The Legend of Pradeep Mathew

Starred review from March 5, 2012
Karunatilaka’s exciting debut novel places the search for a mythical cricket bowler against the backdrop of Sri Lankan politics and a transforming society. Through narrative cul-de-sacs and asides, the main story concerns W.G. Karunasena, an alcoholic sports writer who, with the help of friends, has been given the task of producing a television series about Sri Lanka’s greatest cricketers. This gives him the long-dreamed-for chance to tell the nation about the disappeared Pradeep Mathew, a little known player but also perhaps the greatest in the nation’s history. Along the way, Karunasena struggles to find a six-fingered bowling coach who may have vital information regarding the details of the vanished Mathew, faces a Tamil Tiger warlord, and addresses the legacy of colonialism that still haunts his country. “Ideally, we Sri Lankans should have retained our friendly, child-like nature and combined it with the inventiveness of our colonisers. Instead we inherit Portuguese lethargy, Dutch hedonism, and British snobbery.” Karunatilaka comes from an advertising background, like Kurt Vonnegut, an author with whom he strikes a similar stylistic chord. They share a dry fatalistic sense of humor and punchy straightforward prose. For American readers, cricket is a maddeningly complex game; this novel does nothing to dispel confusion despite discussion on the flight and drift of the cricket ball and photographs and illustrations dealing with the mechanics of the game. Nevertheless, Karunatilaka is a dazzling and eloquent new literary voice.

April 1, 2012
An investigation into the life and times of a mysterious Sri Lankan cricket player from the perspective of an obsessed fan. Though Sri Lankan himself, sportswriter Wijedasa Gamini Karunasena (Wije to his friends) fits in well with the American stereotype of the journalist as a cigarette-smoking boozer. He and his friends spend their time compiling and arguing about all-star cricket teams, in much the same way Americans would argue over the relative merits of DiMaggio, Williams and Mantle. After years of abusing his liver, and after the Cricket World Cup matches in 1996, he begins to track down the enigmatic Pradeep Mathew, a "spinner" and the best Sri Lankan cricketer ever. (One sign of Pradeep's omnipresence in the culture occurs when one of the journalist's friends refers to Montgomery Clift as "the Pradeep Mathew of the silver screen.") In a short period of time Pradeep made a splash and then disappeared, and his mystery involves being simultaneously forgotten and mythologized. Wije is determined to track down the cricketer's movements and ultimate destiny, so he puts ads in the paper, fishing for "anyone who knows anything about...," and he has limited success--a woman who claims to be his sister, a former girlfriend who has a handwritten poem from the athlete--but Pradeep and his legacy largely remain silent. Wije plays out his obsession with his friend Ari but against a family he's neglecting, and his problems with whisky eventually land him into a 12-step recovery program. The novel works on many levels--including the sociological and the mythic--and can serve as a primer both for adepts and for those who've never seen a cricket match.

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January 1, 2012

W.G. Karunasena, curmudgeonly narrator and protagonist, is a self-proclaimed alcoholic hack journalist, with no illusions about himself or his native land (Sri Lanka). A lifelong fan of books and booze, he has a distinctive voice and a biting wit and casts his jaundiced eye on everyone around him. The book is set largely in the 1990s, and though concerned almost entirely with the sport of cricket, it can't escape the ethnic conflicts and acts of terror and violence that plagued Sri Lankan society in that decade of civil war. Karunasena spends the entire novel trying to track down the title character, legendary yet forgotten Sri Lankan cricketer Pradeep Mathew, a Godot-like absent presence throughout the novel. Perhaps he is a metaphor for Sri Lanka itself, disregarded, underappreciated, and never getting its due. VERDICT If you had told me I would read and enjoy a 400-page novel about Sri Lankan cricket, I wouldn't have believed you. Though a passing acquaintance with the sport would add to readers' appreciation of the novel, the oddball characters, the humor, and debut novelist Karunatilaka's inventive narrative style will keep them engaged.--Lauren Gilbert, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 1, 2012
For American readers clueless about cricketand we are everywherethis first novel might be tough going, despite having won the 2008 Gratiaen Prize, a literary award established by novelist Michael Ondaatje for the best English-language writing by a resident Sri Lankan, and despite Karunatilaka's noble efforts to explain the game to the uninformed. Thankfully, we are guided through the novel by charming, aging, alcoholic sportswriter-bounder W. G. (Wije) Karunasena and his trusted friend Ari Byrdboth equally passionate and opinionated about cricketas they seek out the elusive (and fictional) Tamil bowler Pradeep Mathew, whose patchy but brilliant career included Sri Lanka's inspired (and real-life) World Cup championship in 1996. Arguing and deconstructing cricket all the way, the pair leads us to, among other places, Colombo's living rooms, bars, casinos, and cricket pitchesand their attendant charactersall played out amid the island's heartrending, surreal, 26-year-long civil war. If Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost (2000) portrayed that war in darkly rendered overtones, Karunatilaka weaves it into the whole cloth of Colombo's comically absurd daily life. Yet droll as his observations might be ( They say ambulances in Sri Lanka barely make it to the funeral ), Wije is clear-eyed about his own and his country's failings and the terrors those failings have produced. More impressive, Wije, like many of his countrymen, carries a heroism he hardly knows he has.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)