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Kaleidoscope :
Many a bright pattern; One too many a hue?
Dulshani Gunawardena
Kaleidescope: A tube containing mirrors and coloured fragments whose
reflections produce changing patterns when the tube is rotated -Oxford
English Dictionary.
Kaleidescope: my curiosity was irked as my eyes set upon the glossy,
bulky volume. It beckoned me, enticed me; to delve into the depths of
that mysterious world of words.
And I was not disappointed.
‘Kaleidescope: Volume Two of an Anthology of Sri Lankan English
Literature’ is a compilation of poetry, prose, drama and non fiction by
Professor D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke. A publication of Vijitha Yapa, it is a
continuation of the first volume published in 2007.
Kaleidescope holds true to its name. Be it the famed Tissa Abeysekera,
Renton de Alwis and Vivimarie VanderPoorten; or the relatively unknown
quarries of Rukshan Perera and Ruana Rajepakse. This anthology mirrors
them all.
All and in all, it is an eye opener to that Sri Lankan English
writers are a thriving bunch-not a stagnant lot with a book published
now and then over an unknown ‘civil conflict’.
The anthology draws us to the virtually unheard sphere: historical
fiction. It spans the likes of the days of ancient Hind in the extract
from Ruana Rajepakshe’s ‘The Garland of Fate’ to Kandy in its turbulent
finale in Tissa Abeysekera’s extract from ‘In My Kingdom of the Sun and
Holy Peak’.
Then, as usual, the oft repeated theme of war: brought out,
thankfully, with style.
Jayantha Rathnayake’s Jayapala(n), whose life is distorted when the
war gives him an identity he never knew of, Neil Fernandopulle’s ‘Their
Baby’ touching on the ‘untouched’ Colombo and Isankaya Kodituwakku’s
‘What I Carried’, with the portrayal of a border village girl. Poetry
adds to the touch with the evocative images created by Asgar Hussein,
Frances Bulathsinghala, Lakshni De Silva and Renton Alwis.
Then the everyday, not-so-mundane life in Ashok Ferry’s hilarious
‘Maleeshya’ with its wicked afterthought: ‘now-did-she-not-get-mad’!
Sivanandini Duraiswamy’s ‘The Surgery and Man Friday’, is an ‘ethic’
story which proves ‘ethic’ is not always an issue. If Sri Lankan short
stories are more bent towards the ‘war experience’, poetry proves
otherwise with Vivimarie VanderPoorten’s short, yet vivid lines, Patrick
Fernando’s musings and Rukshan Perera’s rather haunting ‘The Sins of
Impartiality’. The extracts from H.C.N de Lanerolle’s the ‘Senator’ and
Ernest Thalayasingham MacIntyre’s ‘A somewhat Mad and Grotesquw Comedy:A
Play in one Act’ also brings out the multi faceted comedy that is
society.
These are but a segment from many writers including Uthpala
Gunethilake, Ahila Thillainathan, Ransiri Menike Silva, Samantha
Sirimanne Hyde, Loloan Somalatha Ratnayake, A.SanthanA.A.Latiff
M.D.R.Perera, Tilak Ratnakara, U.Karunatilake, Lakdasa Wikramasinha,
Jean Areasanayagam, Anne Ranasinghe, Alfreda De Silva, Ramya Chamali
Jirasinghe, Destry Muller, Daya Dissanayake, Chandra Wickramasinghe,
Hasitha Wickremasinghe and PunyakanteWijenaike..
Just flipping through the very volume is the opening of a treasure
chest to any reader, whence ‘Sri Lankan’ fiction is a novelty, both by
price and number. In this single volume, Goonetilleke has compiled a
collection of previously published work, would, with the exception of a
notable few, never have reached a wider audience if not for his
tremendous task.
Yes, I certainly am not disappointed. Neither, unfortunately, am I
ecstatic.
The volume is too much a mixture, too much a pattern, too much a
colour. Poetry, prose, drama, even scientific non-fiction-all grouped
under the massive flag of ‘English Literature’?
Four extracts from full length novels, thirteen short stories, twenty
four poems, one complete drama, another drama extract-it is such a mix,
that there is no individual taste.. The book fails to establish any
uniformity and I would have proffered much more had the anthology had
been dedicated to a specific range-may it be drama, poetry or prose.
The content within, also provokes question. Do the scientific
discussions of Arthur C. Clark really belong to an anthology of English
Literature? The extract from Punchibandara Dolapihilla’s ‘In the Days of
Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe, last king of Kandy’ not only gives the volume a
far more prolonged beginning than can be deemed interesting; but is more
of a narrative than historic fiction.
The stories, on a whole, are quite well chosen. Yet, I feel that some
lack flesh and blood, falling merely into a lifeless narrative of a mere
sequence of action. |
