Books from supplements
 In
one of our evening literary discourses the subject centred round the
literary supplements designed in many media agencies. We focused our
attention of major literary supplements. Times Literary Supplement
produced a whole host of new insights to the elevation of literary taste
and evaluation of literary works. Over the years the Times Literary
Supplement that came out from England happened to be admired by the
English readers all round the world.
Then we also discussed the value of the weekly magazine named 'The
Listener', which is now defunct. But the intention of the weekly
magazine was to retain as far as possible the talks and features
broadcast over the World Service at the British Broadcasting
Corporation. Some talks and features had the chance of being read over
and over again by the English audience especially of the commonwealth
countries.
It is said that the lasting articles, features and creative works
printed in newspapers and broadcast over various channels need to be
restored and they have been reproduced in the form of books. This gave
way to a new form of publishing venture, first in most commonwealth
countries.
 I
recall the counterpart of the same happening in various local media
institutes including Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. One of the
pioneer administrators who wanted the worthy broadcasts to be published
in periodical form was M J Perera.
He got his officials to collect broadcast material and print from
time to time in the magazine Taranganie , which happened to be one of
the most popular journals among the Sinhala readers in the 1950s and
60s.
But due to the shortage of either facilities or literary insights
this periodical underwent a natural death. Most newspaper offices like
Sinhala Jatiya, Lake House and Times commenced the publication of
various annual journals such as Vesak Magazine.
These Vesak publications became household items which reached a wider
audience of readers. Our attention also should be drawn towards the
publication of collections of various articles in various Sunday Sinhala
newspapers, where the age-old literary and classical supplements known
as Sahitya saha Shastriya Atireka came to be widely known.
The learned essays printed in these literary supplements were later
collected by the writers themselves and printed in the form of books. In
this direction some of the widely read books by Martin Wickramasinghe, G
B Senanayake, Dr E W Adikaram, Ven Ananda Maithriya Thera and many more
contributions in the first instance had appeared in these literary
supplements.
As I remember it well, during our boyhood days, there was indication
on the part of literary supplement editors that the readers should
preserve these supplements for posterity. The tradition of the vision is
seen retained by some editors even to this day with the appearance of
two publications from Lake House.
We had the chance of discussing these two works: Punkalasa (edited by
Nandana Weerasinghe ) and Sanlapa (edited by Sumudu Chathurani
Jayawardena ). Both publications have been supervised by Editor
Karunadasa Sooriyarachchi.
What is significant about the second publication Sanlapa is that it
bears some of the few lasting feature picked from the pages of Silumina
literary supplement Punkalasa. To the best of my awareness there remains
a few articles which need more attention on the part of the Sinhala
reader today than a mere threshold interest.
The article by the late humourist T G W de Silva comes to my mind as
a brilliant little piece which is an eye-opener on the need of the
creative humour as a literary genre. This is gradually waning off from
the contemporary literary scene due to the lack of attention on the
subject area. De Silva shows the extent of which he was influenced by
both the traditional humour as well as from the humour writing in other
countries. Then we come across a short article on the literary genius
Rabindranath Tagore, depicting the cross currents of his creative
evolution. Followed by the trend a reader may find the eye opening
article by Ven Prof Dewalegama Medhananda Thera, who shows the deep
rooted insights of the Buddha on the aspects of religious
susceptibilities and the need to protect the natural surroundings.
The article 'Lack of Literary Evaluation Today' by the late Prof
Eidirivira Sarachchandra need to be reread where he pinpoints the mere
parroting of occidental literary views devoid of an in depth
understanding had led to the birth of a series of pseudo Sinhala critics
who pave the way for much disaster than any merit.
The short but resourceful article by Dr Praneeth Abeysundara, I felt,
throws much light to the plight of literary standards today.
In this manner we observe the compilation culled from literary
supplements and transferred into the book form is a worthwhile subject
in itself.
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