiece."
and that completely sums my feelings up. so i have landed on 3.5-stars. it will be interesting to see if this book sits with me over the next few days, and if i begin to feel more strongly/positively about the first 276 pages. (oh - total bonus points, too, for maps and diagrams. because i am a dork like that!)
i tell you, though, that first 276 pages... it was a tough go. i wasn't feeling much interest in the story. i was very taken with the time and history of which freeman is writing. and i enjoyed some of the characters very much. but the passivity - which i recognize may be very purposeful as the characters are waiting and waiting for events to unfold - was frustrating at times. i also found freeman's writing a bit inconsistent. she had these absolutely beautiful, wonderful sentences, at moments. then, at other moments, they felt very awkward, or overwritten. as well, the issue i already noted about telling/explaining occurs in the earlier parts of the novel too.
so, before i got to the final section, i was thinking this was another disappointing 2-star read for me. but that last section. man. i am now trying to think about ways the book - which is very ambitious in trying to give fictional context to this very sad and difficult time in sri lanka's history - could have been tightened up. i just read about online, to gain some sense of how others responded to this read. i found this statement in a publishers weekly review (uncredited): "...had this saga—which is three-quarters foreboding, one-quarter violent, heartbreaking denouement—been more concise, it could almost have been called a masterpiece."
and that completely sums my feelings up. so i have landed on 3.5-stars. it will be interesting to see if this book sits with me over the next few days, and if i begin to feel more strongly/positively about the first 276 pages. (oh - total bonus points, too, for maps and diagrams. because i am a dork like that!)