Le Sari rouge

by V.V. Ganeshananthan

This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN13: 9782253134466

A 22 ans, Yalini se démène entre le poids des coutumes ancestrales que lui valent ses origines tamoules et sa vie de jeunefemme moderne. A l'arrivée d'un oncle mourant, Yalini (qui vit au Canada) se plonge dans l'histoire de sa famille et découvre au final le chaos du Sri Lanka dont elle est originaire. Une découverte qui l'aide alors à mieux comprendre l'histoire de ses propres parents.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, India, Contemporary, Novels, Family, Adult Fiction

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

V. V. Ganeshananthan is the author of Brotherless Night and Love Marriage, which was longlisted for the Women's Prize and named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post. Her work has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, among other publications. A former vice president of the South Asian Journalists Association, she has also served on the board of Asian American Writers' Workshop, and is presently a member of the board of directors of the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies and the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota and co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast on Literary Hub, which is about the intersection of literature and the news.

Reviews

[Jsiva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having recently read "Brotherless Night", I was intrigued with what I thought would be more of a narrative, perhaps a romance...I had a lot of assumptions of what this work would be and so rather than dwelling on those....I will focus on what was there. There was a richness in the stories shared, but there also was a sense of disjointedness, of not saying but hinting, of women lost because they could not fulfil narrow societal expectations. Yalini tells us what she felt but not why all the time, she told us what was happening and how self isolated she was, how lost, how hard she was searching for some way to live her own life. It was like she was recording her family's history because she herself had a lack of life, even with all the comforts available to her that were deprived of her ethnic people... but herein lies the burden of those who got a "better" life, we had no excuse to feel anything but grateful, no excuse to fail, no excuse to feel lost, depressed, overwhelmed...we often suffered from parents/guardians/relatives who had untreated trauma and PTSD...And yes people paid loads and loads of money to assuage this guilt, money they themselves were scrounging together to survive in a new country... and the greatest despicable crime that I felt happened in these countries where we sought refuge were the people who collected funds through guilting, exhortation, and a promise of making a difference only to line their own pockets... the depravity is like robbing a corpse for organ donations only to eat it yourself..."In war there are two kinds of people: the people who lose and the people profit".

Rajie: "I wish that if people were going to fight here [in Canada], they would fight to leave [the war] behind."

[Hafsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story revolves around Yalini, a first generation American woman born to Sri Lankan Tamil parents. She is forced to grapple with her family’s harrowing history of displacement and products of violence, as her ex-terrorist uncle lands at their doorsteps. To me, the narrative's integrity doesn’t lie in the author's ability to uphold a certain kind of objectivity or an artificially ‘balanced’ view. It comes from the author's determination to tell a story that has been constantly under-rated - an story experienced outside of the territorial conflict, yet so laden and vested in it. Her writing style allows for a free restraint that doesn't give all away, yet omits nothing important. It reads like a journal, yet as reader you never feel like an intruder.

I loved that the story emphasizes an important perspective that is often lost in way wars are analyzed and talked about. There are the terrorists and the freedom fighters, we’ve all heard of how these roles get mucked about depending on who you talk to – but do we really believe that to be true? For instance, there's a sense of poetic justice that underlies the story of Kumaran, the terrorist uncle of Yalini, whom she learns to love despite her ardent disapproval of his past. While some may see this as a way to keep the story interesting, I think there are way too many telling lessons to ignore. For starters, it shows that it’s possible to hate the crimes committed by a person, and still hold out enough hope in their capacity to redeem themselves. His justice comes in the way he dies a slow & painful death, and even in his death bed - apart from being forced to raise funds for the LTTE – he likes mostly to talk about his youth and catch up with his family & keep them close. Like many others, he has faced triumphs & tragedies in his life, but a series of events lead him to the hands of LTTE recruits in London, England (of all places). Yalini concludes that anyone could have turned out to be like her uncle had they been confronted with his circumstances. Contentious; and the restraint in details in the author’s writing style serves well to hold off on certain uncomfortable truths, though this does not come at the expense of justice. Yalini’s voice is still one that advocates for fair-dealing unequivocally, so it’s quite clear that it would never approve of the choices that her uncle had made and the ones her uncle’s daughter was born into. But because her voice settles with comfortable truths and doesn’t go beyond it (i.e. Yalini doesn’t care to ask her uncle what exactly he did), it liberates the author from having to moralize war proponents & opponents, thereby not creating a space for flip flopping where narrative integrity is concerned.

If one simply expects to read a “neutral” perspective and be done with it, you’d be completely missing the point. The novel doesn’t aim to propel a camouflage warrior, or reinforce the tried and failed old black-and-white dichotomies of good v. evil. It aims instead to complicate these clean cut categories that are often shoved down our throats. Essentially, one of the main points to take away is to see that men are never born monsters, they are made to be. This way, mercy becomes a little less difficult – as Yalini finds out in her journey to forgive her uncle.

Apart from the political history, I thoroughly enjoyed Ganeshananthan's almost poetic style of writing - which wasn’t because it had the structure and flow of poetry but because each sentence held a certain depth and essence. Again, this likely stems from the seeming restraint I was talking about, in which she gives the readers enough details but not all. I know that it's common for writers to keep many aspects of their protagonists' lives out of their pages, but I've never felt so strongly and so constantly, that there must be still more to the story than has been divulged in these pages. It seems there will always be more to find between the lines of this novel than what appears readily to our eyes the first time. The quotes that I thought were so poignant and jotted down over the period of my reading seem emotionally displaced and insignificant when I read them again, when it's taken out of context - yet while I read them in the book their simple wisdom was emphatic.

Finally, for someone who "came of age" so to speak outside of Sri Lanka, yet hold such vivid memories of growing up there as a child and still share some of the closest bonds possible to a nation - those of family & love – it was quite a delight to read this novel. The countless references to the foods, places, cultures, histories and ways of people were a great reminder of the country's complex beauty and allure.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel starts out trying to chronicle the spectrum of marriage types that lie between Love Marriage and Arranged Marriage, and in the process goes on to tackle a myriad of issues ranging from the Sri Lankan civil war and the Tamil Diaspora to family history and relationships to exile and home to customs and ceremonies, and ends up as a smattering of all of the above with no coherent focal point. It also left me wondering whether this was a novel being narrated in memoir format as claimed, or a memoir masquerading as a novel.

Written in lyrical, essay-like chapters, some a few lines, some a few pages, the narrator, Yalini, a twenty-two year old Tamil student born in the USA visits Toronto to care for a dying uncle and attend her cousin’s Arranged Marriage wedding. In the ensuing period she revisits family history on both sides, going back several generations, and unearths quite a few skeletons in the family closet.

The Tamil struggle in Sri Lanka, since the country’s independence from Britain in 1948 (and not in 1947 as implied), permeates the entire novel, and separates as much as it unites Tamils between those who remain in the struggle back in the homeland and those who flee to other lands and support the war to appease their conscience and stay engaged. Yalini will always be the outsider looking in and is viewed somewhat scornfully by her 18-year old cousin Janani who is straight off the boat, committed to the cause, disdainful of the West and yet marrying a Toronto based mobster who in turn is funding the conflict back home on the proceeds of his illicit deals. This arranged marriage also symbolizes the formalizing of the Tamil conflict abroad and exposes its global tentacles.

The style of the narrative is poetic but borders on the sentimental and melodramatic, with lines often repeated for effect than for substance. Yet one is able to forgive this 22year old who is in awe of all things “back-home”—a condition of those born abroad who feel dislocated, live in awe of their parents’ chequered pasts and think that the grass is more alive on the other side, though bloodier. And there are no referees in cricket, dear Yalini, only umpires—take note! The characters do not come alive to me in this format and are mere sketches, even though their personal stories are interesting. The author is courageous however, in tackling the thorny LTTE practices that finally ended up getting that organization proscribed as a terrorist group in the West, but she shies away from naming its leader by his real name, probably because he was still alive when this book was published.

The unfortunate loser in this novel is poor Canada, and as a Canadian, I took notice. My beloved adopted land is portrayed as open to misuse, allowing avowed terrorists to enter and avail of our generous medical system, while our government at the time turns a blind eye on terrorist funding sources that flourish and fan carnage abroad. I can see why the incoming Conservative government with their “let’s get tough on crime” push and “don’t play us for a sucker” stance on immigration was so popular at the time.

This is a bold first novel, and judging from the author’s educational background and the editorial clout listed in the credits, she has had much support in bringing this book to life. But I question whether the elaborate detailing of wedding and funeral ceremonies, however exotic they may appear to Westerners, makes for good literature, or whether the elimination of quotation marks that separate dialogue from narrative—especially in this style of writing—makes for easy reading, or whether the mixing of tenses is cool grammar. But who are we to question the evolution of the novel? Wherever it lands next—this style or some other prevailing—that will become the new normal; just as the Tamils will have to accept the new normal of Sri Lanka, where their place is even more in question after the end of the civil war.

The grass is not really alive on the other side, dear Yalini. Perhaps that is the underlying intent of this novel, to reveal the post-1948 Tamil condition and then to retreat, never to prescribe or take sides. It is a heavy yoke and will pre-occupy Sri Lankan Tamil writers, both at home and abroad, for a very long time.

[BellaGBear · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a fascinating book. It tells the story of various families and generations in that family. Not in chronological order, but bit by bit. Also, some parts of the narrative are repeated. This creates a sense of connection throughout the families and generations and makes the book read as poetry.

A very interesting insight into the Tamils and Sri Lanka.

[Melanie Caldicott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt like a practise run for Brotherless Night which was a much greater accomplishment and a more readable novel. I don't like books that focus on the lives of a whole family but spends so little time with each character that you don't connect. This was how this novel felt to me and whilst I found the story of Sri Lanka moving the whole thing felt at arms length due to pacing and structure.

[Nilu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vasugi Ganeshananthan is a U S Citizen born to Sri Lankan Tamil parents.
Love Marriage is her debut novel which reads like memoir.

My primary reason for picking up this book was the fact that I wanted to read her second novel ‘Brotherless Night’ !
I wanted to read this to get to know her writing style and her stance on Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict.

There were many parts of this book that I really liked. Especially when reading about the characters who lived in Jaffna during the 60’s , 70’s and 80’s.

There were some parts of the book that confused me, since the main character Yalini was also going through a phase of an identity crisis.

It’s difficult to summarize the story, since it’s not just a single story.

But, what stood out was the feelings of folks who had to leave Sri Lanka due to the decades long War.

I’m not sure how my other book worm friends would feel about this book if they ever read it.

I’d invite them to read it with an open mind if they decide to pick it up at any point.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully written and well-researched story set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan civil war. The title's a little misleading—the novel isn't primarily about love, or even marriage. It's more about family, loyalty, tradition, and identity, and how these messy concepts get even messier and more nuanced when examined across cultures, generations, and wars.

Not quite as good as Brotherless Night, but that's a high bar. My main difficulty was remembering all the characters. The family tree helped a lot, but I could have done with a more comprehensive list.

[Ms. Online]

TIGER BURNING BRIGHT
Gail Tsukiyama

A Review of Love Marriage
By V.V. Ganeshananthan
Random House

IN SPARE, LYRICAL PROSE, V.V. Ganeshananthan’s debut novel tells the story of two Sri Lankan Tamil families over four generations who, despite civil war and displacement, are irrevocably joined by marriage and tradition. At the heart of the story is American-born Yalini, 22, the only child of Tamil immigrants. Her father eventually becomes a doctor, her mother a teacher; they make their new life in the United States.
Even so, Yalini feels bound to “the laws of ancestry and society.”

Born during “Black July” of 1983, the beginning of the civil war between the Tamil and Sinhalese, Yalini is haunted by Sri Lanka’s political turmoil, caught between the political and social traditions of her ancestors
and the modern world in which she lives. She can’t forget that in a Sri Lankan family there are only two ways to wed, in an Arranged Marriage or a Love Marriage, even though she
knows that “in reality, there is a whole spectrum in between, but most of us
spend years running away from the first toward the second.”

Uncertain what to do with her life, Yalini takes time off from school and travels to Toronto to help her parents care for her dying Uncle Kumaran, her mother’s older brother, who immigrated to Canada. He was once a militant Tamil Tiger rebel who killed many people, including other Tamils, and seeing him brings Yalini face to face with the political strife in Sri Lanka. With him is his 18-year-old daughter, Jenani, who has chosen to marry a Tamil operative in Toronto and continue the struggle for a Sri Lankan separatist state. While Jenani is determined in her beliefs and goals, Yalini still struggles to find her way.

Through conversations with her uncle and parents, Yalini transcribes the many stories of her family and their political allegiances through each generation of marriage. Doing so, she begins to understand the spectrum that fills the void between Arranged Marriage and Love Marriage. She learns of her Uncle Neelan, who espoused the “enemy,” a Sinhalese girl who protected him when the Sinhalese-Tamil riots began; of her Great-Aunt Harini, who was abused in a marriage to a “wrong” man; of her Aunt Uma, who was too “special” to get married. Above all, it’s her Uncle Kumaran, who found love “under the strain of politics,” who helps her see that she can only “cure the future by knowing the past.”

Love Marriage covers the decades of these family stories in brief vignettes, a style that can feel fragmented and cause some character confusion. Still, this is a minor complaint about an otherwise powerful story. Ganeshananthan shows us that most of us live in the “whole spectrum in between.” While Yalini may or may not find a love marriage, it’s in understanding her family history that she’s finally free to choose.

---
GAIL TSUKIYAMA’s latest novel, The
Street of a Thousand Blossoms (St.
Martin’s Press), will be out in paperback
in August 2008.

[Writerlibrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of a family of the Tamoul diaspora through the eyes of a daughter trying to make sense of her life, her parents and her origins. This is a classic for a first novel, the quest for where we came from and trying to figure out where we are and where we are going. I didn't know much about Sri Lanka history, the Tamoul, the social upheavals, etc.

It's also about someone not fitting into the country where she is born and not really connected to the place people assume she is from. The best part is the disconnection and the sorrow of the narrator who is very much aware of her not fitting in. Not American but raised the American way and removed from her family traditions, even beliefs.

It's interesting, compelling, it has a voice, a flow for the reader to grab on to and be let through the lives of people, in my case, that I wanted to learn more about. As far as first novels go, it's a good one. It has problems : the structure of the narration doesn't always work, I got annoyed at the flashback but not really flashback trick really fast. But overall I enjoyed it.

[Ming · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant and amazing read. The author crafts an engaging story; others have described it here. I, however, will speak to the writing. V.V. has taken seemingly ordinary English words and placed them in a blend that is musical and poetic. Her sentences and paragraphs had me in awe and delight. There are no tricks or contortions. Simple words have been masterfully put together. They conveyed perspective, emotionally tugging and creating a mental surprise. There was dynamic tension and soothing revelation. V.V. kept up this efficient but consistent pace throughout the book. I finished the book last night and felt as if I lost a friend. The rhythm of the writing echoed in me and left me satisfied and wanting more. I highly recommend this book.

[Sharanja · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the book was great. It's one of the only books out there that tells the reader what it's like to be a second generation Tamil, born in a foreign country, and yet still having to face the struggles of their parents' birthplace. The story is comprised of various "short stories" concerning a variety of characters, so I think there's something in it for everyone. Honestly, it's just a good book!

[Lakshumie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

Reading 2 V.V. Ganeshananthan books back to back, with them both focusing on the Sri Lankan Genocide - why did I do that? This was less difficult of a read than Brotherless Nights, it’s still hard to process but I felt more connected to the story, finding myself relating to Yalini a bit more (born in the a western country from parents who left SL)!

I really enjoyed the way this book was written, weaving through the stories and experiences of different family members and what that meant for marriage and how the war impacted them.

Would recommend!

[Hebe Willekens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative about Tamil culture but it became repetitive at some point.

[amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow i really loved this book. it was kind of a surreal book to read because most of the books that I have read by Sri Lankan authors haven't been diasporic authors or just haven't focused on the experience of being a first/second-gen kid which is probably why this book resonated with me so much in a very specific way. it also just felt deeply surreal reading this book and understanding how this book represents the way in which Yalini traced her history and background in order to better understand herself only to end up still not really being able to understand herself or even have any definitive answers in the end. that was so insane to read because i feel like that is what i have been trying to do for most of my life and i really appreciate how this book doesn't fall into the trap of providing any easy answers and emphasizes that history (family history specifically) can't properly be spun into a narrative and that there are conflicting stories and narratives but how they come together (through marriage specifically) informs the next generation.

at first i found the structure of the narrative a little bit frustrating specifically the way in which it would spend a few pages on yalini's uncle but then quickly jump back in time to focus on the stories of her great grandparents but after reading the book in its entirety it i feel like i have a much stronger appreciation for its structure because it refuses to play into proper narrative stuctures that constitute a definitive "beginning, middle, or end". the structure makes it as though you are discovering this history with yalini for the first time and as you go deeper and deeper into the book you understand her actions and her parents actions as the culmination of the past history that yalini is so desperate to learn about. i really liked that at the end there's the scene where yalini's mom is resistant to her fixation upon the past to which she responds by saying, "They do not understand this: history. Cure the future by knowing the past.” i thought that was so beautiful and exemplified the thematic center of the book itself. as someone who has spent most of her life wanting to do what yalini did in this novel it felt like i was going through the history with her which i thought was so powerful.

“ As long as you don't try to build any meaning or unity into it. I'll try to stop myself. He laughs. That would be a construction, he says. The reality is always more complex.” --> this quote also encapsulated these ideas rlly well.

i also really appreciated the depiction of the history and yalini's conflict with kumaran and the ltte and their connections in scarborough. (crazy that i will be visiting the same places that she stays in the book in a week wow lol) i appreciated the way in which Ganeshananthan allows yalini to remain in conflict about her uncle's involvement in the ltte throughout the book by emphasizing the empathy and love that she can give to her uncle but also the way in which she remains conflicted over his threats to her father and his involvement in targeted bombings and killings. something that i appreciated about this book was its depictions of resistance as not something that just arises out of a desire of "violence" but rather lays out the history of kumaran's radicalization through his education in jaffna and the multiple times that he is almost murdered and kidnapped by sinhalese soldiers. his character was so interesting to me and the parallels to him and yalini's father was so interesting.

“The cats are smaller. Of course in the end they will lose. They will die. But they will do everything they can to hurt the dog before they are killed. They will do as much damage as possible. This is what the Tigers are doing.” --> this was a rlly interesting analogy.

this book also made me think about my own family a lot and i was really thinking about how important doctors are in this book and in the context of the sri lankan family in general. at the end of the book yalini says that she was come from a long line of sri lankan doctors which i have as well. the way i grew up i had always been taught the biggest sacrifice and honor that you can have is to take care of your family and be able to nurse them in bad health which is what yalini's mother does for kumaran despite him having disappeared for decades. this book made me think about the idea of communal support and living and how deeply that is integrated into south asian families, but specifically how sri lankan tamil communities within the diaspora embody this within the diasporic community in scarborough. and the way that medicine is an act of care that binds the community together was so beautiful to me. i also found it interesting that both yalini and her father to a certain extent were radicalized through this act of taking care of others and why being able to do so is so important within sri lankan communities. also just thinking about in the context of my own family history the idea that medicine and care as such a radicalizing act is so cool lol.

“I realize that in the Western world, doctors don't care for the members of our families, he said to me. But perhaps you are now realizing that you do not live in an entirely Western world. As a Sri Lankan doctor, I constantly take care of my family. Other Sri Lankans. They ask it of us—they expect it of us.”

also it was very cool to read this book in tandem with thinking about my own family history in general. the medical school yalini's father studied in was the same one that my own grandfather did and the boarding school in jaffna is the same one that my grandfather studied in as well, again it was kind of surreal that by reading a book about family history i got a window into my own.

this review is so long lol but here's quotes i rlly loved:
“ tea in a broken cup—a small but unspeakable rudeness in a country where all hospitality and love begins with tea.”

“They walked out of their country to give us opportunity, but this was not the opportunity they intended us to take: American Marriage. We live by our own wits, our own hearts, and our own histories; there is no other way to survive here, and so we have learned to love people who do not worship our gods, eat our food, or share our blood. Our children are children of two races, sometimes of two religions, often of three countries.”

“None of the stories will be absolutely complete, but their tellers will be absolutely certain. This is how we make war.”

“But the imagination of a family can be as real as its history. Let me be clear: I am only one person. In mapping a family we draw blood from each other. I enter my family as I would a dream—with great caution and wonder”

[shilpa]

read this in one go 😮‍💨 but whether that is because it’s good or because it’s broken up into bite size chunks… is something you must find out for yourself

[Bente · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een goed boek, en goed dat het geschreven is. Er staat geen woord te veel in. Het verhaal is ongepolijst, geschreven zoals het is. Zonder dat het expliciet benoemd wordt, voel je de worstelingen van Yalini, opgegroeid in Amerika, ver weg van een oorlog waar ze uiteindelijk niet aan kan ontkomen. Je voelt haar ongemak terwijl ze zich beweegt tussen twee werelden. Onzeker en toch vastberaden om te weten, te begrijpen, om zich uit te spreken. In vergelijking met Brotherless Night laat dit verhaal zich minder makkelijk lezen. De sprongen door de tijd en tussen de verschillende familieleden van Yalini maken het wat fragmentarisch.

[Thisuri · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I reach inside and twist my Heart, my lungs. I turn myself inside out and find that I am a person of color even inside. Some people would try to put a name to that color, to call it the name of a tree or a spice. I hate very little, but this is a thing that I hate. I cannot do this. I cannot name my own color.”

“Murali looked around the room (…) and realized how alone he was in this roomful of friends. Their faces were full of sympathy, but they did not understand who he was. They never would.”

Without any doubt, my favourite favourite author at the moment - if not ever.
Tearful eyes throughout the whole book!

[Petcu Mihaela]

"Am învățat că, în unele zile, întunericul este de nepătruns. Viețile noastre încep fără fanfară și încheie fără avertisment."

[Asvini · Rating 3 out of 5]

i felt like home reading this

[Martina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Blake Fraina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book nearly six years ago and have had a great deal of difficulty getting a handle on the overarching theme. I will admit that, if nothing else, it educated me about the political unrest in Sri Lanka that has been ongoing for over thirty years. A fact most Westerners seem to be blissfully unaware of. I was able to learn more about the Tamil Tigers, the militant Sri Lankan rebel group, about whom I had only minimal knowledge based on my familiarity with the Sri Lankan hip-hop artist M.I.A.

Basically, it’s the story of Yalini, the American-born daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants (who are the “love marriage” couple of the book’s title). When her dying uncle, a Tamil Tiger rebel, comes to Toronto to live out his final days, she takes time off school to help care for him. Through conversations with him, his militant daughter Jenani, as well as her parents, she learns the history of her family and their war-torn nation.

The family stories are told as short vignettes, almost like fables. Through these tales Yalini sees that there are many different types of unions, not merely a “Love Marriage” or an “Arranged Marriage.” There is the Outside Marriage, the Cousin Marriage, the Self-Arranged Marriage, the Marriage without Consent, Marriage under Pressure and Marrying the Enemy. Both Yalini and the reader begin to understand that, in life, things are never merely one thing or another. There are many shades of grey in between. While reading of these various unions, I couldn’t help but wonder if the author wasn’t trying to comprehend the seemingly irreconcilable relationship between the Tamils and Sinhalese (who control government and its oppressive regime).

Ganeshananthan is an effective story-teller. I found the individual family vignettes enlightening, sometimes humorous and other times profoundly moving. Her characters are well-fleshed out and sympathetic. But most importantly, she demonstrates that life is complex and there’s more than one side to every story; one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

It just depends on your point of view.

[Kazen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lyric telling of one family's Tamil diaspora experience. Ganeshananthan does a wonderful job following the lives of varied family members before, during, and after the 1983 "Black July" riots. There's a family tree in the first few pages but you won't need it - she lovingly details each person and drops hints just when you need them.

This book really spoke to me as my college roommate of two years was Tamil and I could see a lot of her family in the narrative. They also fled Sri Lanka and started a new life in Canada. They may or may not have had ties to the Tamil Tigers (I could only guess). Well-meaning relatives kept setting her up with "nice Tamil boys" whenever she was home from college, trying for the oh-so-desirable Proper Marriage. And much like Yalini's friend I was cut loose once she moved on. (I miss ya, B.)

Reading about this family's journey filled in so many gaps in my knowledge about Sri Lanka and would be an excellent introduction to the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict for anyone. I love that Ganeshananthan embraces the complex nature of the war, emphasizing that everyone did what they thought was right even though the definition of "right" was different for every person. Yalini spends a lot of time and energy coming to terms with her Uncle's affiliation with the Tigers and what it means for her soon-to-be-married cousin. How, even though they are so closely related by blood, their circumstances led them to be very different people.

The language throughout is lyric and flowing. I marked some passages because they're beautiful and others because they're simply true.

"It would be false to say that there is a beginning to the story, or a middle, or an end. Those words have a tidiness that does not belong here. Our lives are not clean. They begin without fanfare and end without warning. This story does not have a defined shape or a pleasant arc. To record it differently would not be true."

I absolutely loved this book and am so glad that I read it. I feel like a (slightly) better person, a bit more knowledgeable about the world and the struggles that many have gone (and continue to go) through.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3 1/2 stars)

Love Marriage was certainly a solid first novel. Ganeshananthan explores not only the life of a young Sri Lankan woman living in America, but also the lives of several generations of her family and the history of her country.

One thing I enjoyed about this novel was the structure. Ganeshananthan focuses each section on a certain character and their ancestors, so that the reader discovers much more about them. All of this background (which is detailed, but not overwhelming) builds up to great character development. Her attention to detail and ability to create such a diverse cast of characters is impressive. Each section is like a vignette, and to see how they all tie together to become part of who the narrator is is fantastic.

This novel also taught me a great deal about Sri Lanka and the customs of its people. I knew very little about the country before picking it up, and I enjoyed learning so much. The descriptions of marriage and funeral rituals were especially well-written and interesting.

I did feel a bit let down by the ending of the novel. I anticipated something much more climactic. I was also a little thrown off by a section close to the end where the narrator (Yalini) tells the reader about her body image, etc...I felt like it came too late in the novel. Her character was already so well developed, and there was very little sense that she was so obsessive about some of things she mentions in this section - it was like a curveball that forced me to reevaluate what I knew of her as a character. If this section was moved up to an earlier point in the novel it would make much more sense structurally and in terms of character development.

Overall, a very intriguing and informative read. I would definitely recommend it.

*Review of ARC

[Reema · Rating 4 out of 5]

subtle, moving, sharply perceptive debut novel about a sri lankan/american family's coming to terms with the cost of sri lanka's war. loved the clean, unfussy language, the complex weaving of various family narratives, the hard-eyed look at the unending reach of war, and the funny/compassionate/complex take on the blurry line between love marriage and arranged marriage. while this was a political novel in that it engaged very seriously with the presence of explosive political events in very private arenas, the story was committed to speaking primarily through an artist's (rather than activist's) voice. i appreciated this commitment--that the artist's own nuanced take on events was presented, that this take could complicate as well as interrogate the activist's rendering of the same story, that the reader is led into understanding characters through complex emotions and choices rather than relying on a largely socio-political lens. which is often how international/diasporic/refugee communities are portrayed. in this way, the truest, highest cost of the war becomes very real--the enormous demands it makes on individual daily lives, literally and emotionally. also, as a south asian diasporic reader/writer, it was delightfully familiar and touching to see concrete details that resonated. like the tea ritual, the quiet gestures, south asian immigrant pressures, etc. there's so much to admire about this book, craft-wise, that i'll definitely be returning to it.

[Christa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting novel written from the perspective of a young girl who was born in America of Sri Lankan parents. The main character, Yalini, is the only child of parents who met after they each left Sri Lanka and settled in the United States. The book is written in very short chapters that make it easy and quick to read. The title of the book refers to the marriages of most people of Sri Lanka - the Arranged Marriage and its opposite, The Love Marriage, and all of the variations and in betweens. The novel tells the story of Yalini's family. The reader learns about her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and some great grandparents and the types of marriage they underwent. The country her family loves has been torn apart by war, and Yalini herself is torn between the traditions of the home of her birth in America and the Sri Lanka of her parents that she will never really know. Yalini must come to terms with an uncle who was part of a group identified as terrorists. She becomes familiar with this uncle, and then helps to care for him as he dies. As Yalini becomes a young woman, she must decide what she believes about herself, her family, and her heritage.

[Camille Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would not have finished this book if I hadn't been reading it for a review. Here is the LibraryThing Early Reviewer Review I wrote:
This book explores the story of a family across time, geography, and culture. It is told from the perspective of the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants, Yalini, who struggles with what it means to exist in two cultural worlds.

The book is full of historical information about the Tamil Tigers and the political history of Sri Lanka. Unfortunately this historical information is not balanced with enough narrative to make it truly compelling.

Because the stories of many different members of the family are told throughout the novel, it is hard to get attached to any character. Yalini's voice is drowned out as she relates historical events and tells the stories of relatives she's never even met.

For a work dealing with Sri Lankan history and culture, I much prefer "Anil's Ghost" by Michael Ondaatje.

[Zenia · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I had a like/dislike feeling (love/hate was too strong) for this book. Parts of it were really great and well written and had me intrigued. Other parts were either annoyingly written in terms of a repetitive style or seemed out of place in the book or were just off the wall. As such, the book didn't come together as well as it could have. That all being said, I appreciated having the chance to read this story and hear this tale ... I haven't had much of a chance to learn more in depth about the politics in Sri Lanka and so this was an interesting take. Would haev prefered to have given this 2.5 stars.

[Sameen Farouk · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm about half way through.

This book is really infuriating. The narrative is so self-absorbed and
characters flit in and out, some more gory than others. What ends up happening is that each "chapter" is hit and miss.

The writing style is like that of a blog. Long entries, short entries. In fact, if it was a blog, it would be so compelling. But its a novel and as a result the style jars along. The story, stops and starts.

Perhaps it was written for the Tamil diaspora. I think it would annoy Sinhalese readers a bit as it covers the controversy of the civil war. However, I think there are better accounts of contemporary South Asia.

[Ffiamma · Rating 2 out of 5]

letto solo perché tra poco partirò per sri lanka e cercavo romanzi ambientati in questo paese. l'idea sarebbe quella di raccontare la travagliata storia del paese- sconvolto per tanti anni da una feroce guerra civile e di far rivivere, in qualche maniera, le tradizioni che resistono all'immigrazione attraverso la storia di una famiglia di espatriati tamil. tuttavia, nonostante la mole del romanzo, tutto resta abbastanza in superficie e si riduce a storie di matrimoni (falliti, riusciti, mancati, felici, drammatici- e infatti il titolo originale è il più pertinente "love marriage") condite con un pizzico di esotismo, che relegano nell'ombra la storia, la politica, le tigri tamil. peccato.

[Baljit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absorbing and poetic.....just wish I could have read this without too many interruptions. The writer takes us through the many characters of an extended family, all originating in Jaffna, Ceylon, and now scattered across the globe. Their lives were entwined with the violence and atrocities of the civil war of Ceylon and some of them made difficult choices.