Writing
from London, and other compulsions
Romesh
Gunesekera comes home to Colombo
By Rajpal Abeynayake
It's
a sunny morning, the birds are chirping and the manicured
lawn visible over the  half
wall may have been the perfect idyll for daydreams and a reverie
- but here we are discussing realism in the novel. "I
do not write the social realist novel,'' says Romesh Gunesekera,
and he seems to be belabouring under the mistaken impression
that I appreciate that kind of fiction. "My latest book
- Heaven's Edge- is what you can call a future odyssey,''
he says.
I ask
whether it is magic realist. No, he says, pauses as if to
take in the scenery, then adds "You could call it speculative
fiction." "It is the world we don't know in thirty
years - I am looking back at a point ahead of us.''
I ask
him whether he lives by his writing. That's true, he says
- 'that's what I do for a living.'
"I
see you writing various opinion pieces sometimes for the papers
such as the Guardian,'' I wager, tentatively.
"I
couldn't write a column like you for instance,'' he says "but
if someone wants me to write on some specific topic such as
on Sri Lanka for example - which I have been asked quite a
few times to do - I would do it.''
This
conversation is progressing I think, but chide myself - -
that's only because something was said about me.
"How
long have you been in London?'' I ask.
"30,
40 years….''
"Since
you were a child?''
"Oh
no, I'm actually quite old,'' he says, laughing. That breaks
the ice, and I dig with some energy into my fruit salad and
ice cream.
"I've
read a character say in one of your books'' I say, between
a few mouthfuls, that "when people feel alienated from
a foreign environment, they gradually begin to make everything
around them their own.'' I tell him I liked that thought.
He doesn't
seem to recognize that line immediately as his own, but nods,
signalling me to continue.
"Is
that somehow what you did in London?'' I ask.
Unexpectedly,
the response is a tad defensive.
"A
lot of foreigners have a special relationship with these places
when they are in foreign cities …I wouldn't put down
these experiences as somehow inferior,'' he says.
I tell
him that I certainly did not talk of his experiences in London
in some kind of pejorative sense. But, perhaps "there
is more sense of belonging, a sense of legitimacy if you will
- that one feels in ones own city, as opposed to an alien
place?''
"People
may not feel that sense of legitimacy in their own countries,''
he says. "For instance a lot of Sri Lankans will not
seem comfortable or feel even welcome in this café
in Colombo. There is a mixture of identity and being in London
is a distinct experience for a foreigner. A lot depends on
how a community imagines itself; East Bradford for instance
is a completely different land……''
"But
even as a community… barring a few aberrations, the quality
of the experiences that such a community feels as a whole
may be quite alienating,'' I say, noticing that now Romesh
Gunesekera is engaged, and this conversation is fairly on
full gear.
"Ronald
Takaki writes'', I suggest, "of an alternate history
of America, and he talks of Chicano, Chinese Japanese and
Italian settler communities which feel very badly alienated''
"But
the world is in a flux,'' he says 'and many things are changing….''
"But
isn't that the aberration,'' I ask, referring him to what
Amithav Ghosh told me in Colombo which is, "only white
people get to travel in a globalised world.''
"Is
that correct,'' he asks. "A lot of South Asians travel
on business for instance in South Asia.''
"But
there are more Americans travelling in South Asia for instance,
that there are South Asians travelling in America,'' I tell
him.
"Of
course there are financial differences which determine who
travels where and all of that… but the world is fast
changing, and it has a lot to do with perceptions. There are
Bollywood films now made in Scotland and Wales…'' he
says wryly.
"But
Bollywood films in Wales is the fantasy,'' I reply. "I
am talking of the reality of the majority of foreigners in
cities other than in their own countries.'' I refer him to
Rohinton Mistry, who writes in Canada about the Pharsees in
Bombay. There are many of these writers such as Mistry, Shyam
Selvdurai, Ondaatje and so on, who write about their own countries
from cities in the West. I suggest that perhaps there is something
- that there is some alienation they feel in these cities
- which compels them to write about the old country.
"I
don't think it's new - writers are always writing about some
other place and some other time. What you have just jotted
down there as notes now, is no longer in the present - it's
history,'' he says.
"If
you are saying that every writer, no matter his physical location,
is abstracted from what he writes about, I am saying that
the degree of that abstraction is greater when one is a foreigner
writing about the old country from a foreign city?''
"Of
course my novel is a report from the future but it is about
the time it is written in - it is certainly influenced by
these situations,'' he says.
I ask
whether he would have written the same books had he been writing
in London, from Colombo in Sri Lanka.
"I
would have probably had less time to write,'' he says, 'and
the novels probably would have been of a different character.''
I tell
him that most of the novels that are written by people who
write in Sinhalese about Sri Lanka are different from his
- - and "maybe,'' I suggest, "you would have been
writing similar novels if you were here?'' I tell him that
most writers who write in Sinhalese seem to be motivated by
a sense of grievance.
"I
do not know about these authors, but I do not think grievance
is a good starting point for a novel,'' he says. "I too
experienced a good deal in terms of grievance in my earlier
life - not being able to get my books published and all that
- but that was never the substance of my work.''
I say
that "it's not that kind of grievance, but economic grievance
and grievance that has to do with societal insecurity etc,
which motivates Sri Lankan writers who write in Sinhalese.''
Romesh is still critical of writing that is motivated by grievance,
but I say "maybe there is a redeeming feature in grievance
- - the writer will be able to lend a critical eye on what
he sees around him.''
By now
this conversation has becomes animated; Romesh leans forward,
and so do I - perhaps we want to catch the nuances better
in each other's argument.
I tell
him that it is not at all a critique, but that I see his novels
as being based mostly on craftsmanship with language than
work with the plot. "You use cutesy words, and you play
on the language which keeps the reader's interest alive….''
I suggest.
That's
a fair comment to make he says, and agrees with this particular
take on his work. He says that he uses language to create
mood, and says he feels a compulsion ("I am driven'')
to write like that.
"Driven
is a good word,'' I tell him. Are you driven at all in your
writing, though, I ask? In one way, I say, I feel a larger
component of glamour in his writing, than a palpable sense
of anybody being "driven' to write.
"I
feel its much more of an existential thing,'' he says. "I
am not taken by the grand sweep of ideas; I am more of a realist,''
he says. I suggest that there is a touch of glamour in that
realism, and he says "I do not write like a courtroom
stenographer.''
I say
that certainly it's not stenography, but perhaps it's a realism
suffused with a touch of glamour.
"What
you see in my books says more about you than it says about
me,'' he says, by way of serious argument.
"I
agree it's a personal reaction,'' I tell him. "I agree
that novels mean different things to different people.''
"But
yet,'' I ask, "certain novels are there for all time
- -take the classics for example. There is a certain immortality
in what is definitely good,'' I suggest.
He says
people's ideas of classics are constantly changing. A newspaper
panellist group in Britain picked Don Quixote (Cervantes)
as the best literature they have ever read, he tells me.
"But
yet Shakespeare is immortal,'' I say "and a Van Gough
will be always recognized as being immortal compared say to
an advertiser's graphic.''
"Books
speak differently to different people,'' he says. It's all
very individualistic.''
I say
that it can be right to an extent; that's why literary prizes
don't mean a thing.
"They
help writers,'' he tells me.
"But
they are very unfair to others who may deserve them better,''
I say.
He says
he has been very lucky in his writing - very lucky to get
published. He says only a very infinitesimal number of writers
get published in London, though thousands send their manuscripts
to publishers.
I say
that is true, 'but it still is unfair by those who are truly
good who don't get published.''
"Writers
don't die of not being published,'' he says.
I say
they do - for instance, consider the author of the bestseller
Confederacy of Dunces, who committed suicide because he couldn't
get that work published. His mother got it published after
he was dead - and it becomes a bestseller.
Romesh
says he has to run. It's existential, I think. The waiter
wants to be paid for the fruit salad and ice cream.
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