Customer Reviews

The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ms. Meidav's debut novel is a great book by a young promising author. As she takes you on this journey, and though she hints all along at the main character's trajectory, you are drawn into not only his world but into the inner lives of the villagers she depicts so successfully. Rather than romanticise the virtues of the east, Meidav trains her eye at a wide range of three-dimensional characters so that we come to see both aspirations and hypocrisies within American, English, and, yes, Sri Lankan culture. In this way, she truly gives another culture its due. Perhaps we find ourselves in many of the characters, all of whom I found engaging and rich in their human passions, all of whom I found true (if this is a useful word to apply in fiction) to a certain kind of subcontinental life, one that I was born into but which I have never seen so fully explored. Meidav's novel is a novel in the biggest sense of the word. It offers old-fashioned pleasures, a real world to enter, but with a contemporary pacing. It also lets the reader explore new ideas (about desire, grasping, human connection, cultures meeting and clashing) and does this all in a new style, something I have never quite seen before. Reading it, I thought about the truism that all original work will in its own time get scorned by those who are most interested in upholding convention. The book will appeal to those who have some interest in the East or Eastern culture, but also to those with an interest in what it means to be born within a certain culture and to travel away from it/toward it. It's not a history of Ceylon nor a scholarly study of Buddhism, but rather what struck me as an exploration of how hard it is for humans to connect and see one another across many divides, whether that of culture or of character. This is art, as the word artifice suggests. Picasso says art is the lie that makes us see the truth; this is how Ms. Meidav uses her art, to develop her characters, and yes, indeed we come to know the main character in his full depth as well as his auxiliaries. We know the protagonist's desires and dreams, as well as his inner conflicts. We may not like the protagonist, but like any great and memorable fictional character, he has a life beyond mere psychobabble. His true motives, like most of ours, contain their conflicts. I am looking forward to other work by this same author. I am a great fan of diving into a world as complete as the one which this novel offers us. Reading this book for me was a life-changing experience, a journey that makes me want to travel it one more time.

Edie Meidav has made a fantastic debut. I didn't know what to expect, since I'm not particularly interested in Sri Lanka. For those who care about Asia, or Buddhism, there are plenty of fascinating descriptions and brilliant insights. However, even if you're not particularly interested in Sri Lanka, you should still read this exciting first novel. The Far Field is complex and challenging, but its rewards are great. At least if you're interested in the possibilities of fiction. Very rarely will you find such a rich and intense sensibility: bawdy, lyrical, philosophical, satirical, empathic and wildly imaginative. Each sentence is a pleasure. The publishers compare her to Ondaatje and Conrad, mostly because the novel concerns colonialism and Sri Lanka, but stylistically I dont' think she has much in common with them. Her true relations are to masters of ambiguity like Henry James and William Gaddis and Walter Abish. She's not interested in easy answers, but in refreshing the springs of aesthetic delight. If you want to read something flat and tidy, maybe this book is not for you; if you care about the art of fiction, and the renewal of the English language, then you must become acquainted with Edie Meidav's work.

It's extraordinary to think that this is a first novel. Ms. Meidav writes with such confidence, intellectual breadth, and lyric power that you feel like you're in the presence of a fine, mature writer. The book is long and, at times, difficult and dense, but if you like serious fiction, which makes you think and ponder the nature of human motivation, you will love and appreciate this book. The story and writing have a wonderful cumulative power that will you leave you awed by the imaginative range of the author. Ms. Meidav exhibits an ambition and daring that is so rare in contemporary fiction. You will be amply rewarded by the journey Meidav takes you on. I highly recommend this book.

However, it is not what it's cut out to be. The use of Buddhist scripturtes to signal the start of different parts of the novel and so-called thematic unity was quite irrelevant to this novel. Comparisons with Melville or Gaddis are quite misleading as they are authors of exceptional power, complexity and difficulty. In the case of Ms Meidev you see the triumph of creative writing programmes (which one suspects she graduated from) which allow you to imitate the superficial characteristics of great writers who have no need for such programmes because they are gifted in the first place. This is not to say Ms Meidev has no talent, she does, but it is not the same; it is like saying Stephen King is as good as H.P. Lovecraft. Which is why though having been published myself and having taught creative writing, I don't think I ever want teach it again. This is a work that is a product of pure market forces: someone needs a Ondaatje read-a-like but with a different twist and so the publisher's list if fulfilled when they find one. The book is a good first effort, but there it remains. There is no serious character development, hardly any ambiguity that isn't forced and very little understanding of the people in Ceylon/Sri Lanka and what Buddhism means in their lives. This is more a work of an expatriate who lives in the East for awhile and returns to the West to write about their sojourn hoping to dispel the Occident's "easy" catgorisation of the Orient, but thereby ironically reinforcing that lack of understanding and empathy. Read Melville, Conrad, Green, Gaddis or Toni Morrison for a more authentic go at this.

The author is more a poet than a novelist. In a shorter piece that might be fine, but here she loses the forest for the trees too often. Attention to minutiae bogs down the work over and over. For a more successful treatment of such material see Berlinski's Fieldwork.

A strong book which makes a beautiful parabola around the issue of America's meddling foreign policy. Read it if you want leisure, pleasure, and thought provocation about Buddhism, Sri Lanka, and well-meaning idealists. I loved the reach of the language.

I bought this book with much anticipation for a read that would transport to another place, but spent the next four years trying to get through its first fifty pages. Ultimately I just skipped the first section and moved on to the point where the protagonist is finally in Sri Lanka. Although there are moments and phrases and metaphors that are wonderfully imaginative and well seen, I read with mounting frustration with the author's overworked style. It's as if she was striving for greatness with every sentence, instead of simply letting the story spill out. In contrast, I would hold up the gorgeous understated prose of Jhumpa Lahiri, of whom one critic said:" You don't even know you're reading." And yet Lahiri's images are arresting, the scenes moving, the characters affecting. But perhaps the self-conscious style of Edie Meidav can simply be explained by a first-time novelist's desperate attempt to get noticed. I'm hoping that her second novel will show more ease, more "translucency." Honestly, I wouldn't have taken the trouble to write this review, if I wasn't so damned annoyed with a writing style that inserts itself between me and its subject like some child blowing bubble gum in my face.

Finally - a solidly good read! What a relief. I had thought I would have to forever decamp to nonfiction. But here is a fascinating tale, deftly woven. Thank you!