Shehan Karunatilaka’s Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew

Where in the world is Pradeep Mathew? a review by  Sidin Vadukut

There are at least two types of book readers. (I refer to the people who read books and not those new-fangled devices.) The first type read their books in one go, rarely pausing for rumination, reflection or any handwork with pencils or highlighters. If at all, they reflect on the book after they’re done reading. 
  Then there is the rare type – those who cannot read a book without obliterating it with dog ears, notes in the margin, underlined passages and bookmarks. They convert the reading experience into a process. Perhaps they even stop every few minutes to tweet out interesting lines.  If you are one of the latter, you will take days to get through young Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka’s Chinaman. That is even if you really want to finish this brilliant book as quickly as you possibly can. With clever lines on every page, Chinaman is the most tweetable book I’ve ever read. 
 
In hindsight it appears to me as if Karunatilaka wrote the book with a checklist in his mind: “That’s one more page done. Do we have a joke? Check. A brutal dig at cricket? Check. An irreverent swipe at Sri Lankan culture? Check.”
 
A superb work of fiction blended with non-fiction that makes you sit up night after night reading it? Double check. Chinaman is, mostly, the story of a Sri Lankan journalist’s hunt for a long-forgotten, and fictional, Sri Lankan cricket player called Pradeep Mathew. Mathew has a brief, meteoric cricketing career in the late 80s and early 90s that sees him achieve superhuman bowling records. But he vanishes as quickly as he appeared. 
 

  Shehan receiving Gratiaen Prize in 2009, Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara. for Sunday Times

As the curious, and increasingly obsessive, journalist, Karunasena, begins to peel back the layers of Mathew’s life he realises something is amiss. Mathew has vanished not just from the cricketing scene, it appears he has ceased to exist. His existence has even been expunged from the record books. And there is something disturbingly Orwellian about it all.
 
Yet Karunatilaka’s book is equally about Karunasena. I wish I knew more about the author to see how self-referential this character is. Or maybe they just share Karunas. But the character of the 64-year old journalist is a wonderful device to place the topic of Sri Lankan cricket within the larger themes provided by Sri Lankan society and history.

So on the one hand there is the obsessed, alcoholic journalist, well into the twilight of his career, going in search of a human mirage. But on the other there is the very real world that this journalist occupies. One of his friends is a diplomat who may have an ugly secret that involves little boys. Yet another is a member of Sri Lanka’s Burgher minority, who is as obsessed with cricket as Karunasena is. And somewhere in the final third of the book a bomb explodes at a train station. It happens casually, the death toll described as if in an afterthought.
 
Most of all Chinaman is a book about cricket. Karunatilaka has crafted a thinly veiled version of modern cricket, complete with reviled commentators, horny cricketers, loose women and big, bad money.
 
Did I say the veil was thin? I meant to say it is almost transparent. One of the book’s minor characters is the Turbanned Indian Commentator. Mentioned frequently enough so that after a while he is just referred to as TIC. Earlier in the book there is a beefy English cricketer, whose idea for a documentary is what really kicks off the hunt for Pradeep Mathew. His name is, but of course, Tony Botham.
 
Karunatilaka skewers cricketers old, new, good and bad, all in style. And with prose that is infectious. Once you get past the first 50 pages, which are the slowest but not by much, the book is – no cliché intended – unputdownable. The mysteries of Pradeep Mathew, combined with the brutal dissection of cricket and the delicious morsels of cricketing trivia come together to form one of the strongest, most immersive plots in a sports novel, or indeed any novel, I have read in a long time.
 
The book is not without its gimmicks. There are a few towards the end that are particularly laboured. And there are a few occasions where the dialogues seem too smart by half. But all good innings have room for a few hoicks over slip. And Chinaman is a Test match-winning innings-at-the-death watch-over-and-over-on-Youtube kind of a book.
 
At least one commentator has called Chinaman the first great Sri Lankan novel. Perhaps it is. It certainly is a superb novel. For all cricket fans, especially those from the subcontinent, it is a compulsory addition to their library.
 
And if you can’t stand cricket, this is still a book well worth reading. For sheer scope, ambition and inventiveness. Karunatilaka has smashed this out of the park. 
 
Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew  by Shehan Karunatilaka [Random House]

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Shehan’s winning googly

  Smriti Daniel in http://sundaytimes.lk/090419/Magazine/sundaytimesmagazine_00.html

Shehan Karunatilaka still has the tickets for every music concert he’s ever been to; the Police, Suzanne Vega and Travis jostle for space alongside The Red Hot Chilli Peppers on a board tacked to a wall in his home. It’s also an apartment devoted to books, there are a dozen or more in every room, including the kitchen. The ones on his desk reflect his current obsession fairly clearly – namely sports, cricket in particular. After all, his 2008 Gratiaen Prize winning manuscript, ‘Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew’ is named after a rare left arm bowling style. It also stars a hoary, alcoholic sports writer attempting to make the most of his last few years by writing a comeback novel about a cricketer he reveres as the best spin bowler Sri Lanka ever produced.

Within a few pages of the novel’s opening, we meet W.G. Karunasena who has little to his credit, save a few old ‘Sports Writer of the Year’ awards. But W.G. still manages to take over a book that Shehan intended to keep focused on Pradeep Mathew, a cricketer who has now fallen into obscurity. Speaking of his early drafts, Shehan says he was intent on telling Mathew’s story straight, but the effect in the end was just ‘silly’ in its seeming exaggeration of the cricketer’s accomplishments. “The only way to tell it was to have it told by a drunken old man, prone to exaggeration, whose memory was failing,” says Shehan, and “at some point it stopped being about Mathew and it became about this guy.”

Shehan Karunatilaka still has the tickets for every music concert he’s ever been to; the Police, Suzanne Vega and Travis jostle for space alongside The Red Hot Chilli Peppers on a board tacked to a wall in his home. It’s also an apartment devoted to books, there are a dozen or more in every room, including the kitchen. The ones on his desk reflect his current obsession fairly clearly – namely sports, cricket in particular. After all, his 2008 Gratiaen Prize winning manuscript, ‘Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew’ is named after a rare left arm bowling style. It also stars a hoary, alcoholic sports writer attempting to make the most of his last few years by writing a comeback novel about a cricketer he reveres as the best spin bowler Sri Lanka ever produced.

Within a few pages of the novel’s opening, we meet W.G. Karunasena who has little to his credit, save a few old ‘Sports Writer of the Year’ awards. But W.G. still manages to take over a book that Shehan intended to keep focused on Pradeep Mathew, a cricketer who has now fallen into obscurity. Speaking of his early drafts, Shehan says he was intent on telling Mathew’s story straight, but the effect in the end was just ‘silly’ in its seeming exaggeration of the cricketer’s accomplishments. “The only way to tell it was to have it told by a drunken old man, prone to exaggeration, whose memory was failing,” says Shehan, and “at some point it stopped being about Mathew and it became about this guy.”

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“To write honestly, it should come from within”: Shehan interviewed by Rathindra Kuruwita

 http://www.nation.lk/2009/04/12/eye6.html 

In the last few years, many people have been questioning the quality and the objectivity of the judging, and the winning entries of the Gratiaen awards. And after 2007’s controversial ‘all-Poets-final’, many people, including myself, lost about half the remaining faith we had in that award. However, this year’s short listed entries and the winner, Shehan Karunatilaka’s Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, restored much faith in many of us, of the awards. The Nation met the winning author, to discuss more about his passions, writing bass lines for his band, Kurt Vonnegut, and about whether he is still ‘crawling along Unawatuna Beach, offering massages to anyone with a printing press.’

Following are excerpts from the conversation.

Q: First of all, how do you feel, after winning the 2008 Gratiaen award?

A: I really did not expect to win this one, because the quality of this year’s submissions were really high. I just put it there, hoping that I would get short listed, so that, I could put a small tag on my book ‘short listed for the 2008 Gratiaen’, when it finally comes out (chuckles.)
But, then again, when you spend two years waking up at four in the morning, daily, sitting in a room, writing and editing, it feels good to get a good review and a good reception. And to win the Gratiaen is just great, but I still think that, there is much work to be done. I have to edit and work on my story in the next six months or so.

Q: How did you come about the idea of writing a story of an alcoholic sports journalist, who is looking for Pradeep Mathew, the greatest cricketer Sri Lanka ever produced?

A: It is not really all about Cricket, although it features a cricketer and a sports journalist. I don’t know where the idea came from, but I always wanted to become a left handed spinner for Sri Lanka. I played Under-13 and 15 Cricket, but then realised that, I did not have the capability to make it. Maybe this story came to me because my dreams of playing for Sri Lanka never came true.

So, when I decided to write, I thought, why not write of the greatest cricketer, who never made it to the national side. That was the start. However, before I started writing, I read everything I could find on Cricket, and did much research.

Q: Your first book, The Painter, was short listed in 2000. Why did it take eight years to write the second one?

A: To be honest, The Painter sucked. Although it was short listed, really, it’s a bad book. Now, I don’t even look at it, there was a decent core idea, but I was 22, and had no clue about writing or doing research.

So, after realising that, The Painter was a bad book, I did some stuff that one should do before even thinking of writing a book. I lived, experienced and I observed. I travelled extensively, met many people and I read copiously.

So, it was only after almost five years after The Painter, I thought that, I had read and seen enough to attempt writing again. I spent the first year researching Cricket and Sports journalism. Unlike The Painter, that I just wrote and submitted, without bothering to really edit, the draft I sent for the Gratiaen this year, was rewritten 15 times.

So, that’s why it took time, and I think, one should take time, when writing a book. Many people don’t take time, because it’s easy to print here, they think that, they need to write a book, and write it in three or six months. Then, they send it to a printer, and get a cover designed, I think, that is the wrong attitude to take. If you need to write a good book, you need to sit there and suffer.

Q: You talk of the need to take time, of living and suffering, how important are these to writing?

A: I’m certain that, there are geniuses who can write a marvelous book at 21. Sadly, I’m not one of them and I don’t think, many of us are that gifted. First of all, you need to read a lot, because, the more you read, the better you become. I know many people, even writers, that don’t read much, and I really don’t understand how you do that.
I mean, when I look at The Painter now, well, I don’t look at The Painter now (smiles,) I realise that it is crap. You should come to a point where you know you are writing crap. And you need to be humble enough to edit what you write, over and over again. I have rewritten Chinaman more than 15 times, but, I still think, I need to edit it further, it’s a long process.

Q: Do you think that the Gratiaen has contributed to the development of Sri Lankan English Literature?

A: When you go to any good bookshop, there is a Sri Lankan writers’ section, which was not the case, when Carl Muller won in ’93. Back then, there were only a handful of books written in English, by Sri Lankans. Hence, at least, Sri Lankans are writing more. And the hype it creates attracts more youngsters. I thought that, I wanted to write, after reading The Jam Fruit Tree, and the hype created by the Gratiaen.

Q: In brief, what is the Chinaman about, and what does the title mean?

A: I don’t want to give much away. But, basically, it’s a book about Cricket. The main story is of this old drunken Sports journalist looking for this cricketer, Pradeep Mathew, whom he considers the greatest Sri Lankan Cricketer never to make it to the national team. And, while on his search, other topics come into play.
Chinaman is the name of a delivery that Mathew used.

Q: In the book, you say Sport is immortal and can transcend barriers. In this age of commercialisation of Sport, do you believe that?

A: The narrator in the book certainly believes that, and I would agree too. Let me give you a small example from my life, when we won the World Cup in 1996, I was studying in New Zealand. Before the victory, if someone asked me where I’m from, I would sometimes say from Samoa or Jamaica, because people didn’t know where Sri Lanka was.

But, after the ’96 World Cup, everyone knew of Sri Lanka. They spoke of Jayasuriya, Aravinda and Arjuna. And I was proud to say that I was a Sri Lankan, so, for me, that victory did much to my self esteem, and I think that, it did immensely to our self esteem as a nation. It was bigger than anything any politician and social reformer has done. I still think that, it’s not limited to one country.

Look at the British Premiere league and the passion of the supporters. These guys are more faithful to their team than their wives. For example, I support Newcastle, Newcastle is shit, they are going to get relegated, but I still support them. And there are guys who were supporting Birmingham City, when they were 8-0, they might go through three wives, but until the day they die, you can find them braving the British weather, cheering their team at every match. You can’t say Sport is just a game, its much more than that, and I tried to bring in examples into the book.

In the book, there are people who argue that, one of the reasons for the defeat of the apartheid regime in South Africa was the rebel Cricket tours. In 1983, The West Indians toured South Africa. The sight of a Black man bowling out the Whites, did such a great thing for the morale of the South African and made them believe that, they too, can beat the whites.
The narrator in the book thinks that, Sport is more important than life itself, but I don’t go that far. I do believe that, it has power and can unite people.

Q: The quality of the ‘submissions’, at this year’s Gratiaen, was much higher than in previous years. Is this an indication that, Sri Lankan English Literature is improving or, is it just the personal growth of several writers?

A: This year was very competitive. I thought that, Malinda’s poems, Jehan’s play and Vihanga’s novel were very good, and that’s why, it surprised me, when I won the award. One of the reasons, I think, is the fact that, more and more Sri Lankans are writing, and when the output is much higher, the probability of better work appearing, also increases.
But one must agree that, it’s still very much a Colombo based thing. The problem is that, many middle class people, who went abroad for their education, stayed back in those countries. From there, they try to comment on what is happening in Sri Lanka, which I don’t think, is possible.

I don’t think, I could have written Chinaman, if I stayed back like my friends. To write this, I had to have gone to the matches, drunk with the supporters and journalists, and watch and experience Cricket in the streets. Maybe, we need the education offered by these Western universities, but then again, if you want to write honestly, it should come from within.
Having said that, I don’t think, guys like Malinda or Vihanga would have been foreign educated, but they write damn fine stories. I don’t know whether we will have a Booker prize winner, but, what I can say is that, things are better than 10-years-ago.

Q: What can you say of the judges’ comment that, the ‘submissions’ did not tackle ‘real’ issues?

A: Well, when you look at the books in leading bookshops, you see books that deal with war and child soldiers and ethnicity. So, I think, its done, although I don’t know how well its done.
My book is about a young Tamil boy, Pradeep Mathew, who took more wickets than anyone else in 1987, but couldn’t make it to the national team. There are reasons for that, than sporting ability, and those reasons are underlined, and basically, that is the story.
It’s about genius who never made it. It’s about why we Sri Lankans disregard our talent, and why we drive the talented away from this country. That’s what it is about.

Q: But, doesn’t that qualify as an issue?

A: If that is ‘qualified’ to be an issue, yes. We produced this great cricketer, and we just did not use his talents. This is something that we see in all walks of life.

Q: You seem almost apologetic of not writing about war and other related matters. This and that, makes me wonder. Does this mean that, just because we have witnessed a civil war, we are obligated to write of it all the time?

A: There are plenty of stories to tell, in all parts of this country, that aren’t being told. I think, if someone has something to say, that would entertain or inform people, he or she should do it.
There is enough material, but one should not try to write of things that one doesn’t understand. I mean, I could not write a war novel. I think, we show our amateurism by trying to write of things we don’t really understand. Maybe, that’s why, our books are not up to international standards.

Q: Talking of publishing of the six short listed works, four were manuscripts, while another was self published. What does that say of our ‘Publishing industry’?

A: In a foreign country, there is an editing department in a publishing house. They expect a certain standard and, if your book is not up to the mark, they will analyse it, and say what needs to be done. We don’t have that here. We have printers and writers, so, anyone who can afford it, can get a book out. That’s a problem, because there is no one to qualify its quality.
So, I think, writers have to be very critical of their work.

Q: Also, this issue of Sri Lankan and Pure English, do you think that, the use of Sri Lankan English restricts one from accessing global markets?

A: I don’t agree with this whole notion of ‘proper’ and ’pure’ English. I don’t know where it comes from but, it exists all over the world. But, writing like an Englishman, who lived 100-years-ago, won’t get us anywhere either. Now, even English authors don’t write like Thomas Hardy, Kipling or Lawrence. If you look at a book such as Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh uses Scottish Dialect that is hard to understand, but it’s a big seller.
You should try to describe the situation you are in, with language normally used by the people.

Q: In the description you wrote for the Galle Literary Festival, you said that, you can be found ‘crawling along Unawatuna Beach, offering massages to anyone with a printing press.’ But, after this win, that can’t be an issue?

A: I have begun cutting it down again, and I need another six months of rewriting. I hope to publish it before the end of the year. The book is 300 pages of typed A4 sheets, and I don’t know how that will translate into an average book size. But, I would like it to be in the region of 250 pages.

Q: Who are your favourite authors and your biggest influences?

A: Five years ago, I would have said Michael Ondaatje and Salman Rushdie, because they were the ‘in’ among Asian Cosmopolitan writers. And, even I tried to write like Salman Rushdie, these big chocolatee sentences and nice dark passages like Ondaatje, but that was not real. I could never write like them, and could never relate to what they were saying. And I was faking, and as you ‘grow up’, you realise that, there is no point in faking stuff like that.
So, my ‘real’ favourites are, Nick Hornby, who is famous for his book on Arsenal called Fever Pitch, Kurt Vonnegut, William Goldman, who wrote the script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote Fight Club.
These are the guys I always re-read. They all talk of serious stuff in a very fun way.

Q: Tell me a bit of yourself?

A: I always wanted to play bass guitar, and I still play bass for a band called Powercut Circus. Strangely, I’m not the lyricist in the band, but maybe, that will change.
And I took many decisions in the past, because I wanted to be a musician. When I returned from New Zealand, with an English Degree, I really had two options, Journalism and Advertising. Journalism is, by far, the better form of writing, but, there is a lot of research and meeting people, and much writing involved. I was lazy, wanted to play in a band, so, I choose Advertising.

Back then, I thought, within three years, Independent Square would be the biggest band around, but that didn’t work out. I joined Grants, did The Painter, and realised that, it was not very good. Then, I left for England in 2002, on the two-year Working Visa, and ended staying four years. Came back, got the idea of writing a book about a Cricketer, started in 2006, and have been working on it.