I wanted to find one law to cover all of living. I found fear.The Sri Lankan Civil War lasted for over 25 years – resulting in the deaths of 80 000 - 100 000 people – and while it was still raging, Sri Lankan-Canadian author Michael Ondaatje set his fictional characters the task of uncovering the truth of the conflict; discovering to what degree the Sri Lankan government was murdering its own citizens. In Anil's Ghost, the main character Anil is an ex-pat Sri Lankan – a forensic pathologist, trained and employed in the West – who has returned to her homeland after fifteen years at the request of a human rights organization. She is teamed with a local archeologist named Sarath who, with a mysterious demeanor and known government contacts, Anil is wary of trusting. When they find a skeleton that might prove the government's involvement in a murder and its coverup, Anil is forced to trust Sarath as he leads her to various locations and involves local experts.
Anil's Ghost was released the same year as C.S.I. premiered on TV (2000), and the solving of its central mystery – discovering the identity of the skeleton they nickname Sailor – may have been a more fascinating read at the time: who among us now doesn't assume that a lab full of specialists can crack any crime from the minutest of evidence? As Anil and Sarath analyse soil, insect pupae, and pollen, the reader is confident that the dead man's hometown will be discovered, and even Anil's deduction of his occupation from bone stress and an artist's reconstruction of his face from a skull seems just a day at the office anymore. If only one could go back in time before this storyline became routine. But while this mystery might be the central framework for this book, it's not really what it's about.
Ondaatje writes in disjointed scenes, where characters reveal more about themselves through the stories that they tell than by their present actions. Some stories in Anil's Ghost are tacked on at the beginning of chapters, unrelated to the action – like the young teacher who passed the same group of teenaged boys every morning on her way to school until one day all she saw of them were their heads stuck on poles – and other stories are used to illuminate the main point, as in this recounting of an artist who paints the eyes on Buddha statues:
He climbs a ladder in front of the statue. The man with him climbs too. This has taken place for centuries, you realize, there are records of this since the ninth century. The painter dips a brush into the paint and turns his back to the statue, so it looks as if he is about to be enfolded in its great arms. The paint is wet on the brush. The other man, facing him, holds up the mirror, and the artificer puts the brush over his shoulder and paints in the eyes without looking directly at the face. He uses just the reflection to guide him – so only the mirror receives the direct image of the glance being created. No human eye can meet the Buddha's during the process of creation.So, too, does it seem that no one, not Ondaatje and not the characters that he creates, is willing to be direct with the truth of the Sri Lankan Civil War (and the government's culpability): a mirror is held up to events and an atmosphere, rather than facts, are revealed. There is much space between the various stories and much isolation felt by the characters: Sarath and his brother Gamini are not only estranged from each other, but both have been left by their wives; Anil is unmarried, has recently left her lover, and risks losing her best friend; Sarath's mentor, Palipani, has become a hermit after a public disgrace; the artist, Ananda, has become a drunk after the disappearance of his wife. There is distrust and fear and language barriers between characters, yet meanwhile, truck drivers are hauled from their vehicles and crucified to the pavement, a young miner is branded an insurgent at the say-so of a hooded accuser, bodies turn up at the morgue with their faces destroyed by acid, and something must be done.
There were dangers in handing truth to an unsafe city around you. As an archaeologist, Sarath believed in truth as a principle. That is, he would have given his life for the truth if the truth were of any use.
I enjoyed this book very much, but recognise that it would not be for everyone. Remember when Elaine seemed to be the only one who hated the movie made of Ondaatje's The English Patient?
It's okay to be an Elaine.
