Gleanings

Mid-century Sinhala novels: AJG’s evaluation

K.S. Sivakumaran

Some notable Sinhala novels written in the middle of last century were evaluated by a critic nurtured in English Literature who was also a competent commentator on Sinhala Culture.

He was the late Prof. A. J. Gunawardena. He was a columnist who wrote a weekly piece called ‘Marginal Comments’ under the pen name ‘Rasika’ in the Daily News of the 1950s and 1960s and later to other newspapers including ‘The Island’.

He was well-known literary and film critic, script writer, academic and a person with many more accomplishments both in Lanka and abroad. His spouse was the late Trilicia who was an actor on the Sinhala stage and in films.

I came to know about the aspects of Sinhala culture through the columns of critics who wrote in English, chief among them was AJG. One of his early articles was on the then New Novelists in Sinhala.

This was published in 1964 in ‘Community Six: Ceylonese’ ‘Writing - Some Perspectives - 2’. Based on this article, I wrote a piece in Thamil on the Sinhala novelists in ‘Mallikai’, a literary magazine in Thamil.

‘Yali Upannemi’ (1960) by Gunadasa Amarasekera, ‘Hevenella’ (1960) by Siri Gunasinghe, ‘Aprasanna Kathavak’ (1962) by K. Jayatilaka, are the three novels that AJG discusses in his article.

What I shall do here is to give extracts from the first paragraphs of his article so that those young readers who might not have read it could now have an idea of the style of literary criticism then and also some information on the themes in the Sinhala novel then. I shall not retell the story in the novels but quote only the critical observations.

Quote 1:

‘Yali Upannemi’ is GA’s major novel after ‘Karumakkarayo’ (1955), his first exercise in the genre. Like ‘Karumakkarayo’, ‘Yali Upannemi’ takes the autobiographical form, but differs significantly from it in theme and treatment. There is no detailed, unbroken narration of the story, though events are arranged in their chronological order.

The selective process is more pronounced here, and the vein of self-analysis stronger. But a great deal of dead-weight exists in the book: the author’s eye has not been consistently observant. Yet it is not difficult to discard the lumber, and come into direct contact with the central character Ranatunga who receives, obviously and unmistakably, the author’s whole-hearted sympathy.”

Quote 2:

Siri Gunasinghe’s first novel is concerned with a theme closely related to that of ‘Yali Uppenami.’ The treatment, however, differs considerably. ‘Hevanella’ is a novel of smaller compass, and more modest in concept. The hero is Jinadasa; an only child like Ranatunga, he too passes his formative years in the village.

He grows up under the wing of his mother and the chief priest of the village temple. Their tutelage makes him a pious religious-minded child. He will not quarrel with his fellow pupils, or go out to play with them. He spends his time at home, reading “improving” books, or at the temple, listening to the discourses of the high priest.”

Quote 3:

“In ‘Aprasanna Katavak’, K. Jayatilake’s second novel, we meet Pala, a slightly different kind of narrator-her. Although Pala is, like his counterparts in Yali Upennami and Hevanella, village-born and village-bred, he comes from a somewhat lower social group; his family is much less well-to-do than those of Ranatunga and Jinadasa.

Partly as a result of this economic factor, Pala does not go through the university experience that is central to the lives of other two heroes. In substance, however, their careers have basic similarities.”

One notices in AJG’s simplicity in his language abstaining from wordage and also the comparative approach he shows in his treatment. Of course one should read the whole essay to find the merits of his writing.

One other observation AJG makes sums up the characteristics of the three Sinhala Village oriented writers - Amarasekera (now an ardent patriot and patron guardian of Sinhala Buddhist Culture), Gunasinghe (an aesthete in the Sanskrit and Western tradition) and Jayatilaka (a leftwing progressive writer).

Says AJG: “The most important single feature in their lives, however, is that they leave the environment (Sinhala village) and come into contact with another, unfamiliar one.

“Here they encounter new values, attitudes and ways of thinking. This inevitably confronts them with a choice - a choice not necessarily between the alternatives signified by the old and new.

Their basic careers run parallel although their individual experiences and final fates may vary. In the last analysis, then, all three novelists deal with the same situation, and the same conflict.”

There are a few translations of contemporary Sinhala fiction into English, but only a handful of critical observation in English are available in book form. In the alternative to enrich my knowledge about Sinhala Culture, I have to depend on newspaper articles and columns in English like the ones that Sunanda Mahendra (himself a creative writer) pens.

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