The Hungry Ghosts

By Shyam Selvadurai

"A novel of raw human longing. . . . His stripped-down prose focuses on the deeply personal with precision and insight. . . . Selvadurai's work reminds me that the contemporary novel doesn't necessarily have to resort to thrills or high jinks in order to find its usefulness. Here, it unforgettably explores the interplay between individual intention and the tragedy of a nation's history." —The Globe and Mail

In Sri Lankan myth, a person who dies may be reborn a "hungry ghost"—a ghost with a large stomach that can never be filled through its tiny mouth—if he has desired too much during his life. It is the duty of the living to free the dead who are doomed to this fate by transferring karma from their own good deeds. In Shyam Selvadurai's masterful new novel, Shivan, a troubled young man of mixed Tamil and Sinhalese ancestry, is preparing to travel from Toronto, Canada, to the land of his childhood, Sri Lanka, to rescue his ailing grandmother and bring her back to die. But on the eve of his departure—as Shivan meditates on his turbulent past, recalls his gradual discovery of his homosexuality, and wrestles with his complicated relationship with the wily old woman—he discovers just how much his own heart's desires are entwined with the volatile political, racial, and sexual mix of Sri Lanka's past and present. In the end, Shivan must decide: will he rescue his grandmother, or join her?

The Hungry Ghosts is an unconventional exploration of the immigrant experience; a tale of family ties and the long reach of the past; and a heartwrenching look at how racial, political, and sexual differences can tear apart a country, a family, and a human being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9780385670678

Shyam Selvadurai

Shyam Selvadurai was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Funny Boy, his first novel, won the W.H. Smith/ Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Lambda Literary Award in the United States. He is the author of Cinnamon Gardens and Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, and the editor of an anthology, Story-wallah! A Celebration of South Asian Fiction. His books have been published in the United States, United Kingdom, and India, and in translation.

Reviews for The Hungry Ghosts

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the long-awaited successor to the wonderful [Funny boy] (1993). Where Selvadurai's first novel was basically a coming-of-age story, this is a much more complex and mature treatment of the "gay love story against a background of communal violence" idea. He uses traditional Buddhist stories interpolated into the narrative to explore the way the ways that bad actions and the need to find forgiveness and redemption work out in the lives of his characters, particularly the gay narrator and his property-shark grandmother. There's a danger in this sort of thing that you end up in the profound shallows of Herman Hesse country, and Selvadurai steers dangerously close once or twice, but I think he manages to stay afloat. It's probably the lively realism of the main story that saves him, set partly in Canada and partly in the "Cinammon Gardens" middle-class neighbourhoods in Colombo. Although the riots and communal violence happen mostly offstage, we aren't allowed to forget that there are real atrocities going on and large numbers of people suffering.

[rab1953-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

THERE MAY BE SPOILERS HERE. As a metaphor for the decades of conflict in Sri Lanka, this story is tragic in many aspects, although ultimately resolved. As a reflection on the immigrant experience in Canada, or queer relationships in the 1980s, it is not uplifting. It all turns out painfully bad, in spite of the narrator Shivan’s somewhat passive attempts to make a life for himself. He is overwhelmed by the circumstances of his early life in Sri Lanka, having to choose between poverty for his family and affluence with a selfish, controlling grandmother. He escapes by immigrating to Canada, but finds that life as a gay student offers him only limited options, in part because of the damage he carries from his early life in Sri Lanka. He tries to make things better by returning to Sri Lanka to accommodate his past, but things get worse. Returning to Canada, he tries a new start which seems to succeed, but he finds his attempt to bury his past fails, and his only recourse is to give up what he has achieved and return to face his nemesis with unconditional compassion. The simplified message seems to be that for Sri Lanka to overcome its murderous civil war past, everyone has to be prepared to give up what they have won and face each other with forgiveness and compassion. Simplified though this is (and I don’t see much in the story that offers a more nuanced reading), it’s pretty inadequate as a political solution for Sri Lanka’s past. What is really good about this book (and what I loved in his earlier books) is the beautiful writing, and Selvadurai’s ability to create a rich visual sense of the lush environment of Sri Lanka, and in this case its contrast with the dirty, grey, dusty, cold, barren Toronto suburbs (softened a bit by the scenes of UBC and the West End of Vancouver). And Selvadurai writes very effectively about their mental anguish. I can empathize with Shivan’s mother’s horror of life as an immigrant woman, and with Shivan’s wretchedness as a South Asian exotic object in the gay scene or his rage at his grandmother and everything she destroys for him. But this writing is undercut when Selvadurai repeatedly describes a character’s complicated reactions to words or events as if unable to make the characters understood without explanation. While it’s probably true that I would not get the complex interactions on a first reading, I found the repeated explanations intrusive. More problematic is the unrealistic nature of many of the relationships – I often did not buy into the decisions that many of the characters made, Shivan in particular with his back and forth changes from hating his grandmother and Sri Lanka to adopting them, then hating them again and finally adopting them again. Yes, his character is drawn in many directions by powerful feelings of home, family, love, greed. But Shivan seems to barely think about his sudden changes of direction, he just feels he has to do it. Similarly, other characters, his family and his partners, jump to extremes of feeling without any intrinsic change. It seems that they are driven more by the needs of the plot and the need to fully illustrate the theme of compassion than by any internal sense. They act as if they are puppets more than people (and to an extent they are, driven by the forces in their lives). So this raises a question of style and authorial intent. In places, I found the style clunky, awkward and repetitive, and I found myself wondering what happened to Selvadurai’s editor. But I know Selvadurai to be a careful and thoughtful stylist and I don’t remember these issues in his previous books. So are the intrusive explanations and repetitive style deliberate, an attempt to recreate in an English novel the ritualistic story telling of more traditional literatures? Selvadurai recounts a variety of Buddhist stories and aphorisms to illustrate the message of compassion. He shifts from Shivan’s present hostility to his emotive narration of the past and then his final resolution. And he frequently shows how books and stories are a key elements in Sivan’s youth and adult life. (Thank you buriedinprint for pointing that out.) I found the writing irritating in places, but if this is really supposed to work as a metaphor for something else, than perhaps it serves a purpose that the writing should call attention to itself, forcing the reader to step back and ask what’s going on here. I cannot say that it made me appreciate the story more, although perhaps it brought out its meaning. As someone else noted, readers care about the characters, not about a metaphor, so it’s the characters who have to work, not the metaphor.

[schatje_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having read and enjoyed Selvadurai’s previous novels, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read a pre-release copy of his latest book. I was not disappointed.Shivan, the narrator, is a young man born in Sri Lanka to a Tamil father and a Sinhalese mother. After the death of his father, Shivan and his mother and sister move in with his maternal grandmother who quickly marks him as her heir. Unhappy with her demands and controlling ways and thinking that life for him as a gay man would be easier in Canada, Shivan persuades his mother to immigrate there. He does not, however, find happiness in his adopted country and so makes a return trip to the land of his birth. That visit has tragic consequences which force him to return to Canada where he tries to start a new life totally separated from his past. “In Sri Lankan myth, a person is reborn a peréthaya [a hungry ghost] because, during his human life, he desired too much – hence the large stomach that can never be filled through the tiny mouth.” It is the grandmother who is such a hungry ghost because her desire for property, money and power knows no limits. Even she recognizes herself as one: “my grandmother saw herself as the naked peréthi, marooned on an island, surrounded by so much that is good in life but unable to enjoy it. Everything she touched, everything she loved, disintegrated in her hands.” But it turns out that she is not the only hungry ghost; at one point Shivan realizes, “By placing my happiness first, I, too, had destroyed the thing I cherished.”A major theme of the novel is man’s inability to escape his past: “Like a leopard stalking its prey through tall grass, a man’s past life pursues him, waiting for the right moment to pounce.” Even emigration half a world away doesn’t help: “We might be living in Canada, but we had brought Sri Lanka with us.” A related idea is that “everyone must pay for what he does. It is the law of karma. There is no escape from our evil deeds. We pay in this life or the next one.” Shivan learns that “Actions are easy to perform, but working off the karmic effects of those actions takes a long time.” Because of people’s “inability to reverse actions,” Selvadurai suggests they should do as Buddha advises: “you cannot use vengeance to cleanse a past wrong. No, it is only the waters of compassion that can cleanse your past enmities.” And that compassion can begin with “forgiving yourself.”Characterization is also a strong element in this novel. All characters are flawed and therefore realistic. None is perfectly good or totally evil. The grandmother is a good example. At times it might seem difficult to find a redeeming quality, but we are told about her background and come to understand the reasons for her behaviour and we are also warned early on that “love always comes with its dark twin – the spectre of loss, which drives us to do such terrible things.”There is much to praise about this book. I loved the Buddhist myths woven into the narrative. I also admire how the author was able to explain the Sri Lankan civil war between the government forces and the Tamil Tigers; he doesn’t choose sides but shows that neither side is guilt-free. And, of course, what Shivan learns about karma and how “to cleanse a past wrong” applies to the political situation in Sri Lanka as well.I highly recommend this newest novel by this acclaimed Canadian writer.Note: I received a pre-release copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

[brocade_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The strength of this novel lies in the insightful depiction of setting—Sri Lanka in the 1980s and 1990s; the low-income options available to new immigrants to Canada; how the members of Shivan’s family adapt. The worlds Selvadurai describes are rich and textured. The depiction of the conflict in Sri Lanka between Tamil and Sinhalese factions belong to the unfolding of events in the novel and never comes across as pedantic. This is well-done. Selvadurai includes Buddhist tales and aphorisms, which initially heighten the South Asian atmosphere, but I found they were repeated too often and too obviously. The story of the hungry ghost—at first interesting—becomes heavy-handed. Ditto the story of the hawk. And how clumsy to invoke the hawk yet again to explain Shivan’s final decision. Ah yes… explaining. A character’s actions should not have to be explained. A character, if written plausibly—which I believe is Selvadurai’s aim—should seem to act naturally. Selvadurai frequently explains a character’s motivations in an analytical fashion that feels stilted and jars the narrative flow. For example, “He reacted stonily, but I told myself he needed to know, ignoring the undertone of aggression in my forcing him to listen to these preparations.” That Shivan is forcing Michael to listen to him is obvious from the circumstances. The reader does not need the pointer. Selvadurai goes further, explaining that this has an aggressive undertone. There are many instances of unnecessary explaining in the novel—and I don’t even think they work. Explaining motives doesn’t compensate for writing implausible characters. Again and again, I was not convinced by the characters. They didn’t come across as real-seeming, believable people. The grandmother, who does not speak or acknowledge her daughter with anything but hostility for years, suddenly accepts her love in a single afternoon. The mother, who claims she would have aborted or strangled her son, had she known he would grow up gay, visits her son and his lover whom she accepts whole-heartedly and addresses as “son”. And although I believed in Shivan’s desperation when he felt he was losing Mili and Michael, I did not believe in their relationships.As I read, I felt this was a plot-generated novel and that the characters were fashioned as tools toward that end. Consequently, the characters and their stories suffer—even if Selvadurai wrestles them toward a conclusion. I wished that Selvadurai had let his characters develop as people, even if that meant dropping the hungry ghost or the hawk metaphors. Readers aren’t touched by the plight of metaphors. Given the excellent writing in this novel, I regretted that the characters didn’t convince me.