Original Prin a hilarious romp of a novel
Prin is a midlife academic at a financially strapped Catholic university in downtown Toronto. A specialist in the sea horse in Canadian literature (particularly in the work of Michael Ondaatje), a committed husband, and a devoted father of four precocious daughters, Prin is more or less grateful with his lot in life, despite often wrestling with questions of faith.
Following a brush with cancer, Prin commits to becoming a better person. He wants to prove himself a loving husband and a more devout Catholic. His vows are soon tested when a former girlfriend — the sleek, chic, academic-turned-consultant Wende — arrives on the scene to help save Prin’s institution. Pledging to do all he can to support the university president, Prin boards a plane to the Middle East with Wende to pursue a sketchy international partnership opportunity, despite — or perhaps because of — his uncertainty about Wende’s romantic intentions.
Boyagoda sets up a tightly paced novel in “Original Prin” that succeeds on a number of fronts. It’s a hilarious romp of a campus novel, poking fun at the marketdriven ethos of the modern Canadian academy. It’s a touching look at the complicated sacrifices demanded of familial love. At heart, it’s a richly humorous novel that explores the struggle for spiritual believers in a fiercely secular world. While Prin’s a typical middle-class Torontonian, worrying about bills and fretting over his career, he also probes his relationship with God on the daily. Prin’s comic scenes in the confessional, looking for solace from a recalcitrant priest, are some of the funniest in the book. Boyagoda’s also adept at capturing the rambunctious multifaith, multicultural zeitgeist of the city, particular in corners where cultures and faith overlap.
When Prin and Wende encounter a terrorist cell on their Middle East sojourn, the pace picks up, and the novel pivots, with varying success, into a contemporary geopolitical thriller.