Taking stock of the literary affairs of 2010
As the New Year dawns, it is time to look back on passing scenes and
events with a view to taking stock of the literary affairs of 2010.
Although the Sri Lankan literary landscape has not seen a paradigm shift
from the present status quo, it has seen some noted developments both in
the fields of linguistics and literature.
The latest is the new movement of linguistic radicalism in the sphere
of language studies about which I wrote in the previous week's column. I
emphasised, "This brand of linguistic radicalism with apparently no
broader and positive objectives, has been distilling into contemporary
Sri Lankan literature both in Sinhalese and English. Poor and
substandard literary productions both in Sinhalese and English have been
conferred with literary awards extolling them as the best literary
productions in both languages. Sadly, some of the award-wining authors
seemed to have pulled strings to get crony amateur critics to review
their substandard works in newspaper columns and organise so called
'seminar' series to eulogise their works often exploiting half-baked
modern literary theories such as post-modernism."
I sincerely hope this situation would change in 2011.
Plight of literary awards
If the new brand of linguistic radicalism provides a theoretical
backdrop for the emergence of substandard literary productions, literary
awards symbolise social recognition and much-needed market value for
such products. (It is highly questionable whether one could call them
literary products at all!)
One of the most controversial literary awards in the sphere of
Sinhalese literature is the so called 'Golden book' award or Swarna
Pusthaka Sammanaya. This is an annual award bestowed on the best
Sinhalese novel of the year. The 2010 'Golden book' award (based on the
novels during 2009) was presented to Kandak Sema, a 'fiction' by
Sumithra Rabubaddhe who also won the award for best novel of the year at
the State Literary Award and also the award for the best novel at Godage
National Literary Awards shared with two other novels; Dutimi Nethin
Kasup Nirind by Rupa Sriyani Ekanayake and Wala Yatin Mihimandalata Ira
Paya by Mahinda Rathnayake.
The triple-award winning novel Kandak Sema provides a specimen of the
malice that affected the contemporary Sinhalese literature in general
and contemporary Sinhalese novel in particular. Although the novelist
may have myriads of objectives, it is a home truth that the primary
objective of the novelist should be to generate zests and thereby enrich
the contemporary idiom while enriching the lives of its readers. Since
the language is the medium of literature, an award winning novel should
be written in a refined language so as to contribute to the contemporary
literature in a given literary milieu.
Though the writer, author or the novelist is at liberty to select a
language of his or her choice which is suited to the task at hand, it is
imperative that the chosen language should be accurate in terms of
conventional grammar, syntax and should be within the prosody of a
chosen language.
However, it should not be misconstrued as that the writer should
adhere to classical language found in ancient literary texts. It is
implied that the language should be lucid, grammatical and refined so as
to raise and enrich the public tastes.
Use and abuse of spoken idiom
One of the major trends in the contemporary literary scene both in
Sinhalese and English is the bastardisation of the language. The
theoretical justification often trotted out is that the particular
literary text is in the spoken idiom (Katavahara). Ironically, some of
the literary production which are claimed to be written in spoken idiom,
have apparently been presented as a mishmash of spoken and written
idioms. In the worst case scenario, these literary productions are both
grammatically and linguistically flawed.
The case in point is Kandak Sema which according to Prof. Sucharitha
Gamlath, an authoritative critic on Sinhalese literature, is full of
deficiencies in grammar. He has pointed out in no uncertain terms that
the novel has been written in a crude language.
In describing the present crisis in contemporary Sinhalese
literature, veteran writer Dr K. Jayatilake pointed out that it has been
taken for granted by most of the writers that if vacuous passages are
present in their work, they would receive literary awards.
He emphasised the fact that the literary production should not be
made with the sole and exclusive objective of securing literary awards
and that the writer should consider re-crafting such substandard
literary productions even if they win literary awards. He stressed, that
some of the personalities who occupied award selection panels are
themselves failed writers, so that they do not like to see talented
writers emerging in the Sinhalese literary scene. This view should merit
further investigations.
In Sri Lankan literature in English, the situation is not much
different. The dominant genre seems to be humour. Tragically, what
happens often is that that humour is generated more by the writer than
the literary productions. Some of these young poets write with no verse
or blank verse! It seems that some of these literati promote the idea
that once any chosen paragraph is broken and put into a structure
similar to Haiku, it would automatically transform itself into a poem!
Intellectual bankruptcy
The modus operandi of some of the writers is nothing but to launch
mudslinging campaigns and support character assassination campaigns
against literary critics who had written about shortcomings and obvious
deficiencies in so called 'best novels' of the year. A writer who has
made an alternative platform to promote his work has been in the
forefront of launching a vicious attack on authoritative and objective
literary critics through a Sinhalese rag sheet. This indeed is an
uncivilised behaviour. Such attacks are nothing but symptoms of
intellectual bankruptcy or ignorant of good literary work on the part of
that non-creative writer.
I hope Sri Lankan literary scene would bring positive change in the
New Year with hope instead of despair.
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