Book review: ‘Tale of Two Odysseys’ by Mario Perera

This novel explores the subject of birth and re-birth. It relates the story of two destinies that are closely linked with each other and even overlap. The story is about a university friendship that blossoms into a life-long bond that unites a young Catholic priest and a young man. A chance encounter changes the promising professional and love life of the latter. 

The background of the novel is the tragic events of the youth uprisings of 1971 and 1989, and the tsunami of 25 December 2004. While one of the protagonists of the story engages voluntarily with the events, the other seeks refuge in detachment and self-abnegation. Yet their respective commitments are in reality quests that surpass the confines of life and death. 

The crucial transformations of the two heroes of the novel occur during the most devastating event of the country’s recent history: the tsunami. The experience that both live through is best described as a recall to life. The novel depicts existence as mind-stuff: grounded on thought, composed of thought and resulting from thought. Its process is that of a river of no return. 

Thus does realisation dawn that the world is a dream. It is void and empty. Yet it is the dream of an Enlightened or Illumined mind. As such the world is light. From bliss has the world sprouted. It has emerged from ecstasy and from happiness. The stage that unfolds in the dreaming mind, the actors it begets and the roles they personify, must be enacted in a manner that brings joy and happiness to all.