Funny Boy

I don't know if I'm glad I read Selvadurai's Swimming in the Monsoon Sea first, because I didn't have high expectations for his novels. I enjoyed that book, but I liked Funny Boy a lot more. Perhaps if I'd read this first, I would be better able to appreciate Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, but this review isn't about that book. It's about Funny Boy, which is a heartbreaking coming of age story told with the backdrop of the beginnings of civil war in Sri Lanka.

The main character is Arjie, a young boy who isn't quite sure what he is. He enjoys playing a game called bride-bride with his sister and female cousins, where he gets to dress up in wedding clothes and make up. But when his parents find out, they set out to try to change his show more behavior. Of course this doesn't go according to plan, but that's what makes this novel so good. While Arjie is coming to terms with the fact that he's gay (and learning how to hide it from his family), he's also growing up far too fast. He accompanies his mother when she spends time with an old boyfriend, he spends time with the son of a friend of his father, who lets him know that he's not alone in the world, and then he's sent to school to make him a real man.

Those events make this story excellent, but when it's mixed with the horrors of violence, murders and fear, Selvadurai creates something extraordinary. As a review on the back of the copy of the book I read said, it shows us that we are not alone. And that's exactly what Selvadurai does. His writing paints pictures of what it's like to grow up in a world unlike our own, and yet like our own all the same. We learn of events -- Arjie's feelings for a boy at school, his mother's affair, what it's like being a Tamil in Sri Lanka -- through the eyes of a boy trying to find his place in the world. While the reader might understand what's happening, Arjie doesn't, and watching him grow just adds more depth to the novel.

I enjoyed this book so much, that I immediately placed a hold on Selvadurai's second book, Cinnamon Gardens. show less

Amnesty Canada chose this book for their August 2017 read. When I saw that and realized that it was one of the books on the CBC list of Novels that Make You Proud to be Canadian I knew I had to read it. Excellent novel (although I suspect there is a lot of autobiographical detail) that is set in Sri Lanka during the time of racial tension between the minority Tamils and the majority Sinhalese. I remember the reports about the Tamil Tigers fighting for an independent state in the 1980s but this book gives a more personal face to that racial tension.

There are six connected short stories in this book but to me it read like a cohesive novel. In the first story Anjie is seven years old, the middle child of well-off Tamil parents. Once a show more month all the cousins gather at their grandparents' house for a day of freedom from their parents. Anjie's favourite activity is playing bride-bride with the girl cousins with him being the bride. He loves dressing up and putting on makeup and parading around with the others in attendance. When Anjie's father discovers this is how his son spends the day he is furious and accuses him of being a 'funny boy'. Anjie doesn't know what he means but as he gets older he develops an interest in one boy after another. All the while he is growing up there are hints of growing violence against Tamils. One family friend is killed while covering the riots in Jaffna. His aunt is beaten up because she is Tamil. The hotel co-owned by his father has racial taunts painted on it. Then the violence comes to Colombo and even Anjie's father cannot ignore the threats. Their house is burned, they have to hide with friends and the grandparents are burned to death in their car. The family will move to Canada as refugees and live with an uncle.

Anjie develops throughout the book from a rather spoiled little boy to someone wise beyond his years. His world is turned upside down just as he is struggling to define his sexuality. show less

Arjie Chelvaratnam enjoys his spend-the-days at the home of his grandparents in Colombo, Sri Lanka. While the older boys try to beacheachother at cricket or other sports, he spends the time playing bride-bride with the girls, somehow always managing to be the bride in a beautiful white sari. Then his cousin Tanuja arrives -- nicknamed "Her Fatness" -- and soon she reveals to the entire family just wht Arjie's up to. After that, his parents force him to do more manly things to prevent him from becoming "funny", like switching schools to the more sadistic Queen Victoria Academy.

But school's aren't the only thing changing in Arjie's world. Through a series of events involving everyone in his family: his favorite dark skinned Radha Aunty show more finally home from America; a former lover of his mother's showing up unexpectedly to research the growing anti-Tamil climate in Sri Lanka; his father hiring a former Tamil Tiger to work as a supervisor at his hotel in predominantly Sinhalese country. Arjie realizes how society's perception of differences can have a severe impact, especially during the climax of "Funny Boy" which acts as a moment by moment account of the 1983 anti-Tamil riots that racked the country.

What begins as a simple coming out tale turns into a portrait of a country at war, seen through the eyes of a young boy as he tries to deal with his budding sexuality amidst a volatile climate. show less

In a sentence, this is the story of a young boy growing up in Sri Lanka during the civil war and slowly realizing that he's gay. But it in the bigger picture, it's about anyone who is different and growing up in any traditional culture and family, and the confrontation with injustice. Beautifully and sensitively written. Although the author doesn't cover the Edenic qualities of Sri Lanka that I so love in novels by Michael Ondaatje and Roma Tearne, I still loved this book. Highly recommended for readers who appreciate quality fiction.

Set in Sri Lanka, this is a series of events in a young boy's life, looking at politics, race relations and sexuality. At the start of the book, Arjie is very young, so is often overlooked by those around him, so he makes a great observer, though we as the reader often can connect the dots quicker than him as a narrator.
Through Arjie and his extended family, we get a real insider's view on life in Colombo in the late 70s and early 80s, told in hindsight, but from what he saw: Radha Aunty falling in love with a Sinhalese man, the return from Australia of a journalist Daryl Uncle (his Amma's former boyfriend), the arrival of Jeganm the son of his father's childhood friend.
However, we cannot forget Arjie and this important stage in his show more life, from child to adholescent. In the first chapter, we see a young boy preferring to play with the girls rather than the boys, being called "funny" by his family, as they see his sexuality before he understands it. Through the book, we see him struggling to understand his sexuality, as well as his ethnicity as a Sinhalese-speaking Tamil and his position in the family.
For me, this was a really good book to get a look at Sri Lanka, we all see the news with reports of the Tamil Tigers, bombs in Colombo, but this book helped me understand the situation a bit more and inspired me to find out more. show less

Set in Sri Lanka, this poignant coming-of-age novel charts a boy's loss of innocence as he grapples with family conflict, political realities and his homosexuality. At seven, narrator Arjun Chelvaratnam hates sports and enjoys wearing his aunt's jewelry and playing the role of bride in imaginary weddings; yet his playmates' taunts of 'girlie-boy' and 'faggot' don't seem all that different from the monickers that attach to other children (e.g., 'fatty-boom-boom' and 'Diggy-Nose'). But when Arjun enters his teens, his worried father, a wealthy hotelier, sends him to a strict private academy, hoping it will force his son 'to become a man.'

I enjoyed this story of Arjie, a gay boy coming of age in Sri Lanka as civil war breaks out. The story, though,is somewhat disjointed and reads more like a series of linked stories rather than a novel. But still very enjoyable and Arjie's character is well done.