Mastery of the language props fictional unity
Author: Yamuna Malini
Perera
A Kinkini publication
Reviewed by Somapala Arandara
The first portion of Yamuna Malini Perera's novel Ninnade reminded me
of three literary works, namely, Gunadasa Amarasekera's Karumakkarayo,
R.S. Karunaratne's Yatura which is a Sinhala version of Junichiro
Janisaki's novel, The Key and Weraduna Tena, a purely pornographic book
said to have been written by a well-known writer under the pseudonym,
Rasadat.
Of these, Gunadasa Amarasekera's novel sent a shock-wave through the
Sinhala readers with its radical approach of displaying the vulgar
behaviour of a father and his two sons sharing the elder son's wife.
This unorthodox sexual misconduct seemed to explode the very bedrock of
morality in the traditional outlook of the Sri Lankan placid society.
The pornographic work Weraduna Tena did not make such an impact
simply because it was distributed on the sly like blue magazines of the
day. It narrated how two elite prostitutes seduced an innocent young
man. And this book was popular among adolescents to a limited extent. I
had a chance to read both these books way back in 1955 as an adolescent.
Direction
Ninnade confounded me at the beginning about the author's direction
of thought. The first part of the novel was clumsy, meandering and
insipid. The diary notes are too long and boring. I, however,
reluctantly went ahead with my reading. Reading it half way, I began to
guess what the author was driving at. Was it her intention to dramatise
the reality of married life or attempt to analyse the social spectrum
with a wider range of human behaviour with particular attention to the
ever suffering women under the yoke of male domination?
Sasheek, the central character serving as the author's persona, is a
seasoned womaniser with the aim of sexual gratification and exploiting
his girl friends for money.
The character of Sasheek has a striking resemblance to that of Gino,
the chauffeur in “The Woman of Rome by Alberto Moravia. Both of them are
adept in flattering girls and seducing them.Nimna's own repentance with
regard to Sasheek's carnal bent appears below:“Men are egoists.
I think he made a toy of me to satisfy his desires by pouring out the
agony and suffering of his life. I had the fear that he would abandon
me. After several encounters with him I became a puppet dancing to the
tune of his passion. Why did he do such a crime to me? Sasheek is a
mighty rogue.”
Sasheek and Manorama are a fitting couple like the man and wife
depicted in Somerset Maughan's short story, “Hotsam and Jetsam”. In
Sasheek's own words, “Mano is a wonderful girl, quite the foil of Nimna.
Even as compared to manners and knowledge, Mano is higher, she being a
pragmatist. She doesn't brood over dreams”. She is a dilettante.
Moreover, she is a nymphomaniac. She had an insatiable appetite for sex.
There was a justifiable cause for that too. Her husband, Ginhan was
sexually impotent. She says, “I had to come out with this fact openly as
he and his mother went on vilifying me by spreading my faults.
I can't refrain from disclosing Gimhan's bad habits and
misdemeanours. I was attached to Sasheek because of this estrangement.”
At another point, Manorama calls Gimhan “a pleasing figure to the
world but an extremely dirty beast!” The professor in Junichiro
Janisaki's The Key is a better dressed, cleaner husband who shrewdly
creates situations for an affair between his wife and friend to get
involved in a sexual relationship. He acts so benevolently because of
his sexual impotency consequent to his old age.
Domineering girl
Nisala Niranjala is an equally conceited and intolerably domineering
girl as Sasheek. She pricks the bubbles of his high hopes just as
cunningly as he had deceived his girl friends.
Nirupa is the illegitimate daughter of Sasheek and Nisansala. When
Dulaj recounts the details of her mother, Sasheek's disillusion dawns
heavily on him. Sasheek is an incorrigible character. Although he makes
a determination not to step in to that club again, yet it does not mean
that he avoids his club-life altogether. This manifests his lewd frame
of mind.
Yamuna's vision of life revolves round the issue of woman's place in
a man's world. She tries to point out various ruses and tricks man uses
to win over a girl to his own advantage, that is, seeking the fulfilment
of his carnal desires. The mature woman in the writer describes love and
life thus! “Love is a folly done at a particular stage of life. Love is
used as a subtle method of satisfying one's sexual urge. Whether anybody
agrees to it or not, that is the stark truth. One has to fulfil one's
physical needs. It is this business that men and women do with their
bodies. Eating, defecation, sleeping and seeking sexual satisfaction are
all mechanical, subtle and opportunistic activities.”
The dynamic activist of the women's lib struggling in the writer aims
at securing and safeguarding equal status with the aggressive males by
unravelling the sex perverted indulgence in using women for the sexual
purpose only. The role of wife and mother in the author with her
weather-beaten wisdom and experiences tend to admit the frailties of
women in the matter of sex.
Thus the overall intention of the author seems to be as follows:
“However much educated and knowledgeable, every girl is silly in the act
of love.”
Mastery
The author of Ninnade deserves a special word of praise for her
mastery of the language. It is rather seldom that we come across a good
piece of writing like this novel.
It embodies fine diction, correct idiom, accurate grammatical
structures, allusions to classics and a host of visual similes and
caustic remarks: Sadda Paetaw gaehillak (spawning of noises); gona
pasupasa yana karatte wage (as the cart that goes after the bullock);
Gaeeniyek wunama owa witarada ona ban? (Are only external comforts
enough for a woman?); Issellama gaeeniyek suran kanne gaeeniyakma tamayi
(First of all a woman is exploited by another woman); Wela deka kanna
naeti wena kota me tiyena adare wena atakata sankramanaya wewi (When
poverty enters through the door, love flies through the window). Like
most of the present day Sinhala novels, Ninnade too, does not break the
bounds of bourgeois or middle-class values. The writer is, however,
successful in designing the form of diary notes.
Her point of view is character narration and the omniscient narration
appears at some points. The author has skilfully managed to give
fictional unity to her novel.
The numerous printing mistakes are irksome to the reader. And it
tends to tarry the quick grasp of the contents. No proof-reading appears
to have been done at all.
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