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Focus on Books
Mini short stories
Professor Sunanda Mahendra
 The
pattern of narratives changes from creator to creator as well as from a
tradition to tradition. What we devote today and the short story came to
be as a literary genre in the late 19th century. The short story was
needed more for the newspaper and magazine as a narrative form which
encapsulates a particular situation where human characterization and
central message via a viewpoint was highlighted.
The well known pioneers of the short story genre came to be
Maupassant and Voltaire from France. Pirendello from Italy, Chekhov from
Russia, Maugham from England and Hemingway from American compilations of
short stories came to be popular as they were ready to be read by a
wider audience. But the short story patterns changed. Some critics went
to the extent of stating that there is no particular rigid form set
aside for the creation of a short story.
In this direction quite a number of literary experimentations
developed with expansion of the publishing industry. Some short story
writers confined their narratives too short and they were even branded
as shorter short stories. Some others freed to write longer short
stories denoted as short novels or novellas.
Allain Robbe Grillet of France brought out a collection of a
collection of short stories titled as 'snapshots'.
Together with this compilation he printed an essay which he titled as
'towards a new novel'. The two units were published together as one
compendium with the lay title, 'Snapshots and towards a new novel'. This
book was one of the pioneer collections of narratives that changed the
format of the conventional patterns short story writing.
In Sinhala literary tradition, still the short story as a narrative
type is mostly conventional in the content and structure.
They research mostly the story patterns of the most accepted writer,
who had come in translations of Chekhov, Maupassant, Moravia, and
Narayan. But from time to time we read offbeat kind of narratives as
well.
One such example is the latest collection of mini short story
collection of the writer Podiratne Angamale. The collection is titled
Eka Irak Eka Handak (one sun, one moon). He uses a subtitle which goes
as 'experiences linked with life'.
The main feature about his narrative patterns is that the mini
narrative sometimes ran to just one single page. Sometimes to two.
Rarely does he exceed that limit.
The significant factor is that the writer Angamale, who hails from
Mahawa, had been serving in the capacity of a bus driver, who had his
experience associating people from various walks of life. As such the
experience he expresses as narrative are so fresh and exuberant. He had
been a keen observer of the behaviour patterns of police constables,
passengers, inclusive of priests, teachers, students, girls and boys
senior citizens, pregnant women, drunkards, pickpockets and a whole
horde of other characters.
He sensitively captures the subtle mannerisms of his own fellow mates
like the deport keepers, vendors etc. He had been working both as a bus
driver and ascended to the grade of driver trainer in the government
sector (Transport Board). In most narratives, the main stream of
expression is fused to a certain degree of morality. In some narratives
he sees the high flown 'generation gap' of human behaviour in simple
situation. He sees the changing aspects of passengers who had been his
friends. He is happy when he finds a schoolboy or a girl in their
academic achievement. There are bouquets and brickbats in each
narrative. The experimentalist in the creator emerges from his
narratives, making the form a freshness which the normal critic would
undermine as either banal or as under qualified structures. Podiratna
Angamale, the writer turned driver, as I see, have been honoured in the
hometown.
Not only as a narrator of stories from his own life, but also as a
poet lyric writer and a children's story writer. For me some of his
narrative contents and structures resemble the folk narrative spirit,
which is a natural inherited creative skill. In all there are 42 mini
short stories in the collection. There are trick endings, situations,
comic and tragic tales of wit and wisdom, fabulous and many more.
Angulimala is a Sinhala writer of a different calibre perhaps forgotten
in comparison.
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