Unfortunately this was archived before I had chance to download/listen (my fault on poor time planning) but I have bought a physical copy and will return with review once I have read.

I really wanted to love this and feel like I’ll need to re-read to give it a second chance but unfortunately this audiobook just wasn’t for me. I found the narration monotonous which made me struggle to stay engaged and I feel like I didn’t fully absorb the story.

Thanks for NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This deserves all of the praise it has been getting. Wonderfully evocative and brilliantly put together, it also has a wonderful reader.

A beautifully written book that follows the protagonist as he travels across Sri Lanka contemplating life and the breadth of human experience.

Review on audiobook:
The narrator had a really lovely voice which made listening to quite a dark book more enjoyable. Because the book itself is quite dense, I did find myself zoning out at points. I also noticed that some of the Sri Lankan names and places were mispronounced, which was disappointing when the book is so focused on the place, its people and its history.



Review for the book itself:
I found this an interesting book more than an enjoyable book. If you're after something to read before bed, this book is not it.
If you want to sit with something, think about ideas almost academically, and don't mind putting some work in, this might be a good book for you. There are lots of ideas about belonging, memory and memorializing and about the traumatic past of Sri Lanka. The book is very dense - there's no dialogue and every image is rendered in minute detail, quite similar to Arudpragasam's last book. This seems very intentional though - I read in an interview that the author was not interested in writing an 'easy' book and also didn't want to put English words into the mouths of characters who would not be speaking it, which is fair enough.
I think I'm a bit torn with this book. I didn't enjoy reading it, in the same way I wouldn't enjoy reading a textbook, say. I did find it interesting and I did want to read on. All in all, a very unique reading experience.

I really wanted to enjoy this as the premise really intrigued me but unfortunately I forced my way through to finish it and certainly did not fall in love with this book. While there were some beautifully well written passages and sections of prose which did stand out overall I found the whole book to be something I was lugging around forcing myself to get through. Sections felt quite labored and overworked and I just wanted the sentences to end. It perhaps may have been due to the narration as I did find the voice quite dull and had to really concentrate to listen at times. I'm obviously in the minority but I really did not connect with this one!

They say that childbirth is painful but you forget the pain afterwards. It must be true or we'd be a world of single children and bitter mothers. I find long train journeys in exotic countries share some of the characteristics of childbirth because I suffer horribly and then a couple of years later, I completely forget how terrible they were and book more. I am a fool to myself and now jump at the chance to take domestic flights when the chances arise but in Sri Lanka, the choice is road or rail and on balance, rail is a bit safer.

I have taken several long train journeys in Sri Lanka - first during the Civil War and more recently just a few years ago. Each time I looked forward to them, imagining the views of the lush countryside as I chugged through. Each time, without exception, the journeys were slow, rambling and deeply uncomfortable. 8 hours in a luggage compartment; not great. Another 6 or 7 hours in an 'observation' car going backwards - seeing where I'd been, not where I was going chilled to the bone by overactive air conditioning. 3 hours standing crushed in a coastal train on a Friday evening, unable to see a thing and with my nose too close to a lot of armpits.

Why do I mention this? Because that's what I was thinking of as I listened and read Anuk Arudpragasam's book 'A Passage North'. Slow, rambling, uncomfortable and with an overwhelming sense that I'd never get those hours back again.

Krishan, a Tamil living in Colombo with his grandmother, receives a call that Rani, a woman who looked after his grandmother for several years, has died, found at the bottom of a well with a broken neck. He decides to go to the funeral, worrying that perhaps Rani's family will blame his family for taking her away from them for so long. On the train, he ponders events from his life, things he's read, films he's watched, and his relationship with the enigmatic Indian woman, Anjum.

I really wanted to love this book, so much so that (without realising I'd done it), I requested both the ebook and the audiobook from Netgalley. I even loved the cover - feeling sure I'd seen that stretch of railway track. I wanted to dive in and experience this tale of a journey through the heart of Sri Lanka. I've read quite widely about Sri Lanka, through the colonial era, Civil War and Tsunami themes. This is not my first time at this particular rodeo. But, I fear it's probably my last time trying to read this particular author.

I don't want to be dismissed as insufficiently 'intellectual' to love this book. I read one comment on a review that had called the book 'boring' and found that the feedback given was that readers who think something is boring should look to themselves and not the book to understand why. I'm sorry to disagree; this book is dull to such an extreme that I'm not prepared to take the blame on my own shoulders for not liking it. Heck, I got through it - about three-quarters on audiobook and then finishing off with the ebook when I realised that I couldn't take any more of the former. Almost everything that happens could have been so much more interesting if it had happened in half the pages and with five times as many full stops. Sentences run on through multiple sub-clauses. Paragraphs take pages. No sentence starts with a clear sense of where it's going to end or what tangents it will take along the way. I take my hat off to the narrator who, despite a rather monotone deliver, cannot have found it easy to breathe adequately through some of these superlong sentences. Actually, it was only when I saw them on the screen that I realised quite what a challenge he'd taken on.

This book is like getting stuck in the corridor with the office bore whom you've casually asked if they had a good weekend and still being there 2 hours later whilst he rambles on about his historic reenactment battle and tells you all about how to make a suit of armour and how to roast a pig over an open fire whilst taking diversions into telling you which A-roads were congested and how he's 'hyper-miled' his 10-year old Ford to maximise the fuel efficiency.

The tangents this book takes are extreme. Want a rather long synopsis of the life of the Buddha? Yep, that's in there. Want an account of a Tamil leader who got his eyes gouged out? You can have that too. There's even a point where he's off the train but following a funeral procession where he recognises the scenery and then recounts (in unnecessary detail) not only the plot of a documentary on female suicide bombers but also a sex-laden trip to Mumbai with his bisexual girlfriend where they watched the documentary and then took a walk along the seafront. This felt like the longest three hundred and something pages of my life.

I'm grateful to Netgalley and the publishers of both the ebook and the audiobook for their kindness in sending me copies but I can't bring myself to endorse this book. There may well be a pretty good 100 page book hidden among an extra 200 pages of what Greta Thunberg would probably call "blah blah blah".

REVIEW: A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam
Krishan’s receives a call informing him that his grandmother’s career, Rani, has died unexpectedly, found dead at the bottom of a well. The call arrives shortly following an email from Anjum, a past lover of Krishan’s, that stirs old memories and desires.

This book really did not work for me. I just found this novel so dull and boring. The synopsis sounded promising but that was where the enjoyment stopped for me. The sentences and paragraphs went on and on, like just put a full stop and start a new sentence, you don’t need another comma. The dialogue was sparse, and I am a person that likes a decent amount of dialogue. There is no debating it that the author can write, some parts of the sentences were lovely to read. But I need more than enjoying a few parts of a sentences to enjoy a book.

I hate being so negative but if I hadn’t of tasked myself with reading the Booker shortlist then this would have definitely been DNFed, good audiobook narrator though.

This was a moving a powerful read. It was a little slow at times but the overall effect it has created is long-lasting and impressive. I am very keen on any novels set in India so this was right up my street. A worthy long-list for a Booker!

Krishan travels from Colombo to Sri Lanka’s Northern Province to attend the funeral of his grandmother’s carer. During the long journey, he is haunted by memories of an enigmatic girlfriend while a student in Delhi.

Less a road trip than a reflection of the nature of memory and time. Less action than introspection, and highly philosophical.

Listening to the audiobook, I was compelled often to pause to take stock of a phrase or idea. This is not a book to be rushed, but to be savoured in all its melancholy beauty.

My thanks to NetGalley and W F Howes for the ARC.

If an author sets a novel largely on a train, it becomes a vehicle in its own right for reflection and recollection. Thus it is that Krishan is travelling from Colombo in Sri Lanka, to the Northern part of the island where the ravages of war (1983-2009) are still evident, both physically and emotionally.

He has been living in the capital with his grandmother and her care-giver, Rani, who had returned home to the North some time ago. She was unwell and then finally – unexpectedly – passed away. She had been plucked from a psychiatric hospital where she was dealing with the loss of much of her family in the civil war, which lasted from 1983 – 2009, a fight between the Tamil Tigers and the government. She was a great companion to his grandmother and proved to be quite a loss when she was no longer there. He is returning for her funeral.

Krishan is anticipatory about meeting her family and ponders what her cremation will be like (we learn a great deal about the process). He looks back on his experiences with Anjum, with whom he was in a relationship whilst living in Delhi. He moves seamlessly from the intimacies of longing and lovemaking, pondering how the war permeated their discussions, stimulated by film, and moves on to more detailed accounts of how the war affected so many. He considers the fighters who willingly gave up their lives, knowing the date of their death because they were suicide killers, and he brings details of one person in particular – Kuttimani – into the frame, who was one of the people behind the uprising.

The clickety-clack of the rails is mirrored in the revolutions as the wheels of the story, a stream of consciousness going on and on in a monotone reverie, as location switches between Delhi, Colombo and the North of the Island.

It is in many ways mesmerising, informative certainly and stylishly written, and it is shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021. This is definitely a novel to pick up in anticipation of a trip to Sri Lanka, as it will beautifully and poignantly set the scene.

This book is rather difficult to describe. I listened to the audio version and the narration thought is excellent. The narrator is quietly spoken and his pace is laid back.

The story is one of a physical journey, as Krishna travels north to attend a funeral. Rani, the deceased, was his mother’s carer who dies in violent and tragic circumstances. Was her death accidental? The journey is also a spiritual one as he reflects upon the aftermath of the civil war in Sri Lanka and interwoven with these threads is his relationship with a former girlfriend, an activist, whom he still lives.

The story meanders as Krishna recalls events in his life along with the effects of the war and the Tamil. I’m a little undecided about the book. I found it challenging at times in that it’s quite ponderous in places. But then the scenery or journey is beautifully described and the spiritual scrutiny takes second place. I was unclear as to why he decided to go to the funeral and in a way it seemed more like a literary artifice. The story has moments of compelling interest, mainly in relation to some of the incidental characters. At times it seems to be trying just a little hard to be clever. I found it quite hard going as much of the content lacked specific point, other than a stream of consciousness which wasn’t that important.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

My expectations were not super high having read quite a few critical reviews: no plot, open doors, too slow. But these things didn't bother me and I was not disappointed at all.

I found the moderate pace a pleasant escape from a rather hectic month and regularly let my thoughts wander, just as the main character does.

Isn't it precisely during unexpected solitary trips, interrupting our daily routines, that we find ourselves pondering the past?

And ok, many of Krishan's thoughts are not eye-openers, but isn't one of the pleasures of literature not also encountering a surprisingly accurate or eloquent description of familiar feelings?

The narration is very well done.

It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother's former caregiver, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances, at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an activist he fell in love with four years earlier while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires. As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so begins a passage into the soul of an island devastated by violence.

I enjoyed the characters, story and pacing of the novel. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has been to Sri Lanka, wants to go to Sri Lanka, or is interested in different places, customs and people. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

A poetic rumination on life, death, and shaping an identity beyond and in spite of your family--a bit lengthy and "plotless", but I especially enjoyed the exploration and context of conflict in Sri Lanka.

There may be nothing new in equating a physical journey with a mental and emotional one, but Arudpragasam pulls it off with grace, thoughtfulness and an impressive skill. Weaving together the personal and the political, this is a narrative that is interior and introspective: there is no dialogue, we are constantly within Krishan's head, though he does recall and recreate scenes, reporting what others said.

The two themes that occupy Krishan throughout are his brief though passionate love affair with Anjum, a political activist; and a reckoning with the civil war in Sri Lanka which left him untouched, principally because of his young age, but with which he feels he needs to come to terms as part of his Tamil identity.

The Anjum strand has something of the obsessive intensity of Proust as Krishan relives the push-pull of a relationship, his own insecurities, and how to reconcile the desires of two people when a commitment to social justice requires no compromise.

The second thread deals with the wounds and traumas of civil war, something which Krishan has read about and researched but which get almost personified through the figure of Rani who has been caring for Krishan's grandmother, both older women carrying the scars of conflict.

In many ways, this is a quiet book, despite some horrific acts of violence that are recounted via Krishan's consciousness. With its recourse to poetry and literature as models for life, there's a kind of philosophical grace about the whole thing, and an interesting meditation that culminates in defining the difference between desire and yearning, and how each impact on a life lived - leading to an ending that is suffused with hope.

I toggled between the book and the audiobook (the latter thanks to W.F. Howes/NetGalley), and the audio feels especially appropriate to this introspective kind of narrative, feelingly read by Neil Shah, who keeps the pace slow enough for us to take in what is being said.

I've not been particularly excited about this year's Booker longlist or shortlist, but this is my favourite.