The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

A Sri Lankan war photojournalist in 1990 is murdered and winds up in the afterlife. But he’s given the opportunity to travel anywhere his name is uttered, at least for the next 7 moons (nights). It’s a little bit mystery- we don’t really know what happened to him to lead to his untimely death - a little bit fantasy, some romance, some comedy. At times the prose is a bit tough to get through as it uses a second-person narrative to tell the story. But when I got to chance to sit down for extended periods, it sat well with me and I loved what it was doing.

I worried a bit that it had too many ideas. For instance, there was a great part in the middle of the book about the spirits doing jobs for a guru who had the ability to speak to them. If they did, he used old objects of theirs to get followers to pray to them - which gave them power in the afterlife. It’s mentioned once where the guru is hired by a widow to seek out the ghost of her passed husband to figure out where he buried his fortune. This whole concept could have been a series of graphic novels or a whole “monster of the week” television show. Hmm. Maybe i could think about doing that.

Maali is too connected and has his hands in too many pots in the Sri Lankan civil war to live very long. We were given a brief tutorial on the main players of the conflict at the beginning of the book, but it was too hard to keep them straight and no one seemed above reproach. One of those issues probably created by the British colonizers and fueled by ethnic cleansing. No one wins. Maali is trying to make enough money through his photos to get out, but just doesn’t make it. We assume that he’s killed by one of these factions, but the truth is much sadder.

This novel won the Booker Prize from 2022 which is probably why I put it on my reading list. I had considered trying to stay on top of the Booker winners in the last decade, so will continue that thought and try to work those in where I can.

This is a 3.5 rounded down. Gambling, cheating, war crimes, corrupt politics, and suicides are mentioned frequently throughout, sometimes in detail.

I listened to the audiobook for this one and the narrator did a fantastic job, very animated voices for the different characters, even the demons. Worth the listen if you do decide to give it a go.

This was written in second person and I honestly don't know if that's really for me. It kept throwing me off in the beginning and made the book drag out a bit because I had to keep re-listening to sections to understand what was going on. It got easier as the story progressed and I adjusted, but I think it soured me a little to the whole thing. I really appreciated that it was heavy on the LGBTQ+ representation and the homophobia that surrounded it.

Maali is not a likable character, he is actually quite a horrible and selfish person as we learn. It is meant to be this way and does impact the story. The story starts with him waking up in the afterlife not knowing how or why he got there. He was a photographer who took many photos that could upend governments and destroy lives, and he feels a great need to make sure that his photos are seen no matter how it may affect his ability to move on in the afterlife. This turns the book into a mystery thriller as he is trying to figure out how to send messages to those that are still alive while still trying to remember how he died in case he is putting his friends in danger.

There is a lot of wit and sarcasm sprinkled through the book to lighten up the topics a little without deterring. Karunatilaka did a great job of incorporating the humor. The middle of the book really dragged on for me, though. I felt like there could have been a lot edited out to keep the pacing because the thriller aspect of it kept drying up. You would have a lot of action or information dug up/remembered and then a whole lot of occurrences that did not contribute to the overall story. The importance of the seven moons was definitely explained in the book, but it felt like there was a lot of extra fluff put in to expand it out into "full" stories of the moons.

While I may not ever have a desire to revisit it, it did a great job of explaining to politics and different warring factions in Sri Lanka during the time. Cannot really say I'd fully recommend it, but if you want to read up on Sri Lankan politics written by an author that pulled no punches, I feel this would be a good one to dive into.

There’s so much wrong with this book. Every fundamental plot device is silly: the existence of a spirit after death; the idea that said spirit could see hear smell (violation of laws of physics); that said spirit could have desires and emotions (chemical/biological processes); and then the gimmicks on top of that, like the amnesia thing, how convenient; all of it makes for a book I would toss aside in the first few pages.

But I didn’t. And it wasn’t a stick-with-it thing: I enjoyed every page—okay, almost every page; some of the violence was sickening but I breathed through that—and despite the absurdity I fell deeper and deeper in love with the book. And the payoff is oh so worth it.

The book triggers so many of my hot buttons (in good ways) but I’ll focus on asymmetry because so many central themes revolve around it and because Karunatilaka does such a masterful job weaving it into every element of the story. Porous asymmetries: Maali’s spirit is thrown into an afterlife whose rules are only partially explained, ... with dangerous gaps; the amnesia gimmick is an effective tension-building device, leaking information slowly to Maali and the reader, information that changes the context of what has transpired so far. In addition to the information asymmetries there are asymmetries of power, of attraction/attractiveness, and of morality. The unusual second-person narration is powerful: I often find that gimmick distancing; here it drew me in, made me identify with and feel a strong connection to Maali.

Some of my other hot buttons: Letting things go. The value of life. Compassion. All of them exquisitely handled, not necessarily with the resolution I would’ve preferred, but one I find more than satisfying.