I don't know what to say about this book. I haven't burst out crying without a warning at any book since The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat. Maybe it's because of the current activism going on regarding the IDP, or maybe Selvadurai is just that good of a writer. I don't know. Genocide and communal violence makes me cry. That might be it. In any case, this was an amazing novel, despite it being the author's first.First of all, the novel is about a young Tamil boy named Arjun. I sometimes can't tell when it's set exactly, but it is around the late 1970s and early 1980s. Arjun is definitely queer, which is where the title of the book comes from. The first part of the book details his "penchant" for stereotypically feminine activities, which his father eventually tries to put a stop to before he becomes "funny." I knew that's what the title meant, even before I read the synopsis. The great thing about this is that the book is not about Arjie being gay. I have an intense dislike for stories that decontextualize queer people, and becomes all about how queer they are. Believe it or not, they have more going for them. Most of the book is about the ebb and flow of hostility between the Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka, leading up to the Civil War in the early 1980s. Arjun's family is middle-class in Colombo, and we see changes in their lives depending on where the political atmosphere is at. At one point, his family surrounded themselves with Sinhalese friends, and Arjie is taught to speak Sinha, and not Tamil. As time passes, they start to surround themselves with Tamils for security reasons. His father, you can see, negotiates his politics with his ethnicity to get by and survive. It is against this backdrop of political turmoil that people's personal lives are detailed through Arjun's eyes.Shyam Selvadurai is part-Tamil, part-Sinhalese, and he's also queer. He left Sri Lanka and moved to Toronto after the Colombo riots in 1983 when he was 19. This obviously informed this novel. I don't know what to quote without giving away plot details, but I really do recommend this novel.
This book is six linked short stories set in Sri Lanka. It is mainly about the build up to the civil war and conflict between Tamil and Sinhalese people there in Sri Lanka. The stories being told from the point of view of a Tamil boy named Arjuna who is also queer. It is both coming of age and building of tension between Tamil and Sinhalese. The final chapter is tragic and terrifying.There are two things that I did not feel comfortable about when I was reading it.1. It maybe that the characters Arjun and Shehan are based on real people. I hope so because I would be being disappointed if this book is reinforcing the steriotype that south Asian gay men are effeminate. Arjun dresses as a bride, prefers to play with girls and puts makeup and jewelry on as a small boy. He does not like to play cricket with his brother or other boys. I am thinking that this is a quite common steriotype of young gays in South Asia and it is really not very typical or realistic. Similarly Shehan hides his long (girlish) hair using hair pins in the school where long hair is not allowed. Not only does that seem very unrealistic, it is strange. Also, there is something about Shehan so that Arjun's father immediately does not like him. I am guessing the author is thinking that gay young men are somehow obviously gay?2. There are many time that the story suggests that Arjuna might turn out to be "funny" because of his upbringing. His parents are being forced to intervene to prevent it. There is being an undercurrent of the idea that a boy's upbringing, parents or socialisation are being responsible in some way for him being gay. This idea has caused so much harm to young gay men and I don't think the author does anything to dismiss it.
What do You think about Funny Boy (1997)?
"Funny boy" tells the story of Arjie, a young boy growing up in Sri Lanka and how to come to discover his own sexuality Through it and the political events happening around him he bulds an understanding of the world that is both poignant and brutally truthful. We're given vignettes of several significant stories in Arjie's life, from ages even to fourteen. Through these events Shyam Selvadurai was able to present a great tale of gender norms, sexuality, and political racism. This novel is filled with layers and layers of of these issues. It demonstrates in a superior way how complicated even one singular issue is and how in turn the problem of tackling said issue is prevelant. The choice to begin the novel with Arjie as a young boy is a brilliant move. We learn of this world first through the eyes of Arjie's innocence and his shaping of reality through the lens of fictional tales and images. Even without the issues of sexuality or of the plotics, this story is still a wonderful coming of age novel.
—Keshia
First things first, I love the cover of the copy that I possess.Moving on to the review:The fact that 'Funny Boy' is Shyam Selvadurai's first novel, I think that he has done justice to it and has fared well.What I particularly like about the novel is that Shyam very vividly and aptly describes the Sinhala-Tamil situation in Sri Lanka, and his ways with his characters is commendable.Moving to a little bitter note, I think the novel lacks the punch. It does not hit you hard about the very portrayal of Arjie as a gay boy living in Sri Lanka. Not denying that Selvadurai has dedicated a good amout of space for the same, it just did not do justice to the whole scenario for me.Moreover, I feel that the novel wasn't very well connected in the sense that it had a lot of stories running parallel to each other (of all the characters), and all of these had abrupt endings. Selvadurai moved from one story to another, and you wouldn't realise the abruptness when after reading the novel the question will start popping up. I'd just like to add that Selvadurai did not throw as much light on the issue of homosexuality as compared to the Sinhala-Tamil conflict in the novel, and that did not please me much because the gist of the title of the book lies there.In conclusion, it's a decent read.
—Amarinder
Selvadurai did an amazing job by letting stand each chapter as a story yet moving it all forward in a loosely tied kind of way. The text is light, easy and engaging without sacrificing depth. It actually would be a great read to be recommended (after an introduction to recent Sri Lankan history and social structur) by parents to a teenager and then discussed. I believe to understand myself both the geographical and social context very much and think the story is very realistic in almost all its aspects. I suspect it is highly biographical, perhaps autobiographical. Recomended.
—Rene Schlegel
