Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka [Hardcover]

This is an intriguing but uneven saga of an American professor's sojurn in Sri Lanka -- or rather, her two sojurns, one teaching as a Fulbright fellow to college students in the mountains near Kandy; another, two years later, as she returns to investigate what has happened to the 'pearl' of Southeast Asia in the wake of the tsunami.

It's a beautifully written and intriguing look at the divided country that is Sri Lanka -- hence the 3.5-star rating (which I've rounded up to 4 stars). But it never really transcends the "foreigner traveling through a strange and exotic land and writing about their experiences" genre, any more than the 19th century sagas by the British colonial officers that Barker reads and cites in the pages of this book did. At least Barker acknowledges the difficulty or impossibility of ever being more than a part of the culture, and she is certainly conscious of the all the ironies of Western relationships with the Tamils and Sinhalese communities. Aid agencies full of goodwill provide tsunami survivors with replacement fishing boats, but no nets, and no homes. The tourist areas are rapidly rebuilt; those that no tourist will ever see are left until last.

Barker's book covers a lot of ground, and will be of interest to those with a casual interest in Sri Lanka or looking for a basic overview of the country and its political, economic and social dilemmas. What is missing, however, is what transforms a memoir into something more important or significant -- an overarching theme. For instance, Emma Larkin (I believe, a pseudonym) wrote a fascinating book about following George Orwell's tracks through modern-day Burma. Given the themes that Orwell explored in his own writings, and the issues that dominate Burma/Myanmar today, that made for a brilliant work of reportage, one that gave to the writer's ruminations, random encounters and observations an overarching theme. That's missing here, and its absence nagged at me even while I enjoyed Barker's observations about such disparate topics as the difficulty of pronouncing Sinhalese, her battles with the ants, being a visible foreigner, and elephants.

Throughout the book, I kept wishing for more -- a theme, a unifying message, some kind of purpose to the book that would explain what Barker wanted to convey beyond simply -- here's an interesting place that you may only have heard about because of the tsunami. Why did Barker travel to Sri Lanka in particular -- was it a random choice by the Fulbright folks, or her choice? Her brief discussions of teaching Russian literature and Emily Dickinson's poems to the wartorn Jaffna late in the book made me wish she had found a way to integrate her teaching and her students throughout the book; it would have been more interesting than some of the rest of the content. In other parts, the reporting is too heavy-handed and self-conscious, almost as if she is looking from the outside at herself as she talks to a priest who tracks rainfall levels, or Tamils in Colombo recalling the beginning of the country's sectarian violence. Nowhere is it clear WHY she is asking these questions. What is it that motivated her to write this book? Or did she just decide, wow, if I'm going to be in Sri Lanka, a country off the beaten track, I might as well do this?

This book works well as a primer; an introduction to Sri Lanka, and would probably be a great book for anyone contemplating a trip there, or looking for some basic information to add to a Lonely Planet guidebook -- and in that context, I'd recommend it, strongly. But while Barker has some some compelling stories about intriguing individuals, but always seemed to back away when the most compelling parts of the narrative. The memoir approach, to me, didn't work: the book ended up feeling to me as if it wasn't about the tsunami, or the war, or the Tamil/Sinhalese rift, but about the author's experience of them, thoughts about them, etc. Despite its thoughtfulness and moments of compelling prose, it's a book that can't seem to make up its mind whether it's intended to be a memoir, travelogue, or something else. I wanted to love it, but couldn't.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing EarlyReviewer program.

Less than a year ago, the Sri Lankan government announced that the 25 year old civil war with the Tamil Tigers was over. The end came after a horrific standoff on a tiny strip of land with civilians caught in the middle. After following the news that week in May of 2009, I felt compelled to learn more about the history of Sri Lanka and the war. My ignorance on the subject was complete: my only glimpse into the conflict coming from one of my favorite novels, Anil's Ghost, by Sri Lankan born Michael Ondaatje.

This memoir, Not Quite Paradise, begun while the author was a Fulbright Scholar in 2001 and finished after her second visit after the tsunami of 2004, was a gentle introduction to Sri Lankan culture and history. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book, which was about her year-long teaching stint in 2001. Her writing in this section was fluid and descriptive, with funny details that made me feel connected with her experience. The second half of the book is more tense in language and reflects her desire to get at the impact of the tsunami and the experience of people in northern Sri Lanka. Although her experiences in this half were still interesting, it was less first person and more journalistic in tone.

Adele Barker and her teenage son Noah spent a year in Sri Lanka where Adele taught literature at the University of Peradeniya in Kandy. In Not Quite Paradise, Adele discusses everything from the food and customs to the people she meets, and the civil war. After the tsunami, Adele returns once again to Sri Lanka and describes the horrible devastation. She also travels north to war-torn Jaffna where she experiences the danger first hand. Not Quite Paradise combines interesting details about daily life, historical fact, and current events in a country ravaged by war for over twenty years.

Sri Lanka is a tiny island nation populated by two distinct ethnic groups: the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority. It was once a colony of Britain but after the British pulled out, tensions escalated culminating in the civil war between the LTTE, a faction of Tamil terrorists, and the Sinhalese government that began in 1983. Adele makes the country's history come alive and she talks about the conflict from an unbiased point of view. Her own personal experiences as an American adjusting to life in Sri Lanka add touches of humor to the narrative.

Not Quite Paradise was an intensely personal reading experience for me. My parents are originally from Sri Lanka. They immigrated in the mid 70s before I was born. If not for that choice, my sister and I would have grown up there in the middle of the war. The descriptions of war violence were very hard to read about. Although the war ended last year it will take a long time to rebuild and heal. People in Sri Lanka have suffered a lot but even among the sorrow they have hope. There is a lot of beauty and rich culture on the island. Adele is particularly interested in elephants and local birds and I enjoyed reading about the animals that she saw. She also met and made a lot of new friends both Sinhalese and Tamil and she shares their stories with us. I admired Adele's bravery in coming to a country so different to her and I like how open she was to new cultures and ways of belief. Her conversational writing style is mostly accessible and flows well. If you enjoy reading narrative nonfiction and learning about other cultures, you might enjoy Not Quite Paradise.