Customer Reviews

When Memory Dies

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Sivanandan's book is a vivid telling of three generations of a Sri Lankan Tamil family and of the disintegration of ethnic harmony on the island. Having fled Sri Lanka after the 1956 riots Sivanandan's novel is remarkably even-handed and captures the humanity on both sides. Sri Lanka's post-colonial history is one of failed expectations and avoidable disasters. Sivanandan thoughtfully sketches the path to Sri Lanka's civil war and the painful breakdown in relations between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The tragedy of the estrangement between some of the key Sinhalese and Tamil characters in the novel is all the more poignant considering that Sinhalese nationalism and Tamil Eelam nationalism are painfully intertwined. I wonder if the title "When Memory Dies" is an allusion to the fact that Sinhala-Tamil enmity in Sri Lanka is less than a hundred years old and was preceded by about 2500 years when ethnicity did not matter?

I have used this book as an introduction to the contemporary political and cultural history of Sri Lanka for college students who will be studying on the island for the academic year. In some ways, it is a somewhat cynical rendering of the evolution of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. That is, it is difficult to come away from reading it with much of a sense of hope for the current political situation. But it is precisely the evocation of hopelessness that makes Sivanandan's compelling novel realistic, as unfortunate as that sounds. Idealism, indeed, seems to have little space in Sri Lanka these days. There is much in this novel that educates its readers to the nature of ethnic conflict, class consciousness, caste, family, religion and political identity. I found it a tour de force, a remarkable novel.

This is an historical novel of Sri Lanka from just before independence to the beginning of the recent war. It looks at many of the underlying factors around the war, the JVP uprising, and life in general in this society. Highly recommend to anyone interested in this part of the world.

The writer takes us through twentieth century Sri Lanka ( or Ceylon as it was known ) through three generations of a Tamil family. From the struggle for independence both from poverty and the British through to the birth of the struggle for Eelam in the North, the writer has not held back or favoured any one faction in particular but told it like it is. Definitely one of the best books I have ever read. The narrative is fast paced, the descriptions vivid yet not overdone, the language is simple and not flowery but the overall effect is engrossing.

A. Sivanandan left Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the '56 riots. His descriptions of the environment of Sri Lanka in the book after that tragedy are thus largely based on speculation and tales spun by others like him. The story is an attempt to give a history of Sri Lanka in the twentieth century from a socialist's point of view. He basically tells the reader that socialism was corrupted by Sinhala politics (he gives absolutely no attention to Tamil ethnic politics, which played at least an equal role in the creation of tensions) and 'greed.' Perhaps he has not considered that socialism is such a flawed philosophy because it is so easy to subvert- that much is obvious to any student of modern Sri Lankan history. Book Three is full of misperceptions and speculation- for example, he presents Sinhala people as being fully cognizant of the problems created by Sinhala nationalism (nothing is farther from the truth- few people, Tamil or Sinhala had any idea the politics of the day would lead to a civil war). His hero in Book Three, Vijay (an erstwhile hybrid- a Sinhala who had been "blessed" with some Tamil upbringing-) is a character paralyzed with ignorance and uncertainty. He can barely argue against his own grade-school students, who are horrible stereotypes of Sinhalas "brainwashed" by ethnic nationalism. The weak arguments he does present are those used by current Eelamists- they are hardly accepted by many, if not most Sri Lankans. Sivanandan's point of the story seems to be that ignorance of history leads to loss of identity. I agree- I would advise him and people like him to treat history seriously, not as a diversion to earn royalties.

note: this review was written by an actual Sri Lankan