Aspects of quality versus content
 Upeksha Nuvansrini is an economics graduate of the University of
Jayawadenepura. While engaged in her studies as an undergraduate she
brought out a collection of Sinhala poems titled Pemvatiyakage Malvaraya
(2005). Since then she had been a keen reader of various creative works
and undertaken the presentation of a Sinhala fictional work as part
fulfillment of the Communication and Writership course of the same
university.
A publisher may be willing to publish such a manuscript taking into
account the examination judgment. The literary sphere perhaps commences
from her university days spanning to about half a decade of engagement
in a field completely new to her as a creative writer.
Two weeks ago her maiden Sinhala novel titled as Sarpayage Diyaniya
(Serpent’s Daughter) was launched at the Sri Lanka Press Council’s
communication discourse.
Novel trends
This work emerged at a time when the Sinhala novels come out mostly
in numbers and varying forms, some experimental and some in conventional
forms, some readable and some unreadable, or perhaps tedious reading
exercises. Most writers have one aim in common - that is to win an award
out of the number of literary awards. Some works are bulky and
voluminous and some are padded up with unnecessary material devoid of
any tangible relation to the central experience of the work concerned.
 One cannot be harsh about most of these events as the publishers
concerned too like to see them sell at any cost. In this climate of
literary marketeering one has to be quite observable as to what he or
she reads. The Sinhala reader has to be selective as to gauge the extent
to where the quality of the worth remains. In the novel of Upeksha
Nuvansrini, a reader may find long drawn chapters containing material
mostly packed with human experiences presented in the form of
commentaries. Most situations are created in commentary form, with
overlappings and repetitions perhaps unintentionally presented.
The narrator or the protagonist is a young girl. She is Medha, who
tries to stand aloof but kept involved in all manner of traps. The world
of the creator is not too sound for one to live in. It is a society
where innocent human being of the type of girl Medha is entrapped and
made to entangle in a web of inhuman atrocities. Medha finds it
difficult to wade across this ocean of turbulence especially of elders,
or oldish men some married and some who look like perverts and upstarts,
which at least come to about five to six in number. She undergoes
difficulties to get adjusted to their needs, but at times she succumbs
to their whims and fancies allowing her to look more like a participant
in a game than a victim in a trap.
Sequential and linear
The narrative is not quite sequential and linear in creative
expression. The work shifts the attention of the reader from one point
to another in flashbacks intermixed in agonies and ecstasies of
childhood and bygone days, nostalgia and common place situations of
expectations of dreams and fantasies. The reader comes across a varying
types of humans who could be categorized broadly into behavioral manners
of goodwill, evil minded and abnormal. As it has happened so often in
the Sinhala novel of the day, there are harangues of pseudo
philosophical material packed intact sometimes boring and goes at
tangent to the central narrative structure, perhaps this tends to make
the narrative mainly rest on various extraneous plains of passages
written in the form of elucidation of events or as authorial
commentaries.
To what extent this has happened generally could be gauged by reading
one or two works available in the book market. This is seen as part and
parcel of the narrative forms as found in some of the present day award
winning Sinhala, works overrated by the local literary judges. This
ambiguity shows that there is a vast area of experiences to express but
the fact is that the discerning reader gauges the extent to which it is
really expressed.
Novelist’s role
In this direction the first work of a novelist may be a barometer
which reads the intensity of the significance of this parochial
influence of her contemporary creators.
The writer Upeksha Nuvansrini has such a complex area of experience.
But how she presents them is the issue at hand. The technique of
self-expression is the visible area of creation. Into this world one
could envelope thousands of thought streams in the name of the
psychological term ‘stream of consciousness’ which I feel is grossly
misunderstood in the Sinhala narrative forms.
Perhaps the intention of flooding the printed pages of a work with
one’s own thoughts may be significant up to a point, but the overdoing
the same brings about a degree of overlappings and cognitive dissonances
which the reader concerned could only judge and differs from a person to
person.
The depiction of the lonely struggle that encounters a series of
barriers as against the abnormal behaviour on the part of the elders is
positively drafted. The protagonist yearns to keep one’s identity in an
ocean of troubles and tribulations which is commonly known as keeping
one’s head clear and steady, overcoming the external disturbances.
The protagonist Medha tries her best to keep her head strong as she
is hinted as an innocent young girl skillful in versification and
serialization of novels in weekly papers and who is constantly vigilant
about the happenings in her surroundings.
But she is shown as perhaps wavering from time to time depending on
the situation and the forces thrust on her. She sees most people as
depicted in the work as hypocritical and pseudo although, they come in
the guise of saints sages and intellectuals who are helpful to her.
One more plus point is the deliberate avoidance of a concocted
sentimental storyline that arouses suspense and other threshold
interests.
The use of language is a controversial subject area in the world of
fiction. It is the selective pattern of presentation of the life rhythm
of the human content in a creative work. George Steiner has indicated
this factor as a changing phenomenon.
The use of language in this work has varying degrees of rhythms
depending on the situations the writer attempts to create.
Overall she uses a language which possesses a certain degree of
classical neatness. But this is not a criterion by which one could
discern the ultimate value of a creative work of this calibre. This
narrative pinpoints the need to employ the function of a good editor as
a fellow collaborator of the publishing process to bring out better
narratives to the local reader.
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