Niralambanay : New genre of creative writing

FICTION: Prof. Sunanda Mahendra launched his latest novel Niralambanaya (Detachment) recently.

He was interviewed about his novel by Prof Upali Ranaweera of the Institute of Comparative Literary Studies and Cross Cultural Studies, Australia. Prof. Upali Ranaweera was formerly attached to Peradeniya University. He has translated some poems from the award winning poetry collection Ogha Tharanaya (Crossing the Torrential Stream) written by Prof. Sunanda Mahendra.

Excerpts of the interview:

Question: I enjoyed the novel very much. I see the entire novel is written in the form of dialogues, monologues, fantasies and diary entries. What really pressed you to change into this manner of expression as against the conventional form of narration found in most Sinhala novels?

Right kind of narrative

Answer: I felt sincerely that this is the right kind of narrative form that suits my theme as it got incubated in me. This novel was planned for a long period of time, perhaps over a period of six years or so.

But I did not like the manner I wrote this in the first instance, it was not suited for the themes I wanted to express. I was shaken by one of the grave and serious tragedies that ever happened on one of the campuses in the country, and I was wondering that although quite a number of reports were written and various types of enquiries followed on the situation, there was ample material that was left over to go into a serious creative work of this manner.

The seriousness, as I felt, was not in the actual naturalistic event that actually happened, but in the various other factors that intertwined in to the event. So I triggered off with my own diary entries and imaginary dialogues that could have gone between various types of individuals.

I made use of the technique of the stream of consciousness and the fantasy in the way I preferred, as it would help evolve a world of the inner self as against the conventional manner of narration as found in various other works.

Changing aspects

I was also seriously inclined to rethink of the changing aspects of the modern day socio-political and academic situations in the country.

This is just one side of the story and the Sinhala reader who is now attuned to a readable style that suits especially this genre of the theme would prefer to see a deeper sense of living conditions via this expression. I was not deliberately making a forceful change, but it did happen that the contents or the experience should suit the technique of expression.

Q: The protagonist of your novel Dr Kamalasiri, who had come back from France having studied aesthetics, looks more of a hybrid. Were you deliberate? But on the other hand he is also shown as more Orientalist in the Asian context in his behaviour. Could you give an explanation?

A: Undoubtedly my vision was to make a hybrid character, someone rather uprooted, that is to say neither-here-nor-there type of a person frequently found in the academic circles nowadays.

I am not too sure whether one would agree with me for the use of the term 'hybrid', but as you would observe from various dialogues that ensue, gradually Kamalasiri finds himself more comfortable on this soil for more than one reason, especially the last part of the novel explains this factor of the rooted quality of his behaviour as against the previous manner in which he lived abroad for which he does not repent either.

Defeated character

Instead he tries to adjust himself, and as such this is more of a positive work than the so called nishkriya or the 'defeated character' one comes across in some of the popular Sinhala novels. To be frank hybridization is a theme that is never touched in the present context of creative writing in Sri Lanka. So I think my role as a creative writer may have fulfilled this vacuum up to a point.

Q: Kamalasiri and Samadhi are shown as victims of circumstances, perhaps you have done this on purpose to win the favour of the reader leaving or dismissing most of the descriptive parts revolving round their lives and as such authorial comments on places and people have been pared to the minimum. How should you justify this point?

Inner self

A: I only wanted to create various situations as dramatic as possible enabling the reader to form his own story environment or the comments as far as he or she aspires to get from his own inner self and surrounding as applicable.

I feel that most of what I have written in the form of dialogue possess two layers of meaning, upper text and the subtext and I feel the latter is the most important layer. This is not seen in the haphazard reading, but in a more sensitive absorbed reading following the lines carefully as in a play text.

The place or the people or the other factors one so anticipates ought to flow from the text of the book and not through extra descriptions. Exactly, as you rightly say so, both Kamalasiri and his student Samadhi are sensitive beings and victims of circumstances. Theirs is the tragedy of the day.

Q: Niralambanaya is more of a new genre of creative writing introduced to the Sinhala reader, where you have even included several poems, diary entries, dream sequences and other items of a new pattern of serious creative writing. But unfortunately this will be misinterpreted as against the conventional type. Will this be then regarded as a modernistic Sinhala novel, I wonder?

A: The novel is already well-received and it sells well. But that is beside the point. I have not come across any serious critics talking or writing about with the exception of one or two university lecturers who have read the book in a more relaxed mood.

What I observe in the people whom I have given the book is that they talk so many things at tangent. The point is that I am not too sure what fate is to befall the novel. I keep my fingers crossed about such things.

Some people might be annoyed to see me writing this and this can be an utter failure from some points of view. My part of the function is over now and I feel rather unburdened and should start on the other work because I feel time-winged chariot is hurrying near.

Some discourage me and some others encourage me. I have to thank both parties and finally I am very much thankful to you for reading my novel and for these questions. Niralambanaya author can be reached at [email protected]

Inspiration to a war-weary nation

Nonviolent coexistence
Moving Communities beyond fear suspicion and weapons of war
 

Review: Ranga Chandrarathne

WAR: "Nonviolent Coexistence, Moving Communities beyond suspicion and weapons of war" which was edited by Kumar Rupasinghe and Gayathri Fernando comes at a time when the nation suffers from the pangs of a protracted war which has, so far, claimed lives of over 60,000 Sri Lankans.

In an introduction to the book, Dr. Kumar Rupasinghe states, "This book has been inspired by the work of the Foundation for Co-existence (FCE), over the last five years in the war-torn areas of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. Here, Muslims, Tamils and Sinhalese lived for generations in relative harmony and coexistence till war erupted.

Today these communities live in fear and distrust. The FCE through its field operations, with a staff of over 50, has attempted to mediate, resolve disputes and promote coexistence in these war-ravaged areas.

Through this work, we came to the realization that the communities require inspiration and courage in the face of massive disruption of communal life brought about by the war....this book has been written to explore and promote the alternative to violence in Sri Lanka and attempt to provide a counterweight to the growing reliance on weapons as a means of achieving desired results.

There is an immediate need to take a stand against violence, if Sri Lanka is to emerge as a nation of diverse communities with a shared destiny - a united Sri Lanka. The alternative to this is unthinkable."

One of the salient characteristic of the book which is a compendium of inspiring stories on experiments with nonviolence communication is that it differs from host of publications in terms of insightful analysis and interviews, in addition to inspiring sagas of crusaders of nonviolence from Mahatma Gandhi to Guillermo Gaviria Correa.

Political justice

Especially the article on nonviolent action in Palestine/Israel by Michael N. Nagler provides an insight into the possibilities of launching a nonviolent Intifada which Nagler believed with Israeli and International support would not only end the occupation but also transform the present violent 'discourse' in 'one of social, economic and political justice leading to the stable peace.

Nagler argues that grassroots level project aiming at "forgiveness and reconciliation" will have to be strengthened in order to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East. The second important fact that he pointed out is that process of healing should be recognized as "conscious common purpose" by all parties including the international community as Middle East crisis does not only affects the Middle East but also the world at large.

As this change comes from the masses rather than the States involved in the conflict. In the case study on Northern Island, it has been emphasised that the parities to the conflict should , among other things, recognised 'complicity' with violence, taking responsibility politically, culturally and personally in order to reverse the process of mutual blaming to that of mutual responsibility and change and that it would create a 'win-win' situation.

Constructive peace

In the chapter "No fist is big enough to hide the sky - the power of nonviolence" deals with the fundamental premise of the concept of nonviolence including the Conflict Triangle which focuses on Attitudes, Behaviour and Contradictions.

This chapter also describes the power of nonviolence as a potent agent change of structures and highly tense situations and cultures, from structures dormant with violence to structures supporting constructive peace.

It further emphasised that the conflicts are natural and are not neither negative nor positive and the conflicts should not be equated with violence.

"Violence occurs when conflicts have been systematically mismanaged, ignored or suppressed. It also happen when parties see violence as their goal or in their interest, and when we collectively make massive investments in creating institutions and instruments of violence."

Nonviolence can be used as a method for overcoming and transcending the root causes of conflicts and transforming the system and structures which is a part of the conflict together with the diverse actors.

"Nonviolence Coexistence" fulfils a long-felt need for an inspiring as well as analytical book on worldwide experience of nonviolence in action. Some of the examples and case studies would be invaluable references in a long march to peace in Sri Lanka, the arduous path inevitably be a one which is nonviolence, leading to a change of present structures to structures and systems supporting durable peace through admission of responsibilities and reconciliation.

It is a painful and gradual process which would take a long time to extinguish the flames of war and process of admission and reconciliation. This publication may lead to a commencement of such a process.

Colourful biographical narrative of a revolutionary Leflist

Revolutionary Trails
Edmund Samarakkody: A Political Profile
Author: T. Perera
SSA, Price Rs. 400, 222 pages

Review: D. Wijeratne

PROFILE: Beginning in the early 1930s Edmund Samarakkody was associated with the working class movement and Marxist politics in Sri Lanka, not merely during the forward sweep of its heyday, but importantly during its times of crisis and retreat.

Adhering to the fundamental principles and practice of Marxism-Leninism, he participated to the end of his life, in the working class led anti-capitalist struggle, for the overthrow of capitalism-imperialism and its replacement by an international socialist order.

Inspired in his youth by the tumultuous tramway strike in 1929 during which workers burned down the Maradana Police Station, and law students with flags and red sashes demonstrated in sympathy with the strikers, Edmund sat down to write a leaflet entitled, "Students of Ceylon Arise".

Urging the workers to fight he exhorted the students "to give up their splendour and come out to the streets and join the workers to save the destruction of civilisation and bring universal equality, happiness and prosperity."

A youthful cry indeed! Many an impressionable young man of his age might have been similarly inspired, even if they have not put down their feelings in so many words. How many nevertheless would have clung to their thoughts and developed them into maturity, over a span of 60 years?

Left movement

In point of fact, most of the one-time stalwarts of the Left movement itself with whom Edmund had collaborated, fell by the wayside, each in his own time, and succumbed to the established social order. Edmund is among the few who stood their ground.

This would have been not surprising, if in the meantime, the self-same issues which tormented society then had not developed into menacing proportions, both nationally and internationally. The fate of mankind is indeed more terrifying to contemplate today than it was in 1929.

As a Marxist-Leninist Edmund believed that the major problems of society, such as those of the working class, the peasantry and the oppressed and toiling masses and all forms of political and national oppression are inextricably bound up with the capitalist-imperialist world order, and that the path to their solution lay in its revolutionary overthrow through working-class struggle.

Capitalist order

Without being merely a biographical narrative about Edmund Samarakkody, T. Perera's work serves as a welcome study to those readers interested particularly in the history of the left movement, the so-called "collapse of the left" and even "the death of communism."

What had appeared to be a mass-based movement and a revolutionary Marxist party (the LSSP), making great strides in challenging the capitalist order in Sri Lanka, ended up becoming collaborators of the capitalist class, as co-partners in coalition with the SLFP and being reduced to the position of servitors of the very same capitalist order against which they had been fighting.

Here the reader is taken back by the author, to the momentous developments within the Marxist movement in the early 1940s. It is against the backdrop of the crisis of imperialism during World War II, that in fact the LSSP, formed in 1935, actually underwent a transformation, in an attempt to forge itself into a revolutionary party, and help build the BLPI (Bolshevik Leninist Party of India) of which the LSSP was to be its Sri Lankan section.

However, with the failure of the BLPI to utilise the momentous revolutionary possibilities opening up in 1942 in India, and the consequent emergence of a relatively settled national capitalist order under the Indian National Congress led by Gandhi, the BLPI itself broke up and immersed in the politics of the Congress.

Unprincipled re-unification

The split in the local section of the BLPI itself into the reformist LSSP led by Philip and N. M. and the BSP (Bolshevik Samasamaja Party) led by the Colvin-Leslie group and the subsequent unprincipled re-unification of the two groups, as the LSSP, soon paved the way to the transformation of the LSSP once again into a parliamentary reformist, social democratic party.

Although a Marxist tendency did emerge in the party subsequently and existed upto the 1960s, it was the reformists who managed to take over the party and the movement and eventually ended up in the coalition with the capitalist SLFP in the 1970s.

Edmund all along worked within the Marxist tendency upto the split in 1964. In due course, however, with the acknowledged leadership of the revolutionary wing itself succumbing to the reformists it was a largely a disparate section which split in 1964 to form the LSSP-R (Lanka Sama Samaja Party Revolutionary).

Marxist tendency

Accordingly it was from 1964 onwards that Edmund's role in the Left movement begins to acquire greater significance. In Edmund's own view, as the author of the biography suggests the crucial shift in the direction of parliamentary reformism had its origins in the late 1940s and the coalition politics of the 1960s and 1970s were the eventual end result of that regressive process.

While the role of the Marxist tendency and of Edmund himself in relation to the task of averting the rightward slide in the party from the 1940s onwards, are problems that could be examined in further detail. T. Perera's book provides in particular a broad but valuable survey of the part that Edmund together with his leftwing colleagues played in seeking to build once again a revolutionary party and movement in Sri Lanka.

T. Perera's profile of Edmund is no run of the mill biographical narrative. Edmund's political life is here studied, as it necessarily has to be done, to render it meaningful in the context of a variety of issues affecting the international socialist movement.

The author has endeavoured to do so with in the ambit of a small book. He has also made use of published and unpublished material.

Remarkable personality

It might be said that it was the last 25 years of Edmund's life that add stature and make him a more remarkable personality in the Marxist movement. He along among the first generation leaders of the movement such as Philip, N. M., Colvin and Leslie had without succumbing to parliamentary reformism steadfastly adhered to the path of Marxism-Leninism.

In the words of his longtime comrade and collaborator Meryl Fernando in his introduction.

"Edmund kept his faith in socialism. But he had to swim against the current in his attempt to build a viable political group in Sri Lanka, to help build a Trotskyist centre internationally. He remained in the arena of struggle till the end."

A woman with a remarkable brain

Passionate Minds: The Great Enlightenment Love Affair
Author: David Bodonis
Little Brown, UK and Crown, USA, 2006

Review: Carl Muller

PROFILE: You've heard of Emile, Marquise de Chatelat, haven't you? No? Well, never mind. Almost nobody has - but she was the woman who Voltaire shared most of his life with.

Ah, of course you've heard of Voltaire: free thinker, dramatist, poet, scientist, economist, spy, politician and successful speculator. He came to embody the intellectual breakthrough of the Great Enlightenment that was the single biggest step in the understanding of ourselves and the world.

Let me dwell awhile on Voltaire although the book I wish to tell you of is all about Emile. It would suffice to say that he led a most turbulent life, spent time in prison, quarrelled frequently with King Frederick II of Germany, had to make himself safe from the Swiss and French governments, crossed swords with Rousseau and was denied a Christian burial by the Church when he died aged 84.

I now turn to Bodonis' book that tells us of Emile - a woman born in a society where female education was both scant and most flimsy. Nothing more academic than "etiquette lessons" were necessary, and daughters needed that, and only that to be thought of as "marriageable".

Bodonis' book is a biography of Emile who was actually a rigorous thinker, a better writer, a more systematic scientist than Voltaire; a great mathematician, a wizard at the gambling table and also a kind, deep person who was also a more faithful lover of Voltaire than he was of her.

Male chauvinism

Down the years, her story has been much neglected. One reason was male chauvinism. Emile produced her best work at a time when men could not and would not accept women as being of any worth in the scientific mainstream. Even Immanuel Kant made a most ugly remark when he said: "To count Emile as a great thinker is preposterous. It is like imagining a bearded woman!"

Naturally, the biographers of the day were more interested in Voltaire, and not Emile, his sexy mistress.

Also, those who did research on Emile were too scientifically ignorant to comprehend her true significance. For instance, we have Nancy Mitford's novel, "Voltaire in Love" (1957). Author Bodonis is scornful. He writes: "Mitford could not talk rightly about Emile and what she stood for. Mitford knew as much about science as a shrub!"

As his book goes, Emile was born in 1706 - and born, as I said, with a remarkable brain. She translated Isaac Newton's "Principia" - and Newton died when she was 20.

Not only did she translate his work from Latin to French, but she also expressed Newtown's obscure geometric proofs and worked out of his web of theorems the implications of gravity and energy.

Her work actually laid the foundations for later discoveries in theoretical physics. We are also stunned to be told that even Einstein used the square c2 direct from Emile's work when he gave us his famous equation, E=mc2.

Astronomy

It was fortunate for Emile that her father allowed her to use her brain an encouraged her in her study of astronomy. He then married her off to Florent-Claude, the Marquis du Chatelet-Lamont, who was not bothered by Emile's intellectual adventures. He didn't seem to mind her amorous adventures too, for Emile was always drawn to men who lied to expand their minds and were all for science.

We have much meat in this book - but one thing will always prod: What heights of scientific discovery would Emile have risen to had she lived in a healthier and more open-minded age?