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A review by amyvl93
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I don't follow the Booker Prize as closely as my personal favourite the Women's Prize, but I am so glad it put Seven Moons on my radar as I really, really enjoyed it.
Seven Moons puts the reader into 1980s war-torn Sri Lanka, where you are really in the head of Maali Almeida (the novel is written in the second person), a war photographer, who has a week to work out who murdered him and to try and get his friends to a set of photographs he thinks should should change the course of the civil war.
In style, to some extent this novel reminded me of another Booker winner, A Brief History of Seven Killings, another novel that dealt with violent contexts in a frank but readable way. Karunatilaka doesn't shy away from the violence that walks the streets of Colombo and the wider country, and the desperation that many living in a war zone were experiencing - in direct comparison to the corruption at the heart of the system propped up by actors local and foreign.
Almeida is not the most likeable character to spend time with - he's ambivalent about the future, cheats on his partner with men he doesn't necessarily treat well and is unconcerned about the morality of the people he works with. However, he's also a compelling narrator, and the characters that surrounded him both living and in the afterlife are also well drawn - with plenty of shades of grey. The political figures are so well drawn I confidentally Googled some of them afterwards, only to discover they did not in fact exist
There were times when the pacing became a little slow, and I did find the ultimate reveal a tad underwhelming (although that may well have been the point) - but I did really like this, and would watch the HELL out of a mini-series based on this.
Seven Moons puts the reader into 1980s war-torn Sri Lanka, where you are really in the head of Maali Almeida (the novel is written in the second person), a war photographer, who has a week to work out who murdered him and to try and get his friends to a set of photographs he thinks should should change the course of the civil war.
In style, to some extent this novel reminded me of another Booker winner, A Brief History of Seven Killings, another novel that dealt with violent contexts in a frank but readable way. Karunatilaka doesn't shy away from the violence that walks the streets of Colombo and the wider country, and the desperation that many living in a war zone were experiencing - in direct comparison to the corruption at the heart of the system propped up by actors local and foreign.
Almeida is not the most likeable character to spend time with - he's ambivalent about the future, cheats on his partner with men he doesn't necessarily treat well and is unconcerned about the morality of the people he works with. However, he's also a compelling narrator, and the characters that surrounded him both living and in the afterlife are also well drawn - with plenty of shades of grey. The political figures are so well drawn I confidentally Googled some of them afterwards, only to discover they did not in fact exist
There were times when the pacing became a little slow, and I did find the ultimate reveal a tad underwhelming (although that may well have been the point) - but I did really like this, and would watch the HELL out of a mini-series based on this.