It is very rarely that a first novel of a writer achieves the kind of excellence achieved in Batthalangunduwa by Manjula Wediwardhane. In any language, such first novels are rarely found. But still there are many writers who have mesmerized readers with their first novels. This is certainly one among them.
In writing this novel, the author does not hide the fact he arrives
at the art of novel, bringing with him the technical devices of poetry and
short play, two genres where he had excelled earlier. His writerly armory is full of those techniques. He uses them to
create a style that makes his novel a sensation in contemporary Sinhala novel.
Novelty in Language
One of the challenges that new writers face is to create a new language for Sinhala novel. I do not claim that there is a single style that fits all novels. But the style is one area where a writer can establish the newness of his work. Our writers seldom experiment with language to create a style that is both simple and attractive at the same time. When it comes to experimentation with narrative techniques, even young writers do not show the youthfulness found in the work of senior writers such as Ajith Thilakasena, Siri Gunasinghe, Simon Nawagatthegama or Tennyson Perera to name a few. Now, naturalist realism has become rather stale if that mode is not presented with an innovative style or other experimental narrative devices. The last decade, however, saw the arrival of such inventive new writers who have perhaps been influenced by novels like Battalangunduwa.
Realist mode is
extremely malleable, and inventive writer can still make it look surprisingly fresh if he or she is imaginative enough with regard to the technical devices of fiction writing.
Stories can be crafted in numerous ways.
Possibilities of fiction can never be exhausted. Every once in a while, an
inventive writer appears to remind us about those possibilities. In recent
times, Manjula Wediwardhane was one such writer.
Novelists need to look for a style of language that is
fitting to indicate the vision of each novel; In some ways, a style signifies
the vision of the narrator. If there are multiple narrators, there could be
multiple styles. A style also is instrumental in creating a sense of reality
about the world portrayed in the novel. Thus, the discovery of a new style i.e.
for one's novel is an extremely important creative act.
Tissa Abesekare, one of the greatest writers, points out this problem of style and language in his excellent collection of essays, Roots, Reflections and Reminiscence. Abesekara argues there that even though Martin Wickramasinghe was able to produce a language for the realist novel in Sinhala no writer was able to surpass him. Abesekara goes on to argue that Viragaya (The Way of the Lotus) is the highest point Sinhala novel has ever reached. It can be said that this is an accurate observation. One can also agree that Viragaya is an immortal novel.
Yet, the weakness of Abesekare's argument is that it does
not mention any writer who has apparently attempted to surpass Wickramasinghe.
The novels of Simon Nawagatthegama, for example, are excellent examples of
creating a fresh style of language for each novel. The characters or the
environment of Dadayakkarayage Kathawa (The story of the Hunter), or Ksheera
Sagaraya Kelambina (The Milky Ocean is Churned.) cannot be properly
portrayed in the language of Wicrkamasinghe's Gamperaliya(Uprooted).
Furthermore, those novels have levels of reality whose existence is predicated
upon the existence of a unique language, and Nawagaththegama creates that
language. Let's look a paragraph of The story of the Hunter, even though
it is hard to make my point in a translated segment:
"Those
who belonged to the lineage of the hunter had no satisfaction by merely being
hunters. To be a shooter, one
only has to train himself in shooting a target. It is not such a big deal to brag
about either. Is it? Even though one can aim at an animal and shoot it down,
even though one can shoot every day all the animals one sees and carry them to
the village, it only shows that one has
already committed so much sin and one still has Karmic disposition to acquire
sins that can bring Karmic fruits for five hundred lives to come. Does it not?"
The language style of this novel has been formed in a way
that is so appropriate to focalize the story through the life and point of view of
the hunter. This style takes the reader to the middle of the the hunter's consciousness
and sustains the reader within the level of reality where the hunter dwells.
Style and the Novel
Manjula Wediwardhane's Batthalangunduwa too revitalizes
the language of the Sinhala novel that had become rather insipid and tasteless
being used over and over for realist writing, especially, realist writing of stylistically
conservative writers.
There is a misconception that there exists a language or style suitable for all novels. It is an opinion constantly repeated by
popular literary journalists. Poetic talents can be
extremely useful for a novelist. More often than not, it gives immense pleasure
to read novels written by poets. All novels by Michael Ondaatje are like long
poems. Yet, each of his novels has its own language. If anyone expects a single
language or a style from all his novels, he simply does not know the meaning of
novelized language. One British critic stated once that Ondaatje's Anil's
Ghost to a bit too poetic, and might have reasons for that argument.
Possession by A.S. Byatt is very much a poetic novel,
and there is a narrative reason for that: it is a story of love between a poet
and a poetess. One might not be able to write a novel of that kind without a
great deal of poetic skills within oneself. Byatt writes in a beautifully
poetic language. The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald is also a captivating
novel about the life of the German poet Novalis. In that, the author's
controlled-use of the poetic within the novel makes a large part of the book's
immense attraction. That Pasternak's Doctor Shivago is poetic should not
surprise anyone for it is an epic of life of a poet. But in there, the poetic is
not intermingled with prose. It is true that there are so poetic descriptions
nearly everywhere in the book. But what is obviously poetic is added as a
collection of Shivago poems at the end of the book. So little was the connection
of poems to the structure of the novel that the poems were later published as
separate book. Separation of that kind is not possible in Possession,
where, after every few pages, poetic sections appear helping to advance the plot.
Immense appeal of Rainer Maria Rilke's stunning novel, The Notebooks of
Malte Laurids Brigge, stems from the author's undisputed skills in
poetry. In some ways, it is a Campu written in German translated into
English!
Campu
Vilasiniyakage Premaya (The Love of a Courtesan) by
Ediriweera Saracchandra is a Campu poem, as the author prefers to call it. In a Campu, verses are a part of the structure because it is a genre
writing in a mixture of prose and verse. In that, verses are used expressed the
inner feelings of characters, to express interior monologues or to send some
coded messages among characters. Another novel that deals with poets, poetry and poetic talents
is Milan Kundera's Life is Elsewhere. It is clear from Batthalangunduwa
itself, that Wediwardhane has been heavily influenced by Kundera's
novel. Intertextual significations the Sinhala novel develop by constantly
referring to Life is Elsewhere, and in reading it, an experienced reader
is regularly reminded of many other novels in which the novelist and the poetic
merge in an exquisite union. In the manner the author uses language in the
novel, it is very much comparable with numerous other novels mentioned above.
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