Mirage [Hardcover]

Bandula Chandraratna (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003

There is a simplicity to Mirage, this story of star-crossed lovers whose brief happiness is cut short, that belies the skill of its telling. Set in a closed Arab kingdom in our own time, it has the timeless appeal and delicacy of a fairy tale, yet also the moral weight and all the human sadness of a novel by Thomas Hardy. It tells how Sayeed, a good but unexceptional Muslim, finds happiness with Latifa, a girl who might have been beyond his reach had widowhood and misfortune not brought her within it. The scene for Sayeed's marriage is set with unpretending tenderness and in unerring detail: the city hospital where he works, the shanty town where he lives, his brother's desert home, the peasant wedding, the struggle to make a decent life for his new wife and her child. Heat, dirt, and squalor form the backdrop of a tragedy, one fueled by petty jealousy, sexual desire, and religious fervor, with Latifa, a village girl unused to the ways of the city: its ultimate victim.

Mirage was published in England in 1999 at the author's own expense. It emerged from that year's Booker Prize deliberations the unexpected favorite of a number of the judges, just missing the final shortlist. Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of the London Independent, chose it as his Book of the Year, saying "we need novels as lucid, moving, and compassionate as this one."

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A purely told tale of humble lives, Chandraratna's first novel is as spellbinding as it is devastating. Orphaned as a boy, Sayeed has sacrificed his own happiness to care for his younger brother, leaving him and his growing family their parents' home and land in a verdant village in an unnamed Muslim country to move to the city, where he lives precariously in a dusty shantytown and works as a hospital porter. On a visit home, he surprises himself by agreeing to his brother's plan for him to marry a young widow, hoping fervently that she and her little daughter won't find city life too odious. Fablelike in its clarity and careful pacing, lushly beautiful and exquisitely touching in its lingering descriptions, Chandraratna's quietly powerful and tragic tale slowly and inexorably reveals the malevolence brewing beneath the surface of this spare but volatile world as traditional ways of life break down and jealousy, resentment, and vindictive religious extremism intensify. Self-published in England, Chandraratna's tale just missed being short-listed for the Booker Prize. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

A little masterpiece, beautiful, a testimony to decency and courage in the face of such oppression, such hardship. --Doris Lessing, Times Literary Supplement

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Press (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574231960
• ISBN-13: 978-1574231960
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,502,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A Look Inside an Alien World, December 4, 2007

By 

Woodrow W. Denham (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mirage (A Black Sparrow Book) (Paperback)

The title is the key to understanding Mirage. Chapters 1-23 are indeed a mirage, an ancient land of milk and honey, a delicate pastoral simplicity, a precarious balance of old and new as oil wealth and Westernization impinge of bedrock religious values. But in Chapters 24-25, the reality underlying the mirage erupts with all the fierce violence that characterizes much of the region today. Chandraratna got it right - weeks, months, perhaps years of tranquility suddenly shattered by piercing screams from an honor killing wherein the victim of the crime is executed. To confront another face of this reality from a Western perspective, read Hilary Mantel's (1988) Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: A Novel, a chilling experience which, like Mirage, may leave you puzzled until you know that alien world.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars beautiful prose - but final message?, June 7, 2004

By 

csown (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mirage (Paperback)

** Slight Spoiler? **

Like all the reviews I can find say, Chandraratna's prose are quite elegant. Simple, but beautiful. But as I reached what felt like the climax of the book, I realized there were only a few pages still in my hands. The book ended abruptly and left me questions what, exactly, Chandraratna wanted me to understand about the main character's life.

The main character, Sayeed, is a good man, simple and uneducated and hard-working. He is driven by events that happen around him, and makes use of the small opportunities that appear. He lives his life as a good Muslim, but is not intolerant of the non-muslims in the hospital where he works. He does not begrudge foreigners like many of his peers... he simply makes the best of his existence without complaint, and neither laziness nor entrepreneurship.

When, in the last five pages, his life dramatically and violently changes, I was just left wondering what the hell he's going to do now, and how devestated he and all of the other characters will be. Perhaps this is Chandraratna's point? That everything can change and that you have no idea what will happen next... But for such a pleasant book, I was left feeling unfulfilled and with an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars disappointing, to say the least!, May 22, 2007

By 

L. K. Barcus "Kirk's Angel - artist, poet & j... (San Antonio, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mirage (A Black Sparrow Book) (Paperback)

After reading the "official" view for this book, I was looking forward to reading it. After finishing, it, though, I have to say it was one of the worst books I've read in my entire life! (And I do a lot of reading!) Ordinarly I would finish such a short book in one sitting, but this was was so incredibly boring that it took me several days. The first part of the book dragged on so slowly I felt like tearing my hair out! In writing classes, they always stress attention to detail, but this author takes that tip to extremes. (For example, instead of just saying that the main character, Sayeed, "brushed his teeth", this simple act is described in 5 or 6 sentences. In fact, Sayeed's complete morning hygiene ritual is described in excruciating detail.

Ordinarily, if a book doesn't "grab" me in the first 50 pages, I quit reading, but I made an exception in this case because I was curious to find out what happens in the end; and the book was short (thank God!!!) so I kept on. It wasn't until at least halfway through the book that any real action occurred--when Sayeed went to visit his brother. Once this happened, the pace of the book moved more quickly. The interactions between Sayeed and his brother's family were interesting (although Sayeed's sudden switch from being against the marriage to accepting it was a bit puzzling).

The worst part of the book, for me, was the final 10 or 15 pages. As the other reviewers have stated, the way the ending was resolved was disappointing. After moving at a snail's pace for 100 or so pages, suddenly everything happens within a few pages of the end, so there was no opportunity to gain a sense of WHY what happened at the end happened. It was just a hurried, jumbled mess and by the time I finally finished the book I was fuming at myself for sticking it out until the end and not giving it up by page 10!!!

OK, now for the praise, such as it is. (I'm a firm believer in "Thumper's Rule" - If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all".) Ever since I read this book (which was back in early April) I've been trying to figure out how it nearly won a prestigious award. I've kept thinking I must have missed something when reading the book. It's only after mulling it over for 2 months that I've come to the realization that the author may have intentionally structured the book the way he/she did. Devoting pages and pages to Sayeed's tiniest routine moment may have been done not only to show how boring his life was, but also to demonstrate how one simple, well-intentioned action can go spiralling out of control in an instant. If this was the author's intent, then it was successful. And I do have to give the author credit for being a capable writer (great attention to detail!! :) For these reasons, I changed the rating to a 3 instead of the 1 I initially put down. It may make some good points, but it's still a boring (and disappointing) read! (And I'm still mad at myself for finishing it!)