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Original Prin centres itself on Prin, a father, professor and Catholic, after his cancer diagnosis. Vowing to improve the quality of his life and prioritise his relationship with others, his university are faced with financial troubles. The person hired to solve the problem - his sexy ex-girlfriend Wendy.
I had really high expectations going into this book, considering the blurb begins with “8 months before he became a suicide bomber”, however, while the effort is clearly there and the themes are the perfect combination of interesting and timely, I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work. The magnitude of topics of covers, deep thought on religion, family and relationships, being faced with death, I felt the book didn’t really do any of these justice as the middle section of the novel just lacked purpose and direction.
The first and last section of the book is brilliant, because I felt it was really in line with the themes that Boyagoda wanted to get across, however, the middle section sometimes felt like it was a filler for the powerful end and beginning. While it did have some interesting conversations about religion and how that shapes his life as a first-generation immigrant in the world of academia in Canada, it just didn’t feel as nuanced or impactful as it could have been.
Additionally, I didn’t really find any of the characters particularly likeable, not that they were bad, but just a little boring and not worth reading about. Perhaps because the book is mainly meant to be focused on the essence of the conversations happening and the greater meaning of it all but reading about life purpose in characters who weren’t themselves that interesting made the conversations feel like they weren’t worth reading.
Lastly, I think the book felt too quirky and odd to be a contemporary novel. While that may sound like an odd comment, I think Prin was too confused in his own writing, to the point where I question if this character is so made up he has gone past any semblance of relatability to a purely theatrical existence. From swinging to bad lecturer, bad husband, bad at philosophising about his religion and not the greatest Catholic, it just felt a little childlike. I would have liked these adult conversations to take place more amongst actual adults – I think the focus on satire and humour was prioritised over character building a little too much.
Overall, there were sometimes where I laughed a little, but the newspaper reviews on the cover, “richly funny” and “painfully humorous”, are just not words I would describe this book. The balance between humour and poignant themes like religion as a person of colour and a migrant, along with navigating western life just hasn’t quite been achieved in this book for me, but I’m looking forward to reading his debut novel Governor of the Northern Province.
Rating: ⭐⭐/5