Neoliterary movement in Sri Lankan literature in English

Reviewed by Ranga Chandrarathne

Marked for its technically perfect craftsmanship, Hola EL Che may herald a neo literary movement in contemporary Sri Lankan literature in English. Hola El Che is made up of short story Hola EL Che and novella The Galle Face Literary Eve and novelette Cannibles in the corner room. Although all the creations have their fair share of magical realism, they have one in common which the author's master craftsmanship and his ability to effortlessly fuse magical or fantasy elements with fictional reality. Among other things, author has exploited 'dual spatiality' to the maximum in the text.

Author: Dilshan Boange Publisher : Samaranayake Publishers

One of the prominent traits of the book is the author's ability to integrate modern literary theory such as magical realism, structuralism and post-structuralism into the text in a manner that they invariably become part and parcel of the text. In fact, they are organic. One should read Hola El Che in order to appreciate its myriads aspects in terms of the structures and modern literary theory infused into the text.

Legendary

The title story Hola El Che is about a remarkable encounter of legendary revolutionary leader Che Guevara in a posh café in Colombo whose patrons are upper middle class Sri Lankans and foreigners. The author attempts to capture the changing milieu and its dominant ethos. The story behind the superficial visit of Che to café Che is the highly commercialised milieu.

"The Colombo of the 21st century has developed notably it is a landscape in many respects to what connotes a chic urbanism. Through the 90s of the century gone by to the present day, the number of address that would rank as places 'to be at' have risen gradually. The Epicureanism sought by a growing urban society many manifest in various forms and shades. "

The author commences the title short story Hola El Che with a passage which touches on socio-economic changes that have become defining characteristics of the 21st century Colombo. The action primarily takes place at Café Che. At a one level, the name Che symbolises legendary revolutionary leader Che Guevara and at another, it stands for unbridled wave of commercialisation which has engulfed everything.

"The times have afforded the good people of Colombo much reason to become citizens who now enjoy a rather decent state of economic upsurge. The debacles caused some time back by unscrupulous finance barons who rocked the rich and poor alike through heavenly promises of unmatched returns which fell miserably fat, have faded into murky and undesired past that the good citizens were no longer haunted by."

One of the major techniques Dilshan employed in the short story Hola El Che is intertexuality. In simple terms, intertexuality can be described as story within a story. However, it is a much more complex technique. In the short story Hola El Che, Dilshan makes inferences to legendary Latin American revolutionary leader Che Guevara. As if in a science fiction, the character of Che is transported from the history into a modern Café Che in Colombo. The subtle inferences made by the author between Sri Lankan society and the society that Che lived in are tantamount to suggest whether the countries had the same socio-economic conditions although they share a common colonial legacy.

One of the salient features of the short story Hola El Che is the application of magical realism. The author is so crafty that thin demarcation between reality and as in the One Hundred Years of Solitude, the application of magical realism not only in the Hola El Che but also in the other stories in the collection, The Galle Face Literary Eve, Cannibals in the corner room, is organic and is part and parcel of the text.

"The impassioned Ernesto Che Guevara de la Serna continued his verbal stride, seeking to educate the people of the Café about the need for a world to wake up and see the need for change for universal betterment by eradicating poverty and oppression, switching between the dialects of English learnt in a day, to his mother tongue Spanish and also French which he was fluent in. Affirmed world got around that the man speaking in tongues standing on the coffee table was in fact the iconic figure known as Che who adored the café with his dashing debonair poses in the photo. "

By inserting an out of place scenario, the author has skilfully captured change of the milieu. It is apparent that the political rhetoric of the 19th century is no longer carry any weight in the 21st century against fast lifestyle epitomised by fast food culture, sprawling cafes and nightclubs and generation of youth who are preoccupied with video games and internet. It is clear that the sub-text of the short story is the changing milieu. The story unfolds in an imaginary space (in a café) between reality and fantasy. Hola El Che, among other things, stands out as one of the brilliantly crafted shot stories in contemporary Sri Lankan literature in English.

Magical realism at work

The Galle Face Literary Eve is a novella in the collection of Hola El Che. Although the story is woven around a central incident of having a literary festival at the Gall Face Green, the core issue discussed in the story seems to be longing of the students of the University to carve out a niche for themselves and their literary productions in the mainstream Sri Lankan literature.

"The concept as it was conceived was received well with enthusiasm noticeably pervading among the scores or so of undergraduates who were immediately struck by the inevitable factors of time and money that affect all endeavours earthly and human..Undergrads in the Colombo University's faculty of Arts -department of English, after a day of lecturers, gathered in the usual lounging area dubbed 'the yellow tables' (on account of all the tables and chairs being a yellowish -beige like colour).

Many an innovative ideas had been conceived here amidst the mixes of idle chatter and philosophical ponderings. The idea of 'alterity', ( which is what the vogue in academic approaches that had influenced this group) was running in their lines of thinking as they conceptualised how they would create their own 'space' , as an 'alternative' to the dominant stream in Sri Lanka's English literary scene. "

The dominant motif of the story is to carve out an 'alternate' space for them in the mainstream Sri Lanka's literature in English. The author's modus operandi of articulating the student's hopes and aspirations for an 'alternative' space for new age literature or the application of modern literary theory in creative writing is to invoke characters from Garcia Marquise's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Although such a modus operandi may not be exceptional one if not for the author's ability to invoke those characters effortlessly into the plot in such a natural manner that readers may not feel the entry of the characters into the scene is unusual at all.

" ... A point of argument that arose at this juncture is what magic can exist in reality? Can the idea of 'real world' exist in truth when the idea of 'magic' tend to divorce the very element of 'realness'? .... And it was at this occurrence unfolded to the great intrigue of students that they noticed a curious sight up in the sky...that it was in fact a female figure that was now gradually descending towards their semi-circle of six. "

The female figure is none other than the figure of Remedios the Beauty transported directly from the pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquise. The important fact is that the author does not seek to expand the characters from the point at which Garcia Marquise would have stopped them. The sole and exclusive functionalities of these imported characters from One Hundred Years of Solitude seem to add credence the literary discussion about whether 'magic ' can exist in 'real world'? . What is clear is that real world scenarios can exist in magic? So it is magical realism or reality in magic. Often writers employ magical realism when harsh conditions in reality cannot even be portrayed within the realm of fiction. In a way, the author creates the 'alterity' in a literary landscape between reality and fantasy. The author's preferred modus operandi for such a creation is, naturally, the modern literary device magical realism. The novella Galle Face Literary Eve in Hola El Che is one of the rare instances in contemporary Sri Lankan literature in English where an author has organically infused modern literary theory into the text.

Portrayal of mindscape

'Cannibals in the corner room' is a novelette in Hola El Che. Although the author has employed the same literary devices and techniques such as magical realism, the fundamental factor which differ it from the title story Hola El Che and The Galle Face Literary Eve is that the author seeks to explore the complex mindset of a character.

"I am not insane' Rukshan's look isn't an explicit plea, nor does it not solicit some sympathy. I can't break away from the look on his face. He looks at me more intently and seems to be searching for words to make sense to my sensibility. The very sensibility that I feel has broken down between me and the world I perceive, because of what Rukshan had said and keeps insisting is true. If it is not true, then Rukshan has gone crazy. If it is true...then the world itself has gone crazy..."

At the very beginning of the story, the author caste a doubt about the very existence of cannibals in the corner room. It is clear that the 'cannibals' are a fine device that the author employs to manifest the troubled mind of the protagonist Rukshan. It is at this juncture that the author invokes magical realism to create a landscape between reality and fantasy. The cannibals cannot cross that thin line between reality and fantasy;

"Look at them. Just look at them... they desperately want to come out. Their starvation is beyond anything you and I can ever imagine.....They look like ghost of people who died of hunger and now want to satiate the memory of hunger. But they are real flesh and blood. ...I move it a bit nearer.

It's driving them insane! The faces are inflamed with vigour. The meat is just hair's breath away. So close they can probably smell the sweat on my palms. But they can't lunge out. How badly they want to! But they can't. And that's killing them. They writher under the weight of their collectiveness. "

Apart from the application of modern literary techniques such as magical realism and Intertexuality, the striking feature of the novelette is its complex texture which is woven around the mindscapes of the two characters. Dilshan's creations, demonstrates, among other things, that the art of fiction writing is as serious as any other task and idea of fiction cannot simply be confined to storytelling or dividing a prose into lines and then call it poetry as often did by so called award winning writers.

Throughout the collection, the author has devised a diction demanded by each creation. For instance, the author does not use a kind of language he used in Hola El Che in The Galle Face Literary Eve or Cannibals in the corner room. Colloquial idiom has, sparingly, been used only on instances where it is necessary either to hint out the social status of a character or a situation demanded by the text.