Looking through a critical lens
Book review on Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy
The award winning Sri Lankan- Canadian novelist Shyam Selvadurai through his debut novel “Funny Boy” published in 1994, attempts to highlight the hardships which the Sri Lankan society underwent physically, mentally and socially from the years 1976 to 1983. Through the perspective of seven year old Arjun Chelvaratnam (Arjie) who is a Tamil boy from a wealthy middle-class family, Selvadurai sketches the character of a child who with innocence expresses confusion in thought about his sexuality, the rigid notions of adults and society and the gravity of the ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka. This confusion within the child gradually pervades as the protagonist grows nurturing with education. However, the coming of age novel, Funny Boy, revolves around the themes of masculinity, voicing out the notion of being gay whilst attempting to acquire justice, how ethnic conflicts have resulted in stereotypical notions that deny inter- ethnic relationships, and the vices of Black July which are key concepts that Selvadurai attempts to bring to the attention of the readers.
Sedgwick (1990) points out that “it has been the project of many, many writers and thinkers of many different kinds to adjudicate between the minoritizing and universalizing views of sexual definition and to resolve this conceptual incoherence” (p. 86). Selvadurai is one of those authors that attempted to amend the confusion of the concept of being gay. Masculinity is portrayed within the novel in a manner where the male community engages in acts like playing cricket as a child and being a businessman that takes the responsibility of running the family as an adult. The traits of admiring beauty, enjoying romantic stories in magazines, playing with girls and dressing up as a girl were “funny” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.14) and hence reasons for Arjun Chelvarathnam to be branded as “girlie boy” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.25). The questions thrown to the reader time and time again is whether it is wrong to admire beauty and to have a liking towards romance and whether it is all so “girlie” to dress up as a girl just to play. Maybe Arjie did not intend to be “funny” or the “laughing stock of Colombo” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.14) but just did it because he was able to transform in to a “more brilliant, more beautiful self” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.4). The constant accusations confused Arjie who felt that he was lost between the “boys’ and the girls’ world not knowing or wanted in either” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.39). Consequently, from the amusement of the wedding for Radha aunty, the enjoyment of reading little women, and the admiration for Jegan Parameswaran before his true nature was revealed, the reader observes how Selvadurai manages to maintain curiosity as to whether Arjie would come to a self- realization in the end. The climatic build up to this realization is heightened in the final chapter the “Best school of all” (Selvadurai, 1994, pp. 209- 285) where Shehan Soyza enters the life of Arjie not just as a friend but as his lover. Arjie thinks to himself that Shehan had not “debased me or degraded me, but rather had offered me his love” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.269). Sedgwick (1990) points out that within the Western culture, “that train of painful imaginings was fraught with the epistemological distinctiveness of gay identity and gay situation in our culture” (p.75). Therefore, similar to Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain (Proulx, 1997), Selvadurai’s Arjun and Shehan had the same fate under different circumstances. The rigid social norms, the requirement of maintaining respect within society and most of all the need to maintain the image of masculinity would never accept the kind of relationships between Del Mar and Twist in Brokeback Mountain (Proulx, 1997) and also Chelvarathnam and Soyza in Funny Boy (Selvadurai, 1994). The intention of authors like Selvadurai and Proulx is to question the society as to whether it is a crime to be gay or be in a gay relationship and as to whether the gay need to be looked down at. In a world where gay were considered as Craft (1984)points out “a woman’s soul trapped in a man’s body” (Sedgwick, 1990, p.87), Selvadurai attempts to attain justice for the gay through his novel Funny Boy. The only weakness observable in portraying this concept of being gay in Selvadurai’s work is that the author constantly mentions the word “funny” avoiding the word gay. As a reader one would believe that the opinion may be voiced out more effectively if gay was directly used at some point in the text to break the taboo of the concept within society thus giving a rebellious impression in order to achieve justice.
Selvadurai has managed to seep in to the plot the elements of action and adventure by describing the realistic nature of ethnic conflicts within the Sri Lankan society during the time. Selvadurai uses the characters of Radha and Anil, Daryl and Nalini and also Arjie and Shehan to bring to the attention of the reader as to how the ethnic conflicts had gone on to influence the ideologies of people who belong to different ethnic groups there by creating an impact on relationships and marriage. Arjun states “Shehan was a Sinhalese and I was not. This awareness did not change my feelings for him” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.302). Selvadurai brings to light that despite the consent of the couples, the rigid notions of society would never allow union due to ethnic conflicts. Through the images of destruction and murdering by the mobs, Selvadurai brings out the fear, the hatred and the disharmony that politics had created in society. The characters of Jegan Parameswaran and even ammachi were those that significantly depicted hatred and victimization due to political issues. Through minor characters like Sena uncle, Chithra aunty and also the Pereras, Selvadurai expresses that not everybody has the same hatred and instead that there are people who were willing to assist despite ethnic differences. Despite this, the reader is given the impression by Selvadurai that all hope is lost in having a secure home in Sri Lanka during the Black July riots as Arjun states “there was no reason to protect it against the outside world anymore” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.312). In the end, unable to bear the hardship the Chelvarathnam family migrated to Canada, where it was a much secure home in their eyes than that in Sri Lanka.
Arjun Chelvarathnam realizes that the world he viewed reading little women was not true as the protagonist states that “the world the characters lived in, where good was rewarded and evil punished, seemed suddenly false to me” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.153). Shyam Selvadurai through Funny Boy brings out vivid perspectives through the themes of the novel and manages to grasp the attention of the reader till the very end. Despite Arjie’s mother stating the fact that “because the sky is so high and pigs can’t fly” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.23), Selvadurai attempts to show the world that the impossible is possible, if the desire to achieve self- satisfaction is present despite the social norms and beliefs. Blending together the struggle to realize personal identity and the struggle to establish national identity, Selvadurai through the coming of age novel Funny Boy leaves with the reader the message that “life is full of stupid things and sometimes we just have to do them” (Selvadurai, 1994, p.20).
