BOOK REVIEW 1

Looking Through a Critical Lens: A Book Review Based on Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny

Boy (1994)

O C N Collom, Department of English Language Teaching, University of Kelaniya

nichollecollom@gmail.com

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
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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 believes 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
BOOK REVIEW 3

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 according to Craft (1984) “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 bringing out of 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 and give a rebellious impression for achieving

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 instead that there

are people who were willing to assist despite ethnic differences. Despite this, the reader is given
BOOK REVIEW 4

the impression by Selvadurai that 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 “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 until the end. Despite the fact that Arjie’s mother states “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).

BOOK REVIEW 5

References

Dickinson, P. (2019). Shyam Selvadurai Biography. Retrieved from

https://biography.jrank.org/pages/4724/Selvadurai-Shyam.html

Proulx, A. (1997). Brokeback Mountain. Retrieved from

https://www.taosmemory.com/oscar/BrokebackMountainNovle.pdf

Sedgwick, E. K. (1990). The Epistomology of the Closet. In Epistemology of the closet (pp. 67-

90). Berkley & Los Angeles, California, United States of America: University of

California Press. Retrieved from http://shifter-magazine.com/wp-

content/uploads/2014/11/Sedgwick-Eve-Kosofsky-Epistemology-Closet.pdf

Selvadurai, S. (1994). Funny Boy. India: Penguin Books .

Zabin, S. (2019, June 27). How to write a critical Book review. Retrieved from Carleton:

https://www.carleton.edu/history/resources/study/criticalbookreview/