Sri Lanka It's Happening

April 28, 2006

For some inexplicable reason, Carl Muller;s writing leaves me feeling as if I have irretrivably lost something of value.

Once Upon a Tender Time is no different, in fact it's the saddest book in the Von Bloss trilogy. Of course the author says at the start that it's not a happy book. Even though there are quite humorous bits in between, it most definitely is not funny. Once upon a tender time certainly does not make you break off into peals of laughter like the Jam Fruit Tree did.

When a chapter starts off well, it's almost like an attempt by the author to set you up. Consider chapter 16 which starts of well with Carloboy's encounter with Audrey. Then towards the end, it goes like this: "And there was, half a day away by rail, that jewelled land of gleaming stupas and silver swept rivers and vacant-faced tanks and clamourous jungle. In transferring Sonnaboy, the railway had slammed the door on a boy's wonderland and tossed away the key"

Wellwatte which seemed like a prision to Carloboy, is today, a concrete hell , but half a century earlier, it was a wonderland to Conrad Felsinger. Many of the places and people Muller writes about are long gone. All the charming old colonial houses in Hampdon lane and 34th Lane have been torn down, their places taken up by apartments.

The Baobab tree in Anuradhapura that cannot be killed would surely have been cut down like thousands of other trees in Anuradhapura. It certainly isn't the beautifull place described in Yakada Yaka and a tender time.

And what of the burgers? there's only a few left. Too few in fact

Posted by raditha at April 28, 2006 4:52 AM