Book Review : Chinaman - The Legend of Pradeep Mathew // Shehan Karunatilaka

Synopsis :

Some remember his impressive career stats ... others recall his on-field arrogance. Some say he fixed matches . . . others say he was dropped for being Tamil! Who exactly was Pradeep Mathew? And what became of him?


WG Karunasena, a man who spent 64 years drinking arrack and watching cricket decides to find out ...If you have never seen a cricket match; or if you have and it has made you snore ...If you can’t understand why anyone would watch, let alone obsess over this dull game ...... then this IS the book for you

Rate : 4.2 / 5 ⭐

Review :

I initially picked this book up because it had the words Sri Lanka and cricket. Being a Sri Lankan myself and also a fan of cricket I thought it would be an interesting read. But I never expected myself to actually like it to the degree that I do.

The story is told in a very unique way. Instead of just chapters, the couple of paragraphs are titled according to what its being spoken about. It doesn't follow a particular timeline as well. The writer suddenly jumps to the past referring to an incident that cropped up during the present. It took me some time to get used to this but eventually found myself liking it.

The cool thing is that the narrator is a writer. And the way he describes his surroundings and the people are very very how do I say realistic? There is no beauty but there is a certain rawness to it that I liked very much about this book. Also the fact that it takes place at SL so I recognized like all the places they went to and even the few sinhala and tamil phrases used. It was a cool feeling.
The mystery of it all was very intriguing as well. Told in a true Sri Lankan fashion and solved that way too 😃

The main character, Wijeya, is set on finding this bowler called Pradeep Matthew. He isn't a very prominent bowler but according to the writer he thinks he is the best bowler he has ever seen. Unfortunately, Pradeep disappears without a word from the world of cricket after only playing a few matches. Wijeya is hell bent on finding about Pradeep, his past present and future and prove to the world through his writing and a documentary that Pradeep really is a legend.

There weren't many interesting plot twists in this story which I didn't really expect to find except for one. OH MY GOSH! That twist was so cool and definitely unexpected. I was left wondering whether this story was real or fictitious for a couple of minutes.

Okay so kinda sorta simplifying this messed up review. I thought that the characters were well portrayed and very very Sri Lankan. The story was good. Not every single secret was revealed but at the same time you felt a certain sort of satisfaction at that. The writing a little confusing in the beginning but once you get used to it it becomes . quite interesting. Also I learned a lot about cricket in a very interesting way as well.

On a side note I found out that the author will be coming to the Galle Literary Festival in Jan 2018! Hopefully I'll be able to go to the festival next year!