Piyadasa Sirisena excels as national reformer

by Amal HEWAVISSENTHI

To be frank, the novelist's art which involves realism or critical interpretation of life was first identified and introduced locally by Martin Wickramasinghe who portrayed real life situations and characters in a way that revolutionized the Sinhala novel writing. Prior to his emergence as a novelist, Simon de Silva, Piyadasa Sirisena, and W. A. Silva were identified to be pivotal figures to introduce the basically western concept of novel writing to the Sinhala literature at the outset of the twentieth century. Until Martin Wickramasinghe produced his masterpieces, namely Gamperaliya, Yuganthaya, Viragaya etc, there were no authentic novels which could be identified as prose stories equipped with most of the characteristics of a novel.

Novelist's world

It is undisputedly accepted that a true novelist reproduces his own real life experiences and real life characters in the form of an imaginary prose story using narrative elements and techniques. To make a long story short, the novelist's world of imagination presented in his novel should at least be ninety per cent identical with the happenings of the real world and therefore a high level of credibility should accompany the plot in question. So the novelist take special care to promote the reader's credibility by excluding incidents or characters which are never found in real life situations. In short, a novel should not be a myth with incredible turn of events or miraculous characters. Thus a novelist's real skill depends not on introducing flat characters with an irksome list of qualities or peculiarities but on portrayal of characters who display their innermost personalities by how they behave in the evolution of the plot.

He penetrates an insight into the psychological behaviour of characters without personally criticising or promoting the actions of characters. In this way the clever novelist's mission is to analyse the psychological factors governing the actions and behaviour of characters he presents.

Vehicle for moral instruction

Piyadasa Sirisena is the second Sinhala novelist after Simon de Silva. The characters and the plot of his novels show that he was highly inspired by the contemporary national movement against western rule and had total missionary zeal about bringing Sinhala Buddhist values and ideology to the people who were increasingly accepting and supporting western values and customs. Therefore, he was employing his "Nawa Prabandha" (novels) as a powerful vehicle to promote Buddhist cultural values and to launch ruthless attack on men and women who represented higher social classes and ardently upheld western values.

As critics rightly point out, Sirisena's "novels" lack the vital aspects of a novel but instead they are mere prose stories of book length created purely with religious and didactic approach. That is precisely why critics identify him as an influential social reformer rather than a successful literary figure though he had a number of novels including some "detective" novels to his credit. No interesting narrative elements do readers find in his novels but instead the reader is constantly plagued by bland, report like story with puppet characters voicing the novelist's own ideas. During this time, the tendency for novel writing was often being viewed with sheer contempt and even Piyadasa Sirisena himself acknowledge that his books contained nothing more than religious (Buddhist) values though he called his books "Nava Prabhandha" which bear resemblance to novels (introduction Yamtham Gelawuna).

We see Sirisena using his novels as a sure tool to voice his bitter cynicism against corruption by privileged classes, use of liquor, eating meat, christianity, western medicine and the new freedom granted to women by the current educational systems. His novels are profusely scattered with poems, debates, discussions and letters highlighting the Buddhist values but the reader is repeatedly confused by the absence of interest in the plot. His protagonists are ardent Buddhists and most often they are successful in converting people of Christian religious faith into Buddhism. Furthermore, critics agree that his characters are devoid of depth. In brief, his novels at that time were not much different from ancient literary works like Poojawali or Saddarma Rathnawali, because they contain religious and cultural values which render the main plot of the novel unfairly subservient. This novelist has seriously disturbed the flow and interest of the story by imposing irrelevant, elongated discussions on varied subjects on the main plot and by turning his characters into puppets preaching religious values wherever they happen to be. Strangely enough, the novelist forgets his mission of entertaining the reader but tends to spoil the smooth flow of the story absurdly inserting boring letters, discussions and verses from classical Sinhala literature to gain the writer's point. Here, Piyadasa Sirisena has blatantly failed in the art of novel writing.

Readership questions

His first novel 'Jayathissa Saha Rosaline' published in 1906, had a record sale of 25,000 copies at that time probably because he had a good reputation as the editor of the newspaper "Sinhala Jathiya". Here "Jayathissa" a Sinhala Buddhist youth manages to win his Catholic girlfriend "Rosaline" and convert her parents to Buddhism after much debating discussions and letters. While Rosaline's parents are away, Jayathissa debates with Rosaline about Buddhism and finally she and her maid servant embrace Buddhism. To get the consent from her parents, Jayathissa delivers a detailed speech about the concept of marriage before her father. Having been satisfied with the "Worldly knowledge" of this young pandit, her father offers him a cigarette which he refuses. Then Jayathissa makes it a point to give a long speech on the detrimental effects of smoking. With the Bible in his hands, Jayathissa, comes to a long religious debate with her parents and consequently they are converted to Buddhism.

Meanwhile Rosaline is abducted into the forest by another man named Vincent but she manages to break free. Vincent meets with a minor accident in the forest because he was doomed by the forest deity for shooting a dove within the sacred area of Sri Pada. Finally the hero and heroine are happily reunited in a cave in the forest. It is highly dramatic to note that Vincent and the forest deity, in the guise of a handsome young man, try to persuade Rosaline to "Asaddharmaya" (sex act) in the forest but she preserves her chastity by giving point blank refusal!

However the general readership is left here with the basic problem as to the credibility of the plot, details and characterisation of above said novel. The reader asks do young men and young women, when left alone, talk like Jayathissa and Rosaline do? Does the Sri Lankan background of the story (the towns and personal names) tally with the absurdly supernatural events in the novel? Who would accept the moral and religious preachings of a young man? How couldn't Jayathissa recognise the face or voice of Rosaline in disguise? (she wears a mask!)

Sirisena's detective novels, under the common title "Wickramapalage Wickrama" include the common format of western detective stories but the novelist spoils the interest of the story by making the detective child like and an addict of "Daham Karunu". The novels of this type, namely "Dingiri Menika" and "Wimalathissa Hamuduruwange Mudal Pettiya" show that the hero "Wikrama Pala" is not a detective, who is diplomatic enough to arrest the interest of the reader but a preacher of dhamma and moral values wherever he goes. Wickramapala's main mission is to track the whereabouts of an abducted girl or unveil simple theft.

The reader rightly concludes that the virtuous dhamma preacher in Wickramapala is more successful than the detective in him because he is well used to sermonise to everyone he meets on his mission to find out a (simple) crime. The course of actions adopted by the detective clearly show that he lacks diplomacy and gumption. The novelist has again failed in the art of detective novels. In "Wimalathissa Hamuduruwange Mudal Pettiya", Wickramapala disguises as a teacher and goes to meet his fiancee "July Nona" who is unable to entertain any suspicion on the detective during the long discussion between them. To Wickramapala, disguising as someone means wearing the clothes of "someone" only!

In the novel "Dingiri Menika", the detective manages to find her after a toilsome search and waits to ask her what has happened instead of bringing her safely from the place. He has to look for her for the second time because the kidnappers have rounded her up again in his oblivion! Here the novelist has failed outright to raise suspense or curiosity in the readers' mind simply because the reader can effortlessly predict the secret to be made public at the end.

Biased against women

Sirisena demarcates two types of characters namely the good and the bad. The characters he portrays fall under "the good" who are without the single weakness or villany and "the bad" who are full to the brim with all the villany in the world. It is interesting to note that Piyadasa Sirisena has confusingly failed to penetrate into the deep recesses of the complex human mind and behaviour and has attempted to label people either good or bad. This is no realistic characterisation though.

In another novel (Apata Wechcha de) the novelist shows how a disciplined Sinhala lady rejects the marriage proposal by a young man who used to take superclass liquor and visits social clubs. When this young man falls sick on disappointment, he falls back on western medicine only to worsen his illness.

Later he recovers on taking Sinhala medicine and Sirisena gives a detailed account of miracles of indigenous medicine and advantages of quitting western values and customs.

Finally we see the converted Wijayasinha (the hero of the story) is blessed with good fortune, gems and popularity and the lady who rejected him because of his European culture, comes back to him.

The novel "Adbhutha Aganthukaya" features the confessions of a goblin who, in his previous birth, had been addicted to liquor but here too the novelist takes advantage of the situation to give a long dream speech on the detrimental repercussions of use of liquor.

His novels clearly betray his bitter cynicism against the women who play music, speak English, have a fair amount of freedom or engage in activities which were then assumed to be done only by men. He blames the fair sex on the whole.He is prejudicial against the women because his ideas of women have been shaped and influenced by an ascetic's outlook and his conclusion is that men cannot lead a righteous life because of the viles of ladies (Pasan Niwasa). Though he failed as a novelist, he proved himself a giant in the social reform and national movement which were the pivotal struggles to free the nation from western imperialism.