Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 320 pages
- Published by: Random House Trade Paperbacks April 8, 2008
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 1400066697
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-1400066698
-
Book Dimensions:
7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
- Weighs: 6.4 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
Several generations of a Sri Lankan family touched by the country's civil war confront the limits of ethnic and familial allegiance in Ganeshananthan's forceful but patchy debut. First-generation American Yalini, daughter of Sri Lankan Tamil parents Vani and Murali, is an awkward 22-year-old who has spent her youth burdened by family secrets from their lives before emigration. Confronted with her enigmatic dying uncle, Kumaran, who had a shadowy role in Sri Lanka's insurgent Tamil Tigers, Yalini is driven to examine her relatives' marriages as a means of figuring out their alliances and her own unsettled identity. Her parents fell in love in New York and escaped arranged marriages back home; her grandparents, aunts and uncles have their own stories; Kumaran's 18-year-old daughter chooses to wed a Tamil Tiger financier. Written in short blocks of text, the book is structured as a kind of day book where Yalini records her progress. Repetitions create a meditative mood, but dull the book's emotional core and make emphasis on marriage seem forced. The most vivid character, Rajie, the daughter of an old family friend, appears only briefly. And the issues that plague Yalini remain vague until the last third of the novel, when the narrative suddenly takes on real power.
(Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
"A gorgeous first novel. This intricately woven tale, with its universal themes of love and estrangement, presents an exciting new voice in American literature." ?Yiyun Li, author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers"Complex and moving . . . an impressive debut."?Daniel Alarcon, author of Lost City Radio "V. V. Ganeshananthan has given us a riveting picture of the intersections of love and war that shape us all. A debut of incredible passion and wisdom."
?Rebecca Johns, author of Icebergs
"A gorgeous first novel. This intricately woven tale, with its universal themes of love and estrangement, presents an exciting new voice in American literature."
?Yiyun Li, author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
In this globe-scattered Sri Lankan family, we speak of only two kinds of marriage. The first is the Arranged Marriage. The second is the Love Marriage. In reality, there is a whole spectrum in between, but most of us spend years running away from the first toward the second. [p. 3]
The daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, Yalini finds herself caught between the traditions of her ancestors and the lure of her own modern world. But when she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, Yalini is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present.
While Kumaran's loved ones gather around him to say goodbye, Yalini traces her family's roots?and the conflicts facing them as ethnic Tamils?through a series of marriages. Now, as Kumaran's death and his daughter's politically motivated nuptials edge closer, Yalini must decide where she stands.
Lyrical and innovative, V. V. Ganeshananthan's novel brilliantly unfolds how generations of struggle both form and fractures families.
"Complex and moving . . . an impressive debut."
?Daniel Alarc?n, author of Lost City Radio
"V. V. Ganeshananthan has given us a riveting picture of the intersections of love and war that shape us all. A debut of incredible passion and wisdom."
?Rebecca Johns, author of Icebergs
From the Trade Paperback edition.
--This text refers to the
Kindle Edition
edition.
Reader ReviewsI don't really know what to say about this book- I don't even know why it was entitled "Love Marriage." The book talks about several marriages through the past few generations, certainly, but there isn't one that stands out as being the "love marriage" and it didn't seem as though there was any sort of over-riding theme for the marriages, either. I found the book odd. I am a 25-year-old American girl, the daughter of immigrants from South Asia- really, I should have been able to relate to Yalini's story. But I did not. She wrote her words as though she were 80, looking back on her life and the lives of the people before her- I don't know why the author made her a 25-year-old. Also, Yalini spends much of the book talking about how frightened she is, how she does not interact well with other people- why? We never find out the source of her anxiety. Why is she like that? Does she make an effort to change? Does she have friends? Does she talk to anyone who isn't related to her? We don't get any sort of closure on the subject. We don't get closure on most subjects. Yalini is mentioned, briefly, as having a friend in college- but that took up about five sentences of the whole book, and then he was never mentioned again. She talks with a girl, Rajie, who is by far the most interesting person in the book- but Rajie makes such a brief appearance, and then is gone. She talks about her cousin marrying a Tamil Tiger and says that that man is not a good person- but we don't find out what happens there. Really, it seemed to me that the entire book was building up to something that never happened. I ended the novel feeling dissatisfied and let down. At the start, I thought the writing was exquisite (later on, it seemed more forced). I think the author truly has a gift of writing, but I don't think this was showcased well in this novel at all.
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