Chinaman
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Review
`this is the only bit of cricket fiction I have read that has serious ambitions and that carries real weight ... a mixture of, say, CLR James, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Fernando Pessoa and Sri Lankan arrack ... the Sri Lankan cricket team are on their way to this country to play three Tests and fine one-day internationals ... I hope, dear reader, that you enjoy it, and that you enjoy Chinaman as well. Both experiences are essential to anyone with a taste for maverick genius'
--Times, Simon Barnes
`The strength of the book lies in its energy, its mixture of humour and heartwrenching emotion, its twisting narrative, its playful use of cricketing facts and characters, and its occasional blazing anger about what Sri Lanka has done to itself ... if the sweetest sound you've ever heard is leather on willow, if some of the most exciting moments of your life have consisted of watching a five-day match end in a draw, if the most important question around the partition of the subcontinent is "who would have made it into Undivided India's cricket team in any era?", if your mind keeps returning to that one extraordinary spell by a bowler (say, Mohammad Zahid to Brian Lara at the Gabba, 1997) ... then this book could be the best thing to happen to your life since the Ashes/World Cup/away series win against the best team in the world' --Guardian
`Karunatilaka has a real lightness of touch. He mixes humour and violence with the same deftness with which his protagonist mixes drinks ...What is most remarkable about this novel... is how fact and fiction are manipulated ... is a great novel, and it is most certainly Sri Lankan.' --Observer, Tishani Doshi
`A Great Cricket Novel. For a game without much great fiction, that's a reason to applaud with drums - and forget the rules the marshals impose at Lord's.' --Independent, Salil Tripathi
`It's funny and original, extremely revealing about Sri Lanka, and as for the cricket, in the author's own words: "If you can't understand why anyone would watch, let alone obsess over this dull game, then this is the book for you." Brilliant.' --The Times, Kate Saunders
`At an early stage, I will confess that I was very close to typing `Pradeep Mathew Cricinfo' into Google just to check whether there was indeed a Sri Lankan cricketer of that name ... that may be a recommendation of the book; it may be a condemnation. But I have always had a soft spot for Sri Lankan cricket." --Daily Telegraph, Steve James
`Chinaman's free-wheeling, zany tempo is part of its charm too. Its picaresque action, mainly based in Colombo and narrated in short bite-sized chunks, gives a vibrant comic pulse to Sri Lankan life, even though Karunatilaka's portrait of the country is scathing ... it confirms that cricket, a game that is largely played in the head and inhabits a bizarrely detailed parallel world to our own, is ideally suited to the purposes of fiction.'
--Financial Times, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney
`Chinaman is a debut bristling with energy and confidence, a quixotic novel that is both an elegy to lost ambitions and a paean to madcap dreams.'
--Sunday Times, Adam Lively
`A hugely entertaining read.'
--South Wales Echo
`A hugely entertaining read.' --South Wales Echo
`confident and poignant debut.' --The Sunday Times
`A devastatingly limber, comic, cricket-themed piece of social satire. It is simply a great novel. It is also a deliciously moreish treat, a flushing out of all those furtively tended obsessions with the game's history, culture, statistics and privately cherished player-crushes'
--Wisden Cricketer, Barney Ronay, January 2012
--Times, Simon Barnes
`The strength of the book lies in its energy, its mixture of humour and heartwrenching emotion, its twisting narrative, its playful use of cricketing facts and characters, and its occasional blazing anger about what Sri Lanka has done to itself ... if the sweetest sound you've ever heard is leather on willow, if some of the most exciting moments of your life have consisted of watching a five-day match end in a draw, if the most important question around the partition of the subcontinent is "who would have made it into Undivided India's cricket team in any era?", if your mind keeps returning to that one extraordinary spell by a bowler (say, Mohammad Zahid to Brian Lara at the Gabba, 1997) ... then this book could be the best thing to happen to your life since the Ashes/World Cup/away series win against the best team in the world' --Guardian
`Karunatilaka has a real lightness of touch. He mixes humour and violence with the same deftness with which his protagonist mixes drinks ...What is most remarkable about this novel... is how fact and fiction are manipulated ... is a great novel, and it is most certainly Sri Lankan.' --Observer, Tishani Doshi
`A Great Cricket Novel. For a game without much great fiction, that's a reason to applaud with drums - and forget the rules the marshals impose at Lord's.' --Independent, Salil Tripathi
`It's funny and original, extremely revealing about Sri Lanka, and as for the cricket, in the author's own words: "If you can't understand why anyone would watch, let alone obsess over this dull game, then this is the book for you." Brilliant.' --The Times, Kate Saunders
`At an early stage, I will confess that I was very close to typing `Pradeep Mathew Cricinfo' into Google just to check whether there was indeed a Sri Lankan cricketer of that name ... that may be a recommendation of the book; it may be a condemnation. But I have always had a soft spot for Sri Lankan cricket." --Daily Telegraph, Steve James
`Chinaman's free-wheeling, zany tempo is part of its charm too. Its picaresque action, mainly based in Colombo and narrated in short bite-sized chunks, gives a vibrant comic pulse to Sri Lankan life, even though Karunatilaka's portrait of the country is scathing ... it confirms that cricket, a game that is largely played in the head and inhabits a bizarrely detailed parallel world to our own, is ideally suited to the purposes of fiction.'
--Financial Times, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney
`Chinaman is a debut bristling with energy and confidence, a quixotic novel that is both an elegy to lost ambitions and a paean to madcap dreams.'
--Sunday Times, Adam Lively
`A hugely entertaining read.'
--South Wales Echo
`A hugely entertaining read.' --South Wales Echo
`confident and poignant debut.' --The Sunday Times
`A devastatingly limber, comic, cricket-themed piece of social satire. It is simply a great novel. It is also a deliciously moreish treat, a flushing out of all those furtively tended obsessions with the game's history, culture, statistics and privately cherished player-crushes'
--Wisden Cricketer, Barney Ronay, January 2012
Book Description
One of the most acclaimed debuts of the year - a rumbustuous, brilliant novel about Sri Lanka, cricket and the search for a legendary sportsman
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is an outstanding novel - one that puts a Sri Lankan author, for the first time, on a level with the best contemporary Indian writers. It is ostensibly about cricket - indeed is about cricket - but you don't need to share the author's obsession with his country's national sport to respond to his absorbing shaggy-dog story of the legendary "Chinaman" bowler, Pradeep Matthew. This is a book with a flawless ear for language and one that evokes the whole character of Sri Lanka, its dire politics and blighted history, and yet is drenched in affection for the island. Not that you need have any previous interest in Sri Lanka, any more than cricket. To describe it as "the great Sri Lankan novel" - as the publishers do - is something of an understatement. It's one of the best novels you'll read - any time, and from any country.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a gem!
In many ways this book approaches the level of Shane Warne to Mike Gatting - the greatest ball ever bowled. The book gives the reader a wonderful insight into the workings of Sri Lankan society and it is done with a wonderful affection and love. The references to cricket are everywhere and a love of that game certainly enhances the pleasure from the book.
It is a great story with a brilliant unexpected ending. What a shame someone called stumps and it all had to end.
In many ways this book approaches the level of Shane Warne to Mike Gatting - the greatest ball ever bowled. The book gives the reader a wonderful insight into the workings of Sri Lankan society and it is done with a wonderful affection and love. The references to cricket are everywhere and a love of that game certainly enhances the pleasure from the book.
It is a great story with a brilliant unexpected ending. What a shame someone called stumps and it all had to end.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
'Chinaman' is a very well written piece of prose which manages to maintain the fine balance between being a book about sport (cricket) and a story about one mans passion. The handy descriptions provided by the author make the book an interesting read even for non-cricket fans / followers.
While the book is a piece of fiction, there are several parts where the author manages to provide a very authentic backdrop which doubles as a commentary of a Sri Lanka at odds with itself. Descriptions of the 1996 World Cup victory, the loss in 1992 against Australia, the finger wagging defiance of Arjuna Ranatunga against Ross Emerson, the Murali chucking controversy etc provide an almost documentary / non-fiction kind of a feel and provide a window into the mind of a Sri Lankan cricket fan. While the author has, in parts, also focused on other parts of the Sri Lankan reality, like the long drawn civil war, the emphasis quickly returns to cricket, which remains the essense of the story.
I was very skeptical about how Mr Karunatilake would end the book, however, he laid all my apprehensions to rest with a well thought out conclusion apt for the complex twists and turns of the story.
My only criticism of the book is that in certain parts Mr Karunatilake slips into utilizing fairly unbelievable co-incidences to move the story forward and it seems like he was at a loss of ideas at those stages in the story. However, such instances are not more than a couple and as such do little to dampen the rest of the book.
All in all, a good read, and a welcome to Mr Karunatilake to the group of excellant South Asian writers.
While the book is a piece of fiction, there are several parts where the author manages to provide a very authentic backdrop which doubles as a commentary of a Sri Lanka at odds with itself. Descriptions of the 1996 World Cup victory, the loss in 1992 against Australia, the finger wagging defiance of Arjuna Ranatunga against Ross Emerson, the Murali chucking controversy etc provide an almost documentary / non-fiction kind of a feel and provide a window into the mind of a Sri Lankan cricket fan. While the author has, in parts, also focused on other parts of the Sri Lankan reality, like the long drawn civil war, the emphasis quickly returns to cricket, which remains the essense of the story.
I was very skeptical about how Mr Karunatilake would end the book, however, he laid all my apprehensions to rest with a well thought out conclusion apt for the complex twists and turns of the story.
My only criticism of the book is that in certain parts Mr Karunatilake slips into utilizing fairly unbelievable co-incidences to move the story forward and it seems like he was at a loss of ideas at those stages in the story. However, such instances are not more than a couple and as such do little to dampen the rest of the book.
All in all, a good read, and a welcome to Mr Karunatilake to the group of excellant South Asian writers.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Superb
I really enjoyed this book. Having an interest in cricket and in Sri Lanka is helpful but not essential if you want to enjoy this quirky and sometimes moving tale, recounted by an... Read more
Published 3 months ago by PD
A complete unexpected gem
This book is funny, heartwarming, full of awesome characters, requires no knowledge of cricket, but cricketers will clearly love it too, and has an lovely little ending that ties... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Whitechild76
Disappointing - failed to grip me
I love cricket and I love reading. Unfortunately Chinaman never hooked me and so after completing half of it, I gave up. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Jonathan Hemus
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