Cheap Reef (Book) (Romesh Gunesekera) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Reef

Finding a place
A finalist for Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, "Reef" is the story of a Sri Lankan boy who carves out a place for himself in a precarious world.

Animated by the lyrical narration of Triton, whose simple, focused voice resounds with enthusiasm and curiosity, mixed with the ignorance of the humble and uneducated, this is a touching, absorbing, entertaining novel.

In the first pages, Triton is an adult, a restaurant owner in England, who stops at a gas station and encounters a cowering immigrant attendant who begs his help in figuring out his new job.

Triton is plunged into the memories of 20 years before in Sri Lanka when, on the eve of a "bungled coup" he is scarcely aware of, he was brought to work at age 11 for Mister Salgado, a brooding scientist with a pessimistic passion for the nation's coral reefs.

"Mister Salgado's house was the centre of the universe, and everything in the world took place within its enclosure."

His life shadowed by the hated figure of Joseph, the manservant, young Triton secures some pieces of onion to rub on the man's bed pallet. But suddenly there's an eruption of screams from next door. The old wife, it turns out, has tied her unfaithful husband in the bath and rubbed him all over with chilli powder. Triton chucked away his onion quarters; "they seemed too tame, but I was not ready to use chilli yet."

But soon, after a scene of abuse Triton can never speak of, Joseph is banished from the house and Triton has what he wants. He has Mr. Salgado to himself and he goes about his work with single-minded dedication, anticipating his employer's wishes, reading his books, emulating him in small matters like list-making.

But even this is not enough. With the outside world irrelevant, except as it affects the mood and movements of his master, Triton, an ambitious man even if he doesn't know it, transforms himself into a chef extraordinaire. There is nothing he cannot create.

And a new, exciting presence at the house, Nili, a woman with an appreciative appetite, and a salutary effect on Mr. Salgado, spurs Triton to go all out. The food is "more than good. I knew, because I can feel it inside me when I get it right. It's a kind of energy that revitalizes every cell in my body. Suddenly everything becomes possible and the whole world, that before seemed slowly to be coming apart at the seams, pulls together."

The house enjoys a resurgence of love and energy but outside events intrude, eroding their homelife and threatening their physical safety. Triton ignores politics as no concern of his, but no one can remain apart from the world, although it doesn't necessarily do any harm to try.

Absorbed in his art, focused on his master, Triton finds contentment and satisfaction which he conveys in simple, delectable language and deceptively offhand anecdotes. Triton is a captivating character and Gunesekera a subtle, graceful writer with a rich feel for language.

What's cooking in Sri Lanka?
Set in Sri Lanka, "Reef" is a beautifully-written story in which the narrator, young Triton, tells of his time as the servant/chef of Ranjan Salgado, and of Salgado's troubled love affair with Nili.

Nili's arrival on the scene makes the domestic situation in Salgado's house more complicated. Although Triton is not involved directly in what unfolds, he is affected by events and cannot dissociate himself from them.

Gunesekera handles all of this with great skill, making "Reef" an intimate and compelling read. I enjoyed particularly the descriptions of cooking - the section dealing with the difficulty of cooking a "traditional" Christmas meal in a tropical climate was great fun. To add to this, Gunesekera uses the civil violence in Sri Lanka to give the story a threatening and tragic background.

G Rodgers