FictionThatMatters.org

by
Michael Ondaatje
Picador, 1999, 311 pages.

The conflict in Sri Lanka rages on, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, with over 2,000 civilians killed during the month of January 2009 alone. This calls for the exhumation of Michael Ondaatje’s 1999 novel Anil’s Ghost. Nearly a decade old, the book remains relevant and shines for its clear depiction of human rights issues. The questionable writing is the only impediment that prevents the novel from being required reading for any serious human rights advocate.

Anil’s Ghost portrays the return of Anil Tissera, a brilliant young forensic anthropologist, to her native Sri Lanka after decades of schooling and working abroad. Anil has worked in conflict zones from Guatemala to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, helping to identify the victims of war crimes and locate disappeared civilians. Her investigations often implicate unexpected perpetrators such as supposedly democratic governments. She learns to distinguish ancient fossils from victims, helicopter drownings from burnings. And while a career in this important work excites her, it affects her ability to connect with the living.

Anil arrives in Sri Lanka as part of an international United Nations mission at the government’s request – but no one besides the victims want her to find anything. Investigative work can be dangerous in its revelation of the truth:

Forensic work during a political crisis was notorious, she knew, for its three-dimensional chess moves and back-room deals and muted statements for the ‘good of the nation.’ In the Congo, one Human Rights group had gone too far and their collection of data had disappeared overnight, their paperwork burned. As if a city from the past had been reburied. The investigative team, which included Anil in a lowly role as a programme assistant, had nothing left to do but get on a plane and go home. So much for the international authority of Geneva.

Anil teams up with an archaeologist named Sarath who, like her, prefers to bury his past. They travel the country and discover a recent murder victim that was killed in a government controlled zone. Although the country suffers from thousands of victims – some with heads speared on stakes, others blown up by bombs or bullets – Anil and Sarath decide to identify the mysterious skeleton. It seems futile in the face of the ongoing destruction, but the victim will be ‘representative of all those lost voices. To give him a name would name the rest.’

Together they enlist the help of an artist who specializes in painting the faces of Buddhas to recreate the victim. Everyone is scarred by the conflict. As they navigate the turmoil of the war, allegiances shift until the victim is identified. He was only a mere ‘toddy tapper’ but his face and his reality ‘name the rest’ of victims that suffered fates like him.

Ondaatje, perhaps best known for his novel The English Patient (1992) and its spinoff movie, was born and raised in Sri Lanka, and his passion for the country clearly shows. He attempts to capture Anil’s story and the spirit of the nation with a pastiche of short chapters. In doing so, he succeeds in weaving a patchwork of impressions about the challenges of human rights work in a nation wracked by the uncertainty of conflict:

In a fearful nation, public sorrow was stamped down by the climate of uncertainty. If a father protested a son’s death, it was feared another family member would be killed. If people you knew disappeared, there was a chance they might stay alive if you did not cause trouble. This was the scarring psychosis in the country.

Such passages represent the author at his best. Unfortunately, this is a work of fiction and the distant voice does not translate well into Anil’s own inner workings. Scenes are frequently told rather than shown. For example, the author casually mentions that Anil and Sarath discovered the remains of four individuals in an ancient cave and that one set of remains was suspicious. This would be fine if the fourth remains were not the entire fulcrum of the plotline. (They are the ones that Anil sets out to identify, nearly killing herself and her colleague in the process.) The story also wobbles incessantly in and out between flashbacks, dream sequences, and memories. And when scenes are shown, the dialogue comes across as stilted. Here is Anil in the midst of a steamy affair with another anthropologist:

‘I can’t imagine your childhood,’ he said. ‘You are a complete stranger to me. Colombo. Is the place languid?’
‘It’s languid indoors. Frenetic outside.’

In Ondaatje’s defense, his characters have retreated into themselves, and suffer from a desire to bury themselves like the victims they examine. But really, who talks like that?

What made me re-examine this novel was the fact that the images linger in your memory. The Buddha painter Ananda, delicately painting in a statue’s eyes; the doctor Gamini popping pills to attend to his wards. I credit this staying power to the author’s skills as a renowned poet. He seems better at the sculpting of an image than the sustenance of a driving plot. The work may have functioned better, in other words, as a collection of interconnected short stories.

I still feel that Anil’s Ghost can be extremely instructive reading. Whether or not you are moved by the distant Anil, you will be shaped by the world that she inhabits, and seek a glimpse into the challenges of human rights work. But dust it off with caution.

–Deji Olukotun

Would you like to know more?

Sri Lanka has a population of about 20 million and, at the time of the novel, was embroiled in a conflict between government forces, Tamil minority rebel groups in the north, and a small insurgency in the south. Different sides were using killing squads and covert groups to gain territory or intimidate potential sympathizers. The roots of conflict began with independence in 1948, but erupted fully in the early 1980s. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (sometimes called the Tamil Tigers) demanded independence from the majority Sinhalese government, citing discriminatory treatment in civil service positions and education, and forced displacement from their lands. Numerous peace accords have been honored and then disbanded in the face of split-off factions. Today, the Tamil Tiger territory has shrunk to a strip of the northern Varni region but lasting peace is not guaranteed.

Despite the conflict, Sri Lanka enjoys one of the highest standards of living in South Asia and has experienced a 6-8 percent growth rate in the past few years. Its main industries are manufacturing, services, and tourism, and it is possible to live in the South today without directly confronting the conflict. The country has large Buddhist, Hindu, and Catholic population groups. Its record breaking cricketers are celebrated around the world.

Read the recent 47 page Human Rights Watch report here.