The cult of cricket is fine fodder for this witty tale by Man Booker Prize-winning novelist Aravind Adiga, writes Mike Crowl.
SELECTION DAY
Aravind Adiga Picador
Macmillan
By MIKE CROWL
Aravind Adiga, the 2008 Man Booker Prize winner for The White Tiger, centres his latest novel around the cult of cricket in the nation of India. When the game was first introduced to the country, the Indians despised it. Now it has a powerful hold on millions of lives.
It is this power that causes upheavals for the various male characters in the book. At its centre is Manju, the younger brother of a talented teenage batsman called Radha Kumar. Unfortunately for Radha, Manju appears to have even more talent for the game.
The boys' father, an unsuccessful chutney seller in the slums of Mumbai, is full of nonsensical theories as to what they should and shouldn't do in order to maintain their potency as cricket players. Unsurprisingly, his wife has long since left. Although she never physically appears in the book, she continues to exert considerable influence on her sons.
As the two boys head towards probable stardom, various other self-centred characters take over their lives, for good or ill. A few are wiser than they know, and see through the falsity of the cricket mania. Others see only gain or prestige for themselves.
Manju, even more than his brother, has to make difficult choices about handling his life. Whether he decides wisely in the end is left to the reader.
The book's themes are serious, but the writing is full of wit, humour, and absurdity. There's an abundance of striking and hilarious detail describing a world that's both foreign and familiar. The main adult characters have a kind of loony self-assurance that's at odds with the down-to-earth attitudes of the two boys, and there are times when Monty Python or The Goons seem to have had a hand in the storytelling.
Cricket may be the focus of this book, but you don't need to be a cricket fan to enjoy it.
Mike Crowl is a Dunedin author, musician and composer.
