Seven Moons of Maali Almeida: One of the Few Books I Couldn't Finish

  

When I started this exercise some weeks ago, I intended to talk about books I didn't like, as well as ones I did.  This is not supposed to be a place to do nothing but boost books, becaues there are some  out there that don't deserve a boost, in my opinion.  So this time it's the turn of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Kuranatilaka.  The book was one of the New York Time's 100 Notable Books of 2022 and was on NPR's  Books We Loved list  in 2022.  What is more one of the particpants in the book discussion group I was leading at the time was extremely enthusiastic about it.  "It's so funny," she said. 

 

I didn't think so!

 

Here's the Goodreads resumé:

"Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet queen, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka."

 

Ordinarily I'm not bothered by a book which  begins with mysteries, where you aren't sure at all where the author is leading you, where you have to figure out what the main themes are, what the drama will be.  But this one made very little sense to me, and I found much of what was happening in the first chapters extremelyi distasteful.  Perhaps I'm too bound the culture I live in to appreciate the irony, to enjoy the satire. Whatever, this is one of the rare books I had to put aside.  One of my rules is to  give the author at least  50 pages to show me what he or she is doing, so I kept reading until I'd passed that landmark. But then I returned it to the library, glad I hadn't bought it.

 

Needless to say, I didn't put the book on the roster of the book club that season even though that one member (whose opinion I usually agreed with) urged me to.  However, I would love to hear from anyone else who found the book a good read: please give me your reasons.