Cinnamon Gardens is family saga at its best. Yet, with its themes of freedom versus authority, passion versus duty, and its focus on an extended family engaged in old-fashioned rituals at a time of social change, the author it most calls to mind is Galsworthy. Moreover, the book is very old-fashioned not only is it set in the 1920s, but it often feels as though it could have been written then (even if the Balandran-Richard strand had remained in a drawer).įorster is invoked and the influence of the author of Maurice is present both in the particulars of the Balandran-Richard relationship (their visit to Edward Carpenter mirrors Forster's own, while Balandran's smug sense of superiority as a married man echoes Clive Durham's), and in the reticence of the writing. The University of Colombo held a festive event in early March to celebrate the 25th. At times, the fruits of Selvadurai's researches (the way to wear a sari Sinhalese burial customs, etc) are too much in evidence. Shyam Selvadurai is the author of Funny Boy, Cinnamon Gardens and the upcoming novel Mansions of the Moon. It is warm, richly characterised, fast-moving in its narrative and convincing in its detail. The second, staunchly patriarchal, consists of their cousin, the rich and influential Mudaliyar Navaratnam, his wife, younger son Balandran, and daughter-in-law Sonia.Ĭinnamon Gardens is a lovely novel.

The first, largely matriarchal, consists of Louisa who, having abandoned her husband when he renounced Christianity, is bringing up her three daughters, Annulukshmi, Kumudini and Manohari, alone. In alternate chapters, Selvadurai focuses on two related families who live in the exclusive Colombo suburb which gives the book its title. His first novel, Funny Boy, contained a beautifully observed portrait of Tamil family life in the Seventies his second, Cinnamon Gardens, offers an equally accomplished and still wider-ranging portrait of Tamil family life in Twenties Ceylon. Now Sri Lanka has found an expert cartographer in Shyam Selvadurai. INDIA HAS become an increasingly familiar setting on the Western fictional map, but other parts of Asia remain comparatively uncharted.

Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam Selvadurai