PositiveSydney Morning Herald (AU)Karunatilaka has acknowledged Saunders’ brilliant novel as an influence, but his bureaucracy is his own brilliant invention ... The novel becomes a murder mystery fully lined with political and social comment/satire ... It is this poignancy, the ability Maali has to reflect on the beauty of life, that elevates the writing ... The chaos and bastardy of the times that were esoterically Sri Lankan are explained in moments of drawing breath between the hurtling story. It is told entirely in the second person, a difficult stylistic device ... Original, sensational, imaginative, political, mysterious, romantic: it is obvious why this novel won the prize. It also has a manic strum that, along with the vivid chambers-of-horror – not confined to the underworld – will cause readers to put it down and not return. But it will have lasting effect.
Julian Barnes
PanSydney Morning Herald (AU)Neil writes that Elizabeth Finch’s strengths are \'clarity, irony, wit, insight\'. All Barnes’ strengths ... Elizabeth Finch is also, and most successfully, an exploration of love beyond romanticism. Falling in love with the charismatic teacher is sometimes part of the course. It’s an old story, always up for refurbishing ... Barnes’ interest in philosophy bullies him as a novelist. Much of this novel is philosophy. And, regrettably, pedantry, although my pedant might be your teacher. Some will respond with cries of recognition and/or pleasure. Not me. There are many pleasurable moments, but I read with a curious, even unflagging exasperation. Clarity, irony, wit, insight are valuable, but they need currency ... As I read Elizabeth Finch, a novel so emotionally restrained as to be unsoundable, old emotions surfaced: of pretending, as women did in those long ago years, to be interested in a boring boyfriend’s philosophical ideas.
