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Romesh Gunesekera

Reef Paperback – February 1, 1996

by Romesh Gunesekera (Author)

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The "incandescent" (New York Times Book Review) coming-of-age-story and debut novel by the acclaimed Booker Prize finalist Romesh Gunesekera

Triton loved living in Mister Salgado's house. It was the biggest house he had ever seen--filled with floors to sweep and silver to polish and meals to cook and adults to impress and a brilliant master whose voice was poetry. And people from all over the world came to the house-- to sell their wares, to talk, to live, for this was where life took place. Even the sun would rise from the garage and sleep behind the del tree at night. And in the house, life was good.

But beyond Mister Salgado's house and their Sri Lankan village there was a world. And all around them, it was falling apart...

Print length

192 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Riverhead Books
Publication date

February 1, 1996
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

1573225339
ISBN-13

978-1573225335
Lexile measure

770L
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Customer reviews

5 star		61%
4 star		20%
3 star		13%
2 star		6%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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amateco

a travel through the feelings of a boy ending in a man

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2013

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A lovely story viewed by a young boy who grew up admiring Salgado ( a man devoted to save the reef) and finding his way thanks to Salgado's view of future.
Events from the last century that many readers will remember and think that all those facts were part of our recent history. It is a book written in a slow warm mood that readers grasp easily up to the end

2 people found this helpful

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Beatriz P.

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2015

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Just beautiful and very human!

One person found this helpful

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Mrs_M

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2014

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A wonderful read.

One person found this helpful

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Lucy

English book.

Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2013

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Bought this book for my English Literature class and had to write a paper on it. I do not like literature classes but this book was interesting in how it used the imagery to explain the food used throughout the book. The shipping was fast and accurate and the condition of the book was as described.

One person found this helpful

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Ann-Marie Carlson

An OK read

Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2013

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I would not say it is a page turner - but it provided an interesting insight into life in this troubled time.

One person found this helpful

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Lynn Harnett

Finding a place

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2003

A finalist for Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, "Reef" is the story of a Sri Lankan boy who carves out a place for himself in a precarious world.
Animated by the lyrical narration of Triton, whose simple, focused voice resounds with enthusiasm and curiosity, mixed with the ignorance of the humble and uneducated, this is a touching, absorbing, entertaining novel.
In the first pages, Triton is an adult, a restaurant owner in England, who stops at a gas station and encounters a cowering immigrant attendant who begs his help in figuring out his new job.
Triton is plunged into the memories of 20 years before in Sri Lanka when, on the eve of a "bungled coup" he is scarcely aware of, he was brought to work at age 11 for Mister Salgado, a brooding scientist with a pessimistic passion for the nation's coral reefs.
"Mister Salgado's house was the centre of the universe, and everything in the world took place within its enclosure."
His life shadowed by the hated figure of Joseph, the manservant, young Triton secures some pieces of onion to rub on the man's bed pallet. But suddenly there's an eruption of screams from next door. The old wife, it turns out, has tied her unfaithful husband in the bath and rubbed him all over with chilli powder. Triton chucked away his onion quarters; "they seemed too tame, but I was not ready to use chilli yet."
But soon, after a scene of abuse Triton can never speak of, Joseph is banished from the house and Triton has what he wants. He has Mr. Salgado to himself and he goes about his work with single-minded dedication, anticipating his employer's wishes, reading his books, emulating him in small matters like list-making.
But even this is not enough. With the outside world irrelevant, except as it affects the mood and movements of his master, Triton, an ambitious man even if he doesn't know it, transforms himself into a chef extraordinaire. There is nothing he cannot create.
And a new, exciting presence at the house, Nili, a woman with an appreciative appetite, and a salutary effect on Mr. Salgado, spurs Triton to go all out. The food is "more than good. I knew, because I can feel it inside me when I get it right. It's a kind of energy that revitalizes every cell in my body. Suddenly everything becomes possible and the whole world, that before seemed slowly to be coming apart at the seams, pulls together."
The house enjoys a resurgence of love and energy but outside events intrude, eroding their homelife and threatening their physical safety. Triton ignores politics as no concern of his, but no one can remain apart from the world, although it doesn't necessarily do any harm to try.
Absorbed in his art, focused on his master, Triton finds contentment and satisfaction which he conveys in simple, delectable language and deceptively offhand anecdotes. Triton is a captivating character and Gunesekera a subtle, graceful writer with a rich feel for language.

4 people found this helpful

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Sarakani

The subtexts are interesting

Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2004

After a short break in Sri Lanka, as someone of dual nationality with Sri Lanka I was enveloped by this book which I read in quite a short time. It begins well, but I found so much of it quite morbid and fearful, both at the level of political/terrorist violence and at a sexual level.

The author's trademark topic is food which is well treated in his short stories (read Monkfish Moon by him for more) and really well served up in Reef. This and many other exotic features such as wildlife, native patois are obvious highlights and selling points in the book. Dialogues are sketchy, incomplete and we can fill in the missing words even if the degree of articulateness is lacking or obtuse.

There are dark, brooding undercurrents and Mr Salgado ultimately is a failed, lonely guy - in romance and in his job (though the romantic side is incomplete - by the end and there may be reconcilliation). His failure is because of the nature of Sri Lanka itself apart from anything personal. The way that the governments there cannot be expected to protect people or do any real good and the way the country swings from one extreme to another. This is captured in the dialogue.

There are also dark sexual overtones/undertones in this book. Things to do with homosexuality, male bonding, fear psychoses, violence. Sexual references are covert and psychological - e.g., there is a greatly distorted story of Angulimala, more violent than the original describing a necklace of fingers, but in a subtext, penises. True to Sri Lankan style, we don't hear much beyond a couple gazing at each other and finding comfort in company. At the end there is a violent break up, perhaps too violent.

I am concerned that the impression of Sri Lanka conveyed may be overcritical, brooding and dark. I think the Man Eaters of Punanai by C. Ondaatje, conveys something of Sri Lanka's troubles and potential treasures without any brooding sentiment.

This book was dark, depressing and aromatic. Good to have read its limpid, chatty and at times disturbing/churning prose.

4 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Mia

Beautiful tale

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2020

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Reef was short-listed for the Booker Prize .

The narrator, Triton, becomes a houseboy when he is 11, in 1962. He describes his time in that household until the civil war in 1971

This is a simple but compellingly beautiful tale. Can plod on slowly at times and be a little bit muddled
Please take a moment to push the helpful button and make my time typing up and reviewing worthwhile 🥰

5 people found this helpful

Beautifully crafted story that takes you into the life of ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 20, 2017

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Beautifully crafted story that takes you into the life of a child growing up in Sri Lanka; a country that captured my heart on my first visit in 2013. I loved this story so much I did not want it to end and when it did, I wanted to -re-write the ending because I felt the author did not give the protagonist enough respect by clipping the end so abruptly. I told the author this in person, at the close of an author talk I had the good fortune to attend in May 2017 and he agreed saying; he did have in mind a longer more respectful ending but chose a shorter clipped version in the end. I could have read about the protagonist for another 100 pages. Gunesekera is a masterful storyteller; his use of sense memory, and his visual descriptive skill as a writer enabled him to craft a authentic world and a compelling story with a memorable protagonist.

4 people found this helpful

Eileen Shaw

"I would glimpse the sea between the trees bathed in a mulled gold light..."

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 9, 2014

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This is a book of supreme poise and elegance. It's the story of Triton, a servant who works for Mr Salgado, tormented by his dislike of the man who gives him orders, Joseph. "What I disliked most about Joseph," he thinks, "Is the power he had over me." He comes to hate the man when he is the subject of a sexual assault at his hands. Joseph continues to wield power until the day he oversteps the mark by coming back to the house drunk. He is dismissed and Triton begins to learn how to look after his master in place of Joseph.

The prose has beautiful and sensual cadences as Triton travels with his master to the sea. Mr Salgado is much revered and liked, but he is a man who disdains power for its own sake. When the beautiful Miss Nili comes to stay Triton is entranced by her, and redoubles his effort to make increasingly elaborate meals for them and the friends of Miss Nili whom she invites to their dinners. There is the sense that Mr Salgado could be an important force in the attempts to preserve the reef, but his diffidence and a certain lack of agency affects his life. Nothing transpires from his studies of the flora and fauna of the reef. In the end there seems to be nothing but Mr Salgado's lethargy that stands in the way.

Beautifully written from the point of view of his faithful servant Triton this is in the end a disappointing, but perfectly consonant story. There is the suggestion that the world has failed Mr Salgado, rather than the other way around, when he is betrayed by a visitor who sleeps with Miss Nili.

"To Miss Nili's coterie of friends, she and Mr Salgado were a daring example of a real modern couple: in love, independent and carefree... An appealing contrast to the despondency of a nation grappling with the dilemmas of uneconomic development. Instead of an extended family we grew a network of admirers, oglers, hangers-on. They craved my cooking..."

Mr Salgado eventually takes Triton with him to London and gives him a chance to manage a small restaurant. But the story leaves one with a feeling of inertia and sadness. The beauty of the language is, in the end, not enough to conquer one's disappointment.

2 people found this helpful

RUWAN DE SOYSA

Reef by Romesh Gunasekera

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 5, 2020

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Readable book by a Sri Lankan born author. He brings up his life experiences in Sri Lanka into this narrative. The story is narrated by Mr Salgado's servant boy (as they are called in SL).It is his life story, a climb up the legendary bean stalk ending up in the land of giants, of which many Sri Lankans can only dream. Even after finishing the story, I still wonder who taught the uneducated servant boy to cook so many international dishes. You will have to invent your own answer.

One person found this helpful

Chrissie

A beautifully wrtten book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2013

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A beautifully written book set against a background of political upheaval and significant social change. We witness the growing up of the story teller as he grows from "houseboy" to praised chef and social raconteur in the service of a marine biologist. You can touch the characters and see and taste the food he creates as their established world falls apart. The book has an ending which leaves you wanting to know what happens next, a remarkable book. To say any more will spoil the experience for another reader -I liked it very much and will read more by this author.

One person found this helpful

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