Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A powerful and tender new novel, 12 Mar 2007
I bought this book because I already knew and loved the author's work as a painter, and was curious to see what her fiction would be like. I was not disappointed. The artist is evident in the way that Roma Tearne's writing evokes a sense of place, making you feel that you have visited Sri Lanka yourself. You feel the heat, hear sound of the sea and monsoon rain and sense and smell the fruits and flowers. However, what was new and exiting for me was the strength of the narrative. The book skillfully interweaves tender and beautiful love stories through a powerful telling of the desperate and senseless violence and human exploitation that is civil war. The book does not shrink from showing us the horror of bombings and torture, but at no time are the descriptions merely there to shock: she knows exactly when to stop and when less is more. Ultimately though, Mosquito is a story that inspires hope, achieved through moving and unsentimental stories of love: the hero Theo's love for Anna his dead wife and for the young Sri Lankan girl Nulani, the love of the housekeeper for Theo and Nulani, and the love between Theo's oldest friends, whose relationship is tested to the core by the dark events of the civil war. I couldn't put it down, and thoroughly recommend it.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A teardrop in the ocean, 13 Mar 2007
The blurb on the back says Roma Tearne is an artist. I might have guessed, because this book is an assault on the senses - the thin whine of swarming mosquitoes, night flowers blooming in ghostly clusters, smells of coconut and linseed oil, of hot steam and rainy morning breakfast. Tearne has the deftest way of capturing an image and giving it her own wry twist:
'It was a useless house really, everything was broken or badly mended, everything was covered in fine sea sand, caked in old sweat and unhappiness.'
So what is Mosquito about? It's a love story and it's set in Sri Lanka. A middle-aged English writer falls for a local girl, who flits in and out of his life in much the same way as the iridescent butterflies. He can't quite keep a hold of her. And then there is the rival - a boy of her own age with a complicated past. For Sri Lanka is a complicated country, torn by war and the scars of that war. Tearne is a story teller - she's not out to make political points - but the war does intrude, it brings menace and bitterness and ultimately, violence.
Tearne's writing is so achingly vivid, it's hard to believe that she left Sri Lanka when she was only ten years old. It's equally hard to believe this is her first novel. It was a joy to read - and I hope she's writing another.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why you should read Mosquito by Roma Tearne, 19 Mar 2007
This is a truly remarkable first novel. In it Roma Tearne has managed
to combine a fast moving and exciting story with the most splendid
evocation of tropical Sri Lanka in the context of a war which is as
relevant today as it was several years ago. The story powerfully
gripping, and few people will be able to put it down once they begin
it. The narrative builds slowly and lyrically at first but then
starts to move along with and almost vertiginous speed producing
surprising and arresting twists and turns. The story is set mainly in
the author's native Sri Lanka, with its dense, wet forests, its long
open beaches, its turquoise seas and its vividly coloured plants. The
characters pass their life in what should be an Edenic world but the
shadow of war falls across the land as it falls, too, across the
lives of the characters. Without warning this fertile and burgeoning
world is split open and the exotic idyll is disturbed in the most
violent and unexpected way. The conflict is, of course, the same one
which breeds death and destruction in Sri Lanka today, the civil war
which broke out between the Tamils and the Singhalese after the
withdrawal of British rule in 1945. According to the book jacket it
was this struggle which forced author's parents to flee the island in
the 1960s, and the incidents have clearly made an indelible
impression on the child's imagination.
The dominant impression of reading this book involves light and
colour, of shade, of dark and of half-light. For many years Roma
Tearne has been a painter and her sensitivity to the subtle nuances
of colour makes itself felt on every page. It was this aspect of the
writing which is most impressive. Roma Tearne's command of language
is economic, flexible and vivid. This is not a book that that has
been written in haste. Every sentence has been weighed not just for
its sense, but for its rhythm, its stresses and for the nuance of
each word that goes to make it up. The pleasures for the reader of
'Mosquito' are enormous and though the ending moved me to tears, I
still did not want the story to end.
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