Bodies in Motion: Stories [Hardcover]

Mary Anne Mohanraj (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2005

Bodies In Motion is a collection of linked stories that traces the emotional, sexual, and geographic history of two generations of two Sri Lankan families through the last half century. In these stories we see just how emigrant/immigrant ebb and flow shapes lives, loves and the bonds of family. Like Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, Bodies In Motion transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition but faced with the modernization of social mores and customs. In a land of arranged marriages and entrenched roles, particularly for women, these stories limn the tug-of-war between generations and gender as family members make their own choices about their futures, sometimes bringing them to America, and sometimes taking them back to their island home. In a distillation of intimate moments, the stories chronicle the loves, ambitions, spiritual and sexual quests of the members of each family as they search for meaning to their lives and a place to call home.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mohanraj's promising but uneven debut collection chronicles the lives of two linked Sri Lankan families over the course of 50 years. From politically ravaged Sri Lanka to quiet suburban America, characters buck against the tradition of arranged marriage, desiring more than their assigned societal roles. In "Oceans Bright and Wide," a couple in 1939 Colombo, Sri Lanka, reluctantly send their daughter to Oxford University to study physics rather than immediately marrying her off. An embittered father lamenting his Americanized children surprises his youngest daughter with an arranged engagement on her seventeenth birthday in "A Gentle Man." In "Tightness in the Chest," a young American–Sri Lankan woman settles down with a Tamil husband, but resists her role as wife and future mother, while he yearns for her affection. Mohanraj's writing is vibrant, but she occasionally retreads familiar territory of the immigrant experience (i.e., the struggle of losing one's language and the pressure to achieve in America). Also, the gems of the collection are offset by undeveloped, rushed stories— in "Seven Cups of Water," a lesbian affair occurs abruptly and without context. Still, Mohanraj evokes a moving portrait of families searching for love and a place to call home.
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From Booklist

Mohanraj, born in Sri Lanka and educated in the U.S., portrays two Sri Lankan families woven together for several generations by bonds of friendship, marriage, and unsanctioned love affairs. Some emigrate to America or England to complete their education at Oxford, Harvard, or the University of Chicago, the setting of several stories. A few marry whites, some marry other Sri Lankan immigrants, and some return home for traditional arranged marriages, returning to the U.S. to raise their families. Mohanraj perceptively limns her characters with a delicate brush, bringing them slowly to life until the reader knows them well. The brilliant Shanthi, who has six girls in rapid succession and ends up teaching high-school physics in Chicago; her youngest daughter, Lakshmi, whose diary pulls the reader into her whirlpool of abuse and loneliness; Vivek, who thinks he married a traditional woman but learns she can't cook and doesn't want children--all come alive in these thoughtful stories of the clash of tradition and modernity, and the search for love in all its various guises. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (July 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060781181
• ISBN-13: 978-0060781187
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,115,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mary Anne Mohanraj received her Ph.D. from the University of Utah, specializing in post-colonial literature and creative writing. She is the author of several books, including her dissertation novel, BODIES IN MOTION, an exploration of sexuality, marriage, and Sri Lankan/American immigrant concerns. Her academic research includes an exploration of black masculinity in the work of horror writer Tananarive Due, and an bio-bibliography on Due published in Richard Bleiler's SUPERNATURAL FICTION WRITERS. She currently serves as a referee for FOUNDATION, THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION, and as Director of both the SPECULATIVE LITERATURE FOUNDATION (www.speculativeliterature.org) and of DESILIT (www.desilit.org). Mohanraj has recently received an Illinois Arts Council fellowship, a Neff fellowship in English, a Steffenson-Canon fellowship in the Humanities, and the Scowcroft Prize for Fiction. She lives in Chicago and is currently writing a follow-up novel to BODIES IN MOTION, tentatively titled THE ARRANGEMENT.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sweet read, July 8, 2005

By 

Suchetha Wijenayake (Colombo, Sri Lanka) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bodies in Motion: Stories (Hardcover)

As a Sri Lankan who has also managed to spend a great deal of time in the US, I read "Bodies in Motion" with two colliding mentalities. One was looking at the characters as representatives and composites of the people I met in the US, the transplants from Sri Lanka, who came there at various stages of their lives (Sri Lankans don't have a "cute" label like ABCD's for themselves), and also rather critically to see if and how she had misread the Sri Lankan culture she never really managed to live in.

I had, of course, read some of Mary Anne's online work before, and her style was familiar to me. So no surprises there. What was surprising was the detail she managed to bring into the people, and even more, the similarity between the immigrants and the Americans they live with while still maintaining their Sri Lankan-ness. There were times when I saw them as something out of a period sitcom with the main characters still being Sri Lankan.

Mary Anne's writing style is excellent and sensual, sometimes too much so.. you have to put the book down and digest what you just read, like after a tasty and rich meal, in order to avoid a sensory overload.

The stories themselves skip lightly across the years and generations.. a glimpse here, an anecdote there, a section somewhere else. But those glimpses are what makes the book so interesting. One person's actions in a main story add depth to that person's supporting role in another. It takes skill to pull it off, but Mary Anne does it in style. (Am I gushing yet?)

Of course, like any collection of short stories, the style and topic changes. Some are evidently semi-autobiographical (read Mary Anne's website and see if you can figure out which ones), some are a somewhat confusing, and trying to read these as one continuous story is an invitation to get the wrong impression of the book. Far better to look on it as a multi-generational miniseries (a la Steven Spielberg's "Taken").

Finally, has Mary Anne misread Sri Lankan culture, as viewed from a Sri Lankan viewpoint? Not by much. There are spots where she has made a few errors, none of which are critical, and would only be caught out by a person who has had a lot of experience of Sri Lanka. They are anachronisms and make no difference to the stories, I will not mention them here. She has, however, managed to capture a lot of the Sri Lankan mentality quite well.

In conclusion, this is an awesome book, almost sensual in the way it wraps itself around you. I would not recommend reading it in one go. The best way to read it is one story at a time, when you catch a few minutes, in the bus, just before you sleep..

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Style over substance, November 24, 2005

By 

Jalia Torres - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bodies in Motion: Stories (Hardcover)

I was very disappointed by this book. It promises poetic writing and great sensuality, and both items seemed to be missing in my copy! "Pretty" writing at some points, but no depth, which seems a requirement in order to be truly poetic. There wasn't a character I'd care to follow to the end of the page, never mind to the end of a book full of mish-mashed stories. There's probaly a good and interesting tale about Sri Lanka/immigration in here somewhere to be told, but it seems that the author doesn't have the skill to bring that story out and make it hold the reader's interest.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sri Lankan Families Struggling Against Expectations, July 13, 2005

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bodies in Motion: Stories (Hardcover)

Mary Anne Mohanraj's collection of linked stories follows the lives of two Sri Lankan families, both in Sri Lanka and in the United States over the course of decades. The characters struggle against expectations, either in a futile attempt to embrace them or an outright rejection of them. For example, in the fine "The Emigrant," seventeen year old Kuyila emigrates from the U.S. to Sri Lanka to fulfill the duties of a daughter and wife by marrying a man selected by their parents. Despite all her best efforts to be a good wife and daughter-in-law, her efforts are tossed aside in a single night during Tamil/Sinhalese riots of the 1980s. In the title story, American Chaya discovers that she cannot face who she is deep down, not even for the American man she loves. She has tried so hard to be self-sufficient that she cannot connect with those whom she loves in either culture.

Despite Mohanraj's literary talent, many of the stories feel incomplete. In these weaker stories, the endings feel rushed, as though the author stopped herself from confronting the crux of the story. She avoids risks and defining dramatic moments. In "Lakshmi's Diary" the most important moment is described nineteen years after it happened, thus lessening the complex significance for the narrator. The strongest stories, however, convey a believable sense of what it means to be these characters, both within their culture and as unique individuals. The stories of the younger generation tend to be the most convincing. I particularly liked "Tightness in the Chest," the story of Vivek, in love with his unconventional wife Raji and living in the brutally cold Vermont. Here, the roles are reversed, with Vivek taking over then household duties and enduring the unexplained absences of his wife.

The promotional material for this book compares Mohanraj to fellow Sri Lankan Michael Ondaatje, a unfair comparison for two reasons: one, their writing is dissimilar, with Mohanraj's style more direct and less poetic, and two, it sets up unrealistic expectations. Mohanraj's writing here never approaches brilliance, but she offers some quiet stories about lives that the reader comes to care about.