Literary matrix invoking diverse readings

By Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts. - Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) American author and poet.

Dilshan Boange

'It is the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem to be confidences or sides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profound thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) U.S. poet, essayist and lecturer.

Treaded with diverse literary genres ranging from narrative prose to short stories, “Textual Tapestry” offers, perhaps, the best anthology of creative writing to emerge out of the contemporary Sri Lankan literature in English. Apart from its importance of being models for the application of literary theory in diverse contexts; at times, grounded in Sri Lankan context and at other times, universal in their varied experiences. One of the predominant characteristics of the creations in the anthology is that they offer rich textures studded with refined metaphors and imagery of diverse nature. The author has profitably experimented with the Haiku structure of poetry.

One of the major motifs of the tapestry is the applications of structuralism and post-structuralism within the matrix of the creations. These literary devices are tightly woven into the tapestry so much so that they have invariably become part and parcel of the text. The fictional treads in the tapestry are peopled by diverse types of characters often described in classical textbooks on literature and literary theory. Various literary devices such as hyperbole, irony as well as major character types such as flat characters, round characters and stereotype characters can be found among the creations. In each and every creation from narrative prose, Haiku poems to short stories, the author, Dilshan Boange has attempted to explore diverse themes while profitably employing diverse literary techniques and structures. The author has invested layers of meanings in the matrix and system of meaning generation differs from one creation to another. Naturally the creations in Textual Tapestry may yield plurality of meanings compared to many literary productions in contemporary Sri Lankan literature in English.

In an exclusive interview with Montage, the author of “Textual Tapestry” Dilshan Boange reveals diverse threads that make up his matrix of creations.

Q: The segment ‘Silken Scriptures’ in Textual Tapestry is made up of pieces of prose on diverse areas. How do you define this type of prose and what is the purpose that such pieces of prose can serve in contemporary Sri Lankan literature in English?

A: The work itself is a composition of three types of writings – narrative prose, poetry and short stories. Silken scriptures presents the first of these types. The narrative prose aren’t short stories by any means as far as I see them, but may possibly qualify as flash fiction, that again I am not very certain of since the objective and intention of these pieces was rather different. The pieces are meant to portray an emotional landscape situated in a single given moment which is presented as a narrative strongly marked by imagery and metaphor to build the emotional landscape in the reader’s mind as a flow of intensely emotive images.

The opening piece ‘She can read his silence…’ was one I devised giving a lot of thought of how the image of the man and the woman in that situation could be presented to the reader through metaphoric devices and similes to build them as imagery one would very likely find in poetry. One of my senior lecturers to whom I showed this piece years ago when I was in university, said the approach I had used in it with a strong element of metaphor and simile based imagery makes it a prose narrative that delivers a tone of the poetic or lyrical. As you’ve said the prose in Silken scriptures are diverse, yes the thematic diversity I hope will show how I opted for different ‘image devices’ for the different themes, situations portrayed in the seven pieces. What I believe that these pieces can serve in terms of their purpose to contemporary Sri Lankan literature in English is to present schemes of devising imagery for creative expression in terms of prose narratives. After all they each present a fictional situation and so I hope they may present some new avenues to explore when it comes to narrative forms.

Intense feelings

Q: ‘Her breath sweeps over …’ is a piece of prose which describes intense feelings on the part of a woman towards her lover. The piece is noted for minute description of love making in refined terms. What prompts you to pen such pieces of prose? Are they directly out of your imagination or creations born out of your personal experiences?

A:A very jolting question I must say! Firstly I’ll say it is fictional and by no means a biographical slice! Although a friend from my batch in university asked me if it was one of my egoistic fantasies! I told her the fact that the woman is an amputee needs to be noted and that it certainly is not a secret fantasy of mine to be in such a situation! But what I do wish to share in this respect is that I truly believe that all art stems from some form of human experience. What I developed in this particular piece was an intentional exploration of how well I’d be able to build on a certain thematic imagery scheme, which I was inspired to do after reading Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. A strong metaphor, simile scheme is developed by Ondaatje in that novel where the human body is connected with images of geography and geographical elements. This worked in my mind when I wrote this narrative prose and I situated it in a scenario where a highly emotionally challenging state has arisen between a man and his woman who is now “A world impaired.” Once again it is the objective of developing an emotional landscape which is focal, building on a specifically themed scheme of imagery.

Love

Q: Love is a recurrent theme in the ‘Swan Collection’ and Haiku poems have been effectively used to paraphrase love. How effective is the Haiku poems in conveying such powerful emotions as love?

A: A very thought provoking question, and one that touches on some classic themes related to poetry from the East and the West. All six ‘Haiku’ compositions in The Swan Collection may not qualify as ‘Haiku’ in the very strict, original Japanese sense with its rigid syllabic stipulations. The main themes and foci of haiku verse has been nature and nature bound imagery. Of course one of its most definitive aspects is that the haiku is meant to convey a final image through metaphor and or simile, which I have adhered to very consciously. And it must be noted that haiku has experimented with by poets writing in English since some time now, who have adopted certain aspects of haiku while being more lax with mainly the syllabic formations that defined the classical haiku of Japan.

What I devised in The Swan Collection principally adheres to two main features of the haiku form. One is the three line composition and the other being the final image build through a set of metaphors, similes. In all six compositions I present metaphors, similes related to nature, as in elements of nature –‘rain’ ‘sandalwood forest’ ‘mountains’ and so on. This was to relate to on the one hand to the original themes or bases of haiku poetry which were entirely about nature itself, and in another way to relate to the poetry of European romanticism of nature and connecting it with the theme of love. So I suppose it could be said that these compositions were an attempt to blend certain eastern and western elements, rules, of two forms of poetry. I hope that the final image built in the mind of the reader through each of these pieces can deliver a powerful sentiment on the theme of love, and of course be effective in its purpose.

Q: In the section Musings and beyond, you have written pieces of prose on diverse themes such as mortality, beauty and on other themes. A piece entitled The Past walks among us is an attempt to define the past. How do you define past? Is it something which is really walking among us?

A: The piece ‘The Past walks amongst us’ is a most central ‘threading’ in the tapestry, I suppose I could say. It is in fact meant to resonate its idea with several other pieces like for example the short stories –Climbing the mango tree, Once the Fourth Citizen, The Last Latte. Yes, you have hit on a very significant line of discussion on the matter of my trying to define the ‘past’ as a concept through this particular piece. To me the idea of the past in trying to define it is juxtaposed with the concept of ‘history’.

History is very much an ‘official’ account of events that have happened and said to have shaped our present. History occupies a much more authoritative position in human thinking and society as compared to the ‘past’ from which of course history does spring, but has the benefit of having an official record, unlike the past. In my conceptualising this piece I found inspiration in Milan Kundera’s conceptions of defining the past which comes very strongly in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

And of course I put my own world of emotions to the process and began developing on how to express the idea that the past is kept alive by those who remember it, and it is memory of persons that gives the past ‘life’ unlike ‘history’ which stands firmly with its multimodal records and documentations. It is my belief that the past lives only so long as those who knew it to have been real once upon a time, remember it. Therefore yes, I truly believe the past walks amongst us. But it will cease to do so when those who remember it cease to carry it in their memory, or cease to be altogether.

Nostalgia

Q: The section climbing the Mango tree is a collection of short stories. The short story Climbing Mango tree deals with the theme of nostalgia. The past is encapsulated around the Mango tree and the childhood of the protagonist. What is the pivotal role that Mango tree plays in the life of Senura, the protagonist of the story?

A: I would say this is a story that had some very strong subconscious layers in the writing process. This was written in 2003, and of course I made some appropriate editorial changes over the course of time, but it is strongly rooted in exploring some of the problems that the present generation as youth would face in the face of becoming more globalised and the question of identity comes into play. The mango tree is a symbol in many ways. You could say that it relates to the whole traditionalist Sinhala-Buddhist sensibility in looking at identity.

After all the very first mango borne by that tree meant to mark Sunera’s birth had been offered to the temple in keeping with tradition. The theme of ‘generation gap’ certainly weighs significantly over this story in relation to the migrant identity. But it must be noted that it’s not like the second or third generation migrant identity where the person tries to find and connect with his roots. This is a case of a first generation migrant who never wanted to be taken out of his homeland, but had to go due to parental decision making which is a child he had no say in.

This short story is also a case of looking back at the past and what was left behind the impressionable years of a young man. Surely a person like Sunera who was denied the chance of grand parental bonding as he grew up away from Sri Lanka would be given to wonder of ‘what could have been’ had he been year to share his life with them in their last stages. The regrets however were due to things beyond his control. This is an issue I tried to explore through this piece. The mango tree is what had waited for him after he returned to what is virtually a void, symbolically speaking. And this mango tree is meant to be the pivotal symbol that showed him of the importance and beauty of the simple things in life. Climbing it had after all been the very first ambition he had had in life, as a mere child, yet was done as a grown man after the cherished world he knew as a child had ceased to be.

Evil

Q: One of the interesting short stories in the anthology is Dinner with the Devil. The crux of the short story is that evil in not in dark and ugly objects but concealed within the beauty. According to the story, how do you define the concept of death evil?

A: In a way, I wanted to look at, or to be more exact relook at stereotypes. Evil is generally seen in the image of what is unsightly. I do believe that the allure of the dark side, of evil is to do with strong tones of beauty. The prose –Hell hath its own beauties… in ‘Musings and Beyond’ is mean to resonate with this short story. I believe I would conceptualise the image or face of evil, as in its supreme form not as one which is hideous or horrifying but one that is appealing and enticing. To me that’s actually more logical. The appearance of Lucifer which I’ve presented in the story is one that clearly marks him as one of beauty. But it must be noted that I’ve not passed judgment on him or made the narrative a ‘domain’ so to say to set the scales as to who is the better, god or the devil? No what I’d say is that I wanted to explore the subject from a fictional scenario where the devil is allowed the chance to present his voice as a gracious persona.

Identity

Q: The story ‘Private traversing on Public Rides’ presents a meeting of a young man and a young woman whose only contact with the other was simply seeing each other while riding the bus one morning while on their separate daily routines. These characters presented provide little details of their identity and rather more detailed in their acts and emotions. Is it to suggest it is the emotional aspect of the individual that matters most?

A: Yes, the subject of ‘identity’ and how we are perceived by others is a very central element in this short story. I constructed this story specifically with the intention of leaving the two characters unnamed and not defined in terms of the more conventional aspects –name, race, religion, family background etc. I wanted to take on a more postmodernist approach to the whole issue of identity of the individual divorcing them from the baggage of the more socially constructed setup or frame of ‘identity’. The words –he, she, him, her, his, hers are used only in connection with the two main characters.

I made that a specific aspect of the narrative structure, so that they will be more pronounced in terms of their place in the landscape, while also hitting on the fact that these two unnamed persons are very strongly seen in light of gender. So, gender I would say is more inescapable than any of the other facets of identity in terms of socially constructed identities. And the fact that the narrative presents their thinking and their emotions rather than ‘who they are’ and ‘where they come from’, may allow the reader to see them in the light of two average persons who we could see on perhaps any given day roaming in the city. But yet what do we know of them and what they do?

It is that question that is made focal as well. The sequence of acts the two persons do is made to show more in terms of descriptive means to access their place in society. One reason for letting the descriptive approach to be central is so that the narrative could avoid making judgmental portrayals of these two. Yes, perhaps the emotional being is more important than the socially constructed one; that could very well be one of the key messages of the story. Don’t judge a book by its cover, as the old saying goes.

Chemistry of heart

Q: ‘The Beheldment’ is a short story which highlights a different aspect of love. It is something beyond mere physical love and it goes beyond chemistry. In a way, it is the chemistry of heart. How do you look at the kind of the love life of the couple?

A: You’ve really got at the core of the idea I’ve expressed in terms of a love beyond the physical. Though it was begun that way. The narrative of The Beheldment was something I wanted to do to sort of test my own strengths of altering as a narrative voice. The speaker is a woman and that was something I had not attempted before. One of the impetus to want to try something like this was a short story by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez I had read a couple of years back, called Monologue of “Isabel Watching it Rain in Macondo. The tones seemed very authentic in terms of a female narrative voice written by a man, and I too wanted to try to develop the narrative voice of a woman for this story rather than taking it from the male perspective.

I think the way in which I’d look at the love lives of the couple is that perhaps both of them have been very unfulfilled in their lives in this respect. The fact that they had been one night stands says something rather significant. Yet the aspect of ‘beyond the physical’ needs to be looked at from the point of how and what dilemmas would occur when the physical leads to creating inroads to the emotional. I feel it is the finding of that sincerity and sharing it that lays the whole foundation for the characters to see new sides of not only each other but their own selves. It’s a case of self revelations I believe of what emotional beings live within us but may not always be know, even to our very own selves.

Q: ‘Once the fourth citizen’ is a story about a man of conscience who has sacrificed a prestigious position in his legal career on principle. However, such honest and upright characters are rare in a highly commercialised and money motivated world. Do you really believe that such upright characters are out there?

A: Firstly, I think I should say I must tread with caution in answering this one given the nature of the story. In terms of a yes or no answer I’d say yes people of that caliber are out there and did in fact make great sacrifices to uphold principles that were a matter of conscience. Once the Fourth Citizen is a sort of historical-political fiction which deals with a very sensitive subject. But of course the central arguments are all factual and the very character of the unnamed judge is very much a biographical slice of a certain retired justice of the Supreme Court, and very much true in respect of the flashbacks that recount some moments from the protagonist’s personal life that are related in varying extents to events in Sri Lanka’s own political history. The responses I have got for this one have been mixed. One of my oldest and best friends who is incidentally an Attorney-at- Law said it was a bold piece of writing and said it’s the most important piece in the book while several others said I shouldn’t have written it owing to the nature of the subject. What I personally feel is that writings of this nature aside from the political aspects discussed would be useful as alternative account or narratives of incidents from the past that have yet to gain a place in the official narrative of history.

Traditions

Q: ‘A Crimson kiss and a veil of white’ is a story which highlights on the one hand, the widening generation gap and the clash of modernity and traditions. How do you perceive the idea of preserving age-old traditions in an urbanised milieu?

Dilshan Boange

A: Without a doubt this is a very pressing question of the age here in Sri Lankan society. In this milieu we can clearly see our society and thinking at a crossroads. Age old traditions are being supplanted with more westernized ways, and the cultural foundations that society stands upon seem to be facing a dichotomy of sorts. The widening generation gap seems unstoppable. Yet it is ‘generational connectedness’ that defines Sri Lankan society and the social milieu if we look at it from the more general angle. Several persons of the fairer sex who read it shared their thoughts with me on it and in fact said it brings out a very valid string of issues and arguments that are pertinent to the present day, especially concerning young women of today.

Preserving age old traditions can be both a personal choice as well as a more collectivized one in some cases, yet it is facing some formidable hurdles that are the realities that the fast changing society of present produces. Perhaps more liberal thinking is the way forward, or perhaps better communication between the different segments in society both within and across generations, these are merely my thoughts. But I hope it can provide some ‘food for thought’.

Q: ‘Mortality’ is a short story which commences with a philosophical passage on mortality. Then, the story progresses into mundane affairs. How do you perceive many facets of mortality?

A: Mortality was a piece that was inspired through several sources or experiences. Milan Kundera’s novel Immortality was greatly inspirational and a fount through which the crux of the stories philosophical thrust developed.

‘Mortality’ is very much the mundane everyday counterpoint to the grandeur of ‘immortality’ as a notion, I mean.

The story calls the reader to take a moment to stop and think of everyday routines in a more existential perspective.

A great deal of the existentialist ethos which I encountered through works like Albert Camus’s The Outsider was also at work in a subconscious way I think when I was conceptualizing this short story. I think the concept of mortality is very important to be conscious of in the everyday, mundane routine. By that I don’t mean to be morbid or pessimistic. But rather that being more fully awoken to the fact may sometimes help realize why sometimes one would feel that the efforts taken in tasks add up to nothing though they seem like the most important things in the world at the time. I think people carry a subconscious layer in their psyche concerning mortality. But I feel people often tend to see a need to disregard it for the purposes of carrying on with the mundane routine. What I am trying to explore in this short story is not merely the concept of ‘mortality’ but also what it would mean as an emotion, and how it makes one become introspective.

Compliment

Q: It seems that throughout the creations in Textual Tapestry, you have used diverse literary techniques to arrive at the intended juncture. Don’t you think that the book offers a host of instances where you have used diverse literary techniques, thereby qualifying it as something that students can study literary techniques while enjoying the read?

A: Truly that is a compliment. Yes, when I set out to develop Textual Tapestry as a work there were a number of objectives as to what it would serve as to the reader. Using diverse narrative forms and modes was one of the many intentions behind this concept in the hope that it will be in some way ‘demonstrative’ of different literary techniques that could be devised as narrative forms. Leaving aside the content and the themes, looking at the schema of descriptivism, and devices to develop imagery through metaphor and simile for example, I feel the attentive reader would catch on to these aspects.

And I hope those who are interested in studying literary techniques in developing narrative forms and structures would find Textual Tapestry interesting in that regard.

In fact it’s funny that you should say how it may be beneficial to students of literature or perhaps writing, because in March this year I was in India and in the course of things chanced to meet an upcoming writer, Lyle Jaffe, an American who is by profession an English teacher in Auroville, Tamil Nadu.

When I was telling him about my upcoming work Textual Tapestry and the concept and composition behind it he found it interesting and said it would be helpful to his own work with his students in respect of creative writing, composition, to map out the ways in which the themes and concepts connect and reflect one another as presented in a single work, which in certain ways gives insight to the author’s craft of writing as Lyle observed.

I suppose seeing how the ‘tapestry’ weaves itself in the course of reading can be a pleasant prospect to the reader, and perhaps similarly, unthreading it to discover possible elements of the craft may also be something worthwhile.