Malinda (Maali) Almeida is dead. He’s just taking his sweet time working it out. No, he’s not still hallucinating from some “silly pills” a friend might have slipped him; he is well and truly dead, and he has no idea how that came to pass?
Maali is—or was—the son of a Sinhalese father and a Burgher mother. A closeted gay man with a gambling problem, he was also a photographer who served many masters during the political upheaval of 1980s Sri Lanka. As a man who described himself as a “photographer, gambler, slut,” there are many, many ways Maali may have met his end.
And what about the afterlife? Maali has not exactly found himself in either heaven or hell, but rather in a chaotic bureaucratic environment that gives off tax-office vibes, with long lines and counters manned by irate staff. Everyone has demands, and no one seems to know what is going on. What do you need to do—you need to get in line.
Lankans can’t queue. Unless you define a queue as an amorphous curve with multiple entry points.
So once Maali works out that, no, he is not dreaming, and yes, his goose is cooked, he is informed that souls like himself have seven moons to settle their affairs, recall past lives and farewell loved ones before they are meant to head towards the light.
What is the light?
The short answer is Whatever you need it to be. The long answer is, I don’t have time for the long answer.
If this is not managed before that deadline closes, Maali may find his soul stuck forever in the In Between where he will be vunerable to demons, ghouls and entities such as the Mahakali—and probably stuck in some even longer queues. So he needs to make sure he doesn’t miss this deadline. And perhaps he shouldn’t be distracted by the garbage bag grim reaper on the way. Pity Maali’s not really one to follow instructions. And he’s really good a pissing off authority figures. That’s something that seems be consistent for him across life and death.
Apart from working out exactly how he died—and again, there are many ways Maali could have met his demise in 1989 Sri Lanka—Maali also wants to see his mother and his friends again. He wants to make sure his girlfriend Jaki (his beard, really) and his mum are ok. He’s also really concerned about his boyfriend (of a sort) Dilan and whether or not he is safe—Dilan has quite a bit to hide from his father. (Jaki and Dylan are cousins, by the way. Maali is a damned mess.)
But Maali is also very preoccupied with a box of photos that lie under his bed. There, amongst many compromising images, are a number photos dating back from the 1983 progoms that would be devastating if they too, ever saw the light. Maali managed to catch some very powerful, influential men committing some truly terrible atrocities. But how to let Jaki and Dilan know about the box if you are an incorporeal? How to interact with the world of the living when you are dead? And if Jaki and Dilan do get a hold of these photoes or their negatives before the authorities, what will that mean for Sri Lanka?
Reading The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is quite an experience. The second-person perspective works well for the setting: Maali is dead, and either his detached spirit is doing quite a bit of self-reflection while trying to work out what exactly is going on, or some kind of higher power is picking him apart—I could never quite decide which.
There is also a considerable degree of tonal whiplash. Much of the narrative has an almost dreamlike quality, frequently poked and punctured by Maali’s dry, cynical sense of humor—or, at times, completely shattered by the carnage of the civil war. Make no mistake: the book gets as dark as hell in places.
While I did a quick read up on recent Sri Lankan history after reading The Saint of Bright Doors, Karunatilaka’s work here really showed me exactly how much I still don’t know. Many of the events he flicks back to here across the narrative are real; the crimes perpetrated against many of the dead characters—including the first official Maali meets behind the counter and the garbage bag grim reaper—were all carried out on people in real life. I strongly suspect some of the characters shown to be in positions of power, such as Cyril Wijeratne, have real life counterparts as well. But I don’t really have the background knowledge to really suss that out.
Do not be afraid of demons; it is the living we should fear. Human horrors trump anything that Hollywood or the afterlife can conjure. Always remember this when you encounter a wild animal or a stray spirit. They are not as dangerous as you.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida happens to be one of the best books I’ve read this year and this has already been a bit of a banner year for me, book wise. Even though I’m missing a lot of knowledge of the Sri Lankan Civil War, I was still drawn in by the flowing, dream-like narrative, the cynical, often absurd humor and a protagonist who was just as messy in death as he was in life.
For cbr18bingo, this one is Friends Why? Without his friends—Jaki in particular—Maali’s cause is boned.
