Fiction, 2022
As I was reading The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, I kept on returning to one thought: someone incredibly smart and talented should adapt this into an animated film. There are certain books that feel cinematic, but this one feels trippy in a fantastical way that only illustrations can do justice to. If you’re in the mood for scorched humour, child soldiers who run off rooftops to free themselves from orders, and state-sanctioned torture, this is for you!
Meet Maali Almeida, a self-proclaimed “Photographer. Gambler. Slut.” who finds himself in the endless bureaucracy of the afterlife. Even after death, he has to navigate factions that attempt to lure him in under the false guise of freedom, peons who never have any answers, and queues in government offices that snake the endless building. But this is just the set-up of the first few pages, for Maali is on a mission to direct the ones he loves to negatives of his photographs—of torched corpses, pogroms, and wrenched limbs. As he does this, he flies over war-torn Sri Lanka; his home, and his love. He zooms into the Beira Lake containing thousands of lost bodies and floats over jeeps carrying war-criminal Ministers of State. Through this journey, the reader is exposed to his searing satirical commentary.
This is a heavy book, but honestly, it’s also just incredibly funny. Karunatilaka writes gore with such ease and humour that it makes the gore even more unsettling. I laughed, and then cringed at myself for laughing, and then found something else funny again. The cycle goes on, and it represents the mood of the novel.
Song - Happy in Hindsight - Jonny Fritz
Film - Bojack Horseman
omg can I borrow this
Amazing! Keep it up