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Continued from last week.....

Title : The Sweet and Simple Kind
Author: Yasmine Gooneratne

Published by: Perera Hussein Publishing House

by Maureen Seneviratne

Helen tries hard to be a satisfactory wife and mother, but she is, like all artists, a loner, unable to identify with the mainstream. She moves away eventually from the husband who flagrantly wounds her feelings and attempts to destroy the artistic integrity that matters most to her.

The difference between artistic, misunderstood, unhappy Helen and the stormy petrel, ambitious and vindictive Rowland. unable to rise above his innate egoism, is made patently clear through the author's masterly use of inference.

Subtly, in her characteristic style, the author unfolds the life ways of Helen and Rowland, and of two people very different from them, Soma and Herbert, parents of Latha Wijesinha. This is done by means of her powerful drawing of character through movement, expression and conversation.

In this aspect of her writing, Yasmine Gooneratne reminds one of one of her own role models among English writers, Jane Austen - although she delves far more deeply into human weakness, pride and perfidy than Austen ever did. Her canvases, too, are larger than that "little bit of ivory" on which Austen delighted to "work" with her fine brush.

In "The Sweet and Simple Kind", Gooneratne encompasses a spectrum of time, those two or three decades when this country's destiny was being shaped by unscrupulous, power-hungry persons ready, not only to change the "bad old order" of things, but to actually make it worse.

Much that was meaningful and valuable in the past was deliberately destroyed by such persons, to be replaced by a melting pot of conflict, racism and prejudice: even to the extent of insisting on the "superiority" of the (Sinhalese) majority and the "inferiority" of others, the minority Tamils, Roman Catholics and Burghers, and reaping by this means manifold benefits from the "new order" as they had done from the "old."

She makes it clear through powerful characterization that the ones who were loudest in proclaiming a brave new world were those whose ancestors had kow-towed for grace and favour to colonial masters. One is even left to wonder whether the people and their leaders deserved their new political freedom. Were they ready for it?

Like many young people in every generation, Tsunami and Latha are critical of the shibboleths. Her mother claims that "latha" is a word that signifies a "clinging vine", but the novel allows us to see her character being tempered like fine steel as she grows up and follows her own star. Latha is very lucky to have intelligent, down-to-earth parents who understand her.

Tsunami, headstrong, impulsive, indulged in childhood and early youth, daughter of a prominently political father, born to wealth and prestige, needs all the courage she can find to meet with the handicaps that suddenly, unexpectedly face her. Being Tsunami, however, she copes, and finds her own supports.

The novel highlights such virtues as loyalty, trust and lasting friendships, the stability of a good home, and the value for children of comfort and security. This becomes visible in the portraits of Soma and Herbert Wijesinha, who provide a sterling foundation for their daughter Latha (their only child) and, as far as they are able, for their niece, Tsunami.

There is nothing spectacular about Soma and Herbie: at times Soma even appears to be rude, unfeeling, and argumentative. She does not always agree with her husband; while Herbert is the dreamer of dreams. When his niece Tsunami asks her Uncle Herbert the secret of his long and happy marriage with Auntie Soma, he replies with a dash of his dry, sly humour: "And you've always been happy? No regrets? No disagreements? You must have a secret! Why don't you tell me what it is? To let me in on a secret like that would be better than a wedding present?"

"Oh, we have many disagreements," Herbert said. "As Latha many have told you, we argue all the time. But you're right when you say that we must have a secret. We do. When your Auntie Soma and I reach a point when it's obvious to us both that agreement is impossible, there's a very simple solution. She goes her way and I?"

"Yes?"

"I go her way."

In this book, which is devoid of sentimentalism and sparkles with flashes of humour, one feels that the author is laughing up her sleeve at many who self-importantly strut around the world. Her character Moira is a good example. It does not surprise the reader when Moira, too, moves into the political arena.

Gooneratne dismisses with contempt the graft and corruption of politicians, of those in acquired authority over a state of affairs that has us struggling to find our place in a mad, mad world, and to have some access to the best of the wine that life offers. But the author has also conveyed that education, in its broadest sense, has an important to play in building up character.

Though even education has its limits; arrogance and natural, primordial instincts too often prevail. But the value of education and a background of culture in the case of Latha is a pointer to one of the author's themes.

Her mother had wanted Latha to make a happy conventional marriage and live her life as a simple home-maker. Latha surprises her. But then Latha is a girl who has never lived without books; and she has always had the backing of a father who is a man of simple, unaffected ways and strong principles, with a great regard for learning.

The many twists and unexpected angles in the story keep the interest of readers focused. The novel moves forward at a slow but even pace, covering practically everything we remember, good or ill, of the 1950s and 1960s: especially the enthusiasm we felt, we who had been heirs to a rich, cosmopolitan heritage and the great gift of access to the world's literature, religions, philosophies.

One recalls through this novel the exhilaration we experienced on 4th February 1948; the ideals and illusions we, who were young at the time, so eagerly carried of a brave new world waiting to blossom and bear for us the "golden apples of the Hesperides".

Then came the slow awakening to the political chicanery of those placed in power; the corruption of our leaders, their nepotism, their unspeakable greed.

That fateful date, 1958: the first pogrom against the Tamil people. As 1977 and 1983 were to do later, 1958 provided the first opportunity for chauvinism to show its ugly, brooding face. Most politicians, however, wore masks of their own devising. It was the day of the fanatics.

Later in the story we come to understand the true character of Rowland. In a conversation between Anupam Munasinghe, Latha's close friend, and Sujit Roy, Tsunami's lover, Anupam relates what he has learned about the frightening prejudices cherished by Wijesinha, the astute politician and Minister for Cultural Affairs: "He told me the world was full of criminal characters, most of them niggers and Jews, and every writer who drew public attention to the fact deserved the Nobel prize.

He ended by telling me that the Tamils are the Jews of Ceylon, that they're invaders from India, that they are here entirely on sufferance and that if they continue to demand equal rights with the Sinhalese, they would some day be taught a lesson they would never forget ?'

Anupam had been discussing flaws in Dorothy Sayers' detective novels with Rowland whose favourite detective story writer she was, and protesting that she had used many "insulting racist expressions referring to many of her characters routinely as "niggers" and "Jew boys" and "dagos".

Rowland had nearly gone berserk!

Sujit Roy, a Bengali, ironically wonders "what the old boy will say when he learns that his daughter wants to marry "an invader from India"!

The character of Rowland Wijesinha changes subtly over the years, as he moves from being a wealthy and liberal-minded land owner with a Law degree from Trinity Hall, into a power-hungry, racist politician. His only serious "deviation" from this path had been made in his youth when, spell bound by her beauty, he had chosen as his first wife a gifted Indian artist. Despite their having a family of five children, the marriage does not work out.

Rowland then marries his relative, Moira, a woman whose pretensions to culture match her husbands's vaunting ambitions. He is, however, still embittered by what he secretly considers to have been his grievous betrayal by Helen. Rowland becomes vindictive and revengeful, seething with black hatred against the Tamils whom he regards as the "Jews of Ceylon."

When we ask why this change occurred, the novel tells us why. Rowland Wijesinha has become a very "political person." Politics, says the narrator, had become The focus of interest of the island's post (Second World) war society, and gossip that was unrelated to the doings of politicians held no one's attention for long.

There is an even more shocking aspect of the phenomenon of the politicization of the people, all people, at any social level, when her manner of voting at elections is innocently related by the domestic help in Latha's home.

Herbert and Soma's domestic help, Kamala, who follows the election news with close attention, has taken a week's leave to go home in order to cast her vote. When she returns she is elated.

"No wonder our Rowland hamu has the largest majority in the country. On Election Day I personally impersonated other people three times at the voting booth!"

Her village home, so we find, is in Rowland's electorate of "Dikgala."

Herbert and Soma find this shocking but the sincerity of Kamala and her loyalty to her "liege-Lord" is undeniable.

The 'Peradeniya years', during which Tsunami and Latha go to University, are drawn from life. It's all here, especially those golden early years at the newly established seat of higher learning at Peradeniya from where scholars were to come forth like blossoming boughs to bear fruit in the 'new Ceylon'; and the horrors which began with the later intakes, the cruel, merciless ragging by frustrated youth from provincial and village schools of those students they decided were more "advantaged" than they were.

The author details how the sacrosanct life of the old aristocracy's privileged upper classes was to be dangerously threatened, their "castles" attacked at the very gates. At Peradeniya, Tsunami and Latha are exposed to fellow students from a variety of backgrounds. Latha is at a greater advantage as hers had been a very simple home.

It is here on the campus that the "best" intellects from the country's schools and colleges will acquire gems of higher learning, but it is also, as boy meets girl and vice versa to mix and mingle, where they are initiated into real life.

For a start their only advantages are their intellectual ability and the accord they establish with those many others, different in so many ways from themselves and yet striving for the same goals. A large part of the book, which sees the two cousins maturing from girlhood to young womanhood, is set in Peradeniya. It is evident that it is written from the author's own first hand knowledge.

The story, which begins on a dramatic note with the mysterious death-fall of Lady Alexandra Millbank, leads to an even more dramatic conclusion.

Poetic justice is satisfied I became completely absorbed, while reading "The Sweet and Simple Kind", in the panorama of life and events that Yasmine Gooneratne unfolds. This novel provides a deeper insight into an era that in many ways has passed.

There are no explanations didactically given for the singular and manifold quirks of human behaviour; instead it is simply presented and penetratingly analysed to stimulate readers and allow them to judge for themselves. What more is required of a novel written with such charm and simplicity, but with tones and shades of meaning that remain indelibly in the readers mind?

Book News

Title: Rhythm of the Sea

Author: Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe

Published by: Hambanthota District Chamber of Commerce

Rhythm of the Sea by Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe traces the lives of people and the progress of events following the tsunami in Sri Lanka two years after the event.

The book uses the Hambantota District, the second most severely tsunami-affected administrative region in Sri Lanka in terms of human and capital cost, as the backdrop. It surveys personal memories of individuals as well as broader issues that surround the post-tsunami days such as the impact of relief operations, donations and reconstruction; and also captures how personal journeys are interwoven with the country's efforts to re-build itself.

Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe holds a Master's Degree from SOAS, University of London. Her manuscript of poetry was short-listed for the Gratiaen Prize, Sri Lanka, in 1998. She has an abiding love for the beauty and the contradictions of her country.

The principal photographer, Denise Militzer was a WISC Uniterra volunteer with the Ruhunu Rural Womens Organisation in the Hambantota District when she captured the photographs for this book.

Funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy, and Voluntary Services Overseas, all proceeds from the sale of this book will be in aid of tsunami economic re-generation projects in the Hambantota District.

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State Literary Award 2007

Ransiri Menike Silva's maiden collection of short stories "The Seeing Eye" won the State Literary Award for short stories (English) 2007.

The author is a frequent writer who took to creative writing late in life. Her early stories appeared in the newspapers, "Navasilu" and "Channels". She is also a freelance journalist whose work has been published in "Lanka Monthly Digest", "Voice of Women", "Satyn" and newspapers including the recent series "Worm's Eye View".

In 1990 she won first prize in the All Island Short Story Competition of the English Association of Sri Lanka with her story "The Barber Shop".

As a member of the English Writer's Co-operative she organised its Short Story and Poetry Competition in 2000 and edited "Channels" Vol. 9 No. 2.

Her stories have been included in Ashley Halpe's "An Anthology of Contemporary Sri Lankan Short Stories in English" (1990); D. C. R. A. Goonatilleke's "Sri Lankan Literature in English" (1948-1998)....a Golden Jubilee Anniversary Anthology, and his "Kaleidoscope" - an Anthology of English Literature (2007).

She is listed in Yasmine Gooneratne's "Celebrating Sri Lankan Women's English writing" Vol; 2.