I was lucky enough to win an e-galley of A PASSAGE NORTH by Anuk Arudpragasam through a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thanks for the early look, and I hope you stay safe!

I really tried with this novel it is so long winded, I just couldn’t finish. Don’t what the editor was thinking.

Nota bene: I'm not a fan of long sentences so my take on this book clearly has been influenced by Arudpragasam's writing style. And, I'm clearly in the minority of reviewers [so far].

I was very interested in reading "...this searing novel of love and the legacy of war..." The novel "..begins with a message out of the blue: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother’s caretaker, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances–found at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an impassioned yet aloof activist he fell in love with four years before while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires.

As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for Rani’s funeral, so begins an astonishing passage into the heart of a country. At once a luminous meditation on connection and longing and a moving account of the legacy of Sri Lanka’s thirty-year civil war..."

First, I don't think it was a love story. Second, as said, the long sentences! I found it often difficult to follow the author's train of thought and spent much time rereading sentences. Third, I found it quite disjointed as I wanted more of the story of the history/strife in Sri Lanka and less of the stream of consciousness.

I felt like i was struggling--swimming upstream. That said, it was a difficult, but authentic read.

"You had to employ these psychological resources so constantly over the course of the day, losing even the freedom to think autonomously in your own mind, that by the time you returned home you were always utterly exhausted."{I was exhausted reading this and it's one of the shorter sentences!]

Here's one I said "yikes"
"It was only when looking at a horizon that one's eyes could move past all the obstacles that limited one's vision to the present situation, that one's eyes could range without limit to other times and other places, and perhaps this was all that freedom was, nothing more than the ability of the ciliary muscles in the eye--the finely calibrated muscles that contracted when focusing on objects close by and relaxed when focusing on objects far away--nothing more than the ability of these muscles to loosen and relax at will, allowing the things that existed in the distance, far beyond the place one actually was, to seem somehow within reach." PHEW.

I found the descripton of Rani's Hindu burial ceremony quite interesting and informative.

So..3.5 but not rounding up because I really didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped.

Beautifully written account of life in Sri Lanka by an author that has lived there through its turbulent history and experienced first hand the horrors of its long civil war. Not only is there a relatively straightforward depiction of life in and around Colombo, but also much introspection regarding the deep subjects that occupy Krishan, most notably the desperation of those who attempt to leave the country and the difficulties faced by immigrants. Not an easy book, but a relevant one.

I read and read and read this and felt like I was swimming against a current of words and meaningless disconnection and and minute detail. I realize that perhaps all types of writing aren't for me, and this is an example. I am certain other readers will love it, but my primary emotion was being relieved I was done with it.

An unrelentingly sad story of trauma and loss with no possibility of redemption, only the knowledge that death comes to us all. This was a powerful read, a meticulously observed account of suffering but with no sense that the human spirit can overcome what befalls it - “ any attempt to cure or solve absence would lead, sooner or later, only to death and the extinction of thought.” Shakespeare’s “Ripeness is all” has no place in the world view of this author.

The narrator states that Krishan, the protagonist, was trying to be ‘less abstract and more grounded,’ yet the book is written in a philosophical style that showcases Krishan’s memories and reflections. It even includes summaries and interpretations of poems he connects with. It was written with depth. Even the style was in lengthy paragraphs. An interesting dive into how someone deals with significant changes in his life by drawing into the past and tries his best to come out of them whole.

“The present, we realize, eludes us more and more as the years go by, showing itself for fleeting moments before losing us in the world’s incessant movement, fleeing the second we look away and leaving scarcely a trace of its passing”

This beautifully written novel follows a young man’s physical journey to the northern part of Sri Lanka to pay his respects to his grandmother’s caretaker, Rani. During Krishan’s trip, the reader follows him through his stream of consciousness as he reflects on love, trauma, identity, family, aging, religion, death, and the war in Sri Lanka. He analyzes how we perceive the world, though the medium of touch, hearing, and sight.

This novel is steeped in philosophy and reflection. As a reader, I was challenged in a positive way to analyze my own metacognition. Krishan’s journey painted a picture of Sri Lanka that was both breathtaking and heartbreaking. I feel ashamed that I knew nothing about the Sri Lanka civil war that ravaged the country for over 25 years. I knew nothing about the oppression of the Tamil people. Now, I am slightly less uninformed, yet I still have much to learn. Arudpragasam’s novel flows seamlessly from one topic to the next. Krishan’s stream of consciousness is easy to follow and makes sense to the reader how one topic pours into the next.

Arudpragasam also brings up the topic of immigration and how many Tamils have left their homeland to live in Europe, Australia, and the States in order to escape persecution. Immigration is something that needs to be talked about in a real way, as it is in this book. Arudpragasam points out that many displaced people are those “who’d lost everything during the war, people who, even if they hadn’t been detained, bereaved, tortured, or raped, had seen untold amounts of violence, for whom life in their homeland had become more or less unbearable”. That these human beings would rather “die in the process” of escaping, and if they didn’t die trying to flee the horrors and trauma, “that most people in places like Australia and America and Europe would never let them live in their countries with full dignity”, which would be preferable to living in a country that tried its best to exterminate you. Immigration isn’t a huge topic in the book, but it hit me—Arudpragasam explains it so well that I felt shame for living in a place where immigrants aren’t welcomed. I also felt hope, that this book can change the minds of those who have never looked at immigration in a real way.

I recommend this book to those interested in Sri Lanka, in the wider world, and to those who are searching for a beautifully philosophical novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC. This was truly a delight to read and one that will stick with me for a long time.

I received an ARC of this book for review.

The story centers around the main character, Krishna, making a journey north for the funeral of his grandmother's caretaker. The book mostly revolves around Krishna reminiscing about his past, his relationships and his family amongst other things. There isn't much of a plot per se, so readers looking for a storyline will be disappointed.

The book moves along at a languid pace with digressions into history or multiple pages devoted to other storylines like that of Buddha. The author can certainly write as demonstrated by the beautiful prose. My issue with such books is that there is no defined conclusion to the storyline. You can easily take out a few chapters or add a few more without changing the end result. These kind of books end when the author sort of decides that they are done. The prose is lovely but can get tedious if it goes on for too long.

This book resonated with me because my last "big" trip before the pandemic was a trip to Sri Lanka. When we visited Sri Lanka it was the monsoon season in the south so we traveled around the North, so this book brought back all those memories. I think that is why I enjoyed this book so much, but many good things about Anuk Arudpragasam's new book, "A Passage North". I enjoyed the characters, story and pacing of the novel. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has been to Sri Lanka, wants to go to Sri Lanka, or is interested in different places, customs and people. Don't be afraid to take this journey.

Note: Sri Lanka is a glorious place and if you are looking for future travel destinations you can't go wrong with Sri Lanka).