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Like the sweet heat of a curry prickling your tongue or the bursting radiance of bougainvillea, the short stories in Mary Anne Mohanraj's gorgeous debut collection, Bodies in Motion, will delight your senses and your sensibilities. Linked by the thread of kinship, these stories trace the lives of two generations of two families living on the cusp of disparate worlds: America and Sri Lanka. Through them we see just how the emigrant-immigrant ebb and flow shapes lives and the bonds of family.
Mohanraj writes effervescent prose, distilling intimate moments to reveal the tug-of-war between generations and gender as modernization comes into conflict with centuries of tradition. Sensual and honest, the stories chronicle love, ambition, and spiritual and sexual quests of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. Bodies in Motion promises to be a collection you will come back to, again and again.
ASIN : 0060781181
Publisher : Harper; First Edition (July 5, 2005)
Language : English
Hardcover : 288 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780060781187
ISBN-13 : 978-0060781187
Item Weight : 1 pounds
Dimensions : 5.62 x 0.97 x 8.25 inches
Reviewer: Waterowl
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An interwoven tapestry of tales
Review: Bodies In Motion is a collection of short stories that spans 60 years and two interlocking Sri Lankan families. The creation of this book also spans time as according to her web site, the author wrote the stories over the course of ten years.Like most short story collections, the book offers a glimpse into the characters' lives, so the writing itself must draw you in. Some of the stories transported me into the characters' world. I also learned a little about Sri Lankan history and culture and the Sri Lankan immigrant experience. Though like other readers I thought the most rich and juicy details centered around spicy cooking and sexuality. Mohanraj literally and figuratively plumbs the depths of her characters through their intimate relationships. I enjoyed reading about the same character through the years and from different POVs. Often the story ended without a complete resolution, though at times the resolution was further explained in another story.The second story "Seven Cups of Water" introduces Managi a lesbian who ends the collection in a prologue with a beautiful description of her joy in cooking and eating. Sushila with whom she spends a steamy seven nights is later portrayed through her husband's eyes in one of the best stories "Tightness in the Chest"
Reviewer: I. K. Shukla
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: In the Realm of Sexes.
Review: In the Realm of Sex. This could well be the subtitle of Bodies in Motion. Or, for those spiritually inclined, Varieties of Sexual Experience. This novel celebrates sex in its own tangled and thorny way.A family saga, as it were, of mysteries and secrets, romance and recidivism, ambitions and aberrations, it is akin to Galsworthy's Forsythe Saga of an earlier era. If property was the magnet there, sex is in Mohanraj's book. A loose bildungsroman.Profusion and perplexity, pain and pleasure seem to be crowding each other out. Experiments and explorations mark not just the arena of sex here. Fumblings, failures, and resolutions too are jostling to be in a great mix: civil society sex, perhaps of the entire subcontinent.The title of a chapter towards the end, Wood and Flesh, is fairly symbolic and quite representative of the sexual cornucopia. The frame of Savitha and Thayalan's bed had on it "carved out fruits in impossible combinations, on the same tree: mangoes, bananas, coconuts, jackfruit. Birds nested in the canopied frame; small creatures hid in the dense foliage of headboard and footboard. Elephantsthundered along the base of the frame, and monkeys chittered just above their heads. IT WAS A CACOPHONY OF NATURE, UNBEARABLE IN ITS LOVELINESS." (Emphasis added).This treat for the tongue, seemingly chaotic with plenitude, was not random or jumbled. It was a lot to choose from. So too the sex fare for the characters' revel and relish.That this foliage also conceals a murder, and employs cuisine as a tool of rebellion and assertion on the part of a female character, are a reader's delight to discover and mull over.What is Loveliness cannot be unbearable, it may seem Cacophonous alright. Just seem. Appearance and reality must remain in uneasy tension, in turns, conflictual and convergent.At places the style adds to denseness or confusion. The genealogy should better be at the end.Mary Anne Mohanraj is a major literary signature in Sri Lankan writing. She deserves lush commendation and a warm welcome in the fellowhood of South Asian writers.
Reviewer: nomadd
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A fascinating tangle
Review: This book is complex, thoughtful, and rewarding. The stories intersect, but each is told from a different character's point of view and at different times in the characters' lives. I was constantly flipping back and forth between the stories and the genealogy. That being said, the book isn't a puzzle, and the connections never feel forced or contrived... just two families whose stories are linked by a marriage and a culture. What I liked best was how my knowledge of past events shaped my feelings about the characters. In particular, a theme throughout the book is the conflict between the dreams of children and the expectations of their parents; the reader cannot help but sympathize with both sides when the characters have been seen as both children and parents themselves.
Reviewer: S. Gupta
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Mohanraj beautifully interweaves the stories of two families over fifty years
Review: Mohanraj beautifully interweaves the stories of two families over fifty years, with the stories set in America and Sri Lanka. I read this collection of linked stories when the book came out in 2005 and its characters and stories have stayed with me to this day. I loved seeing character appear in one story and reappear in another story, decades later. A wonderful, engrossing collection of short stories that can also be read as a novel.
Reviewer: Sachin Waikar
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Dark, edible jewels
Review: Mohanraj's debut--linked stories of Sri Lankans over three generations--has much to admire: sharply drawn characters, well-wrought prose with intermingling storylines, sensual connects and disconnects. Some of the tales, like the first one--"Oceans Bright and Wide"--may slip without many ripples into our subconscious, while others, like "Lakshmi's Diary" and "Mangoes with Chili," stay with us, dark and edible gems that shine within long after we've swallowed them. A word of caution: the family trees at the beginning telegraph some of the stories' events/outcomes, so it may be prudent not to linger on them. Because if you're like me, you'll want to know where the branches lead--and won't want to wait.