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A book that puts you in very good company
Through my Asian Eyes by S. Pathiravitana. Reviewed by Yasmine Gooneratne.
There is a kind of newspaper writing which seems to transcend the transient. Some readers put away such writings for a more leisurely rumination, whenever the time and day is available. 'The time and day' became available to me, and I am glad, not only that they did, but also that this collection of thoughtful and witty essays has presented itself in a form which allows the reader to survey a half-century of Sri Lanka's post Independence experiences through such observant eyes.

An ironic humour
In addition to 35 essays which first appeared as articles and book reviews in the Ceylon Daily News, the Sunday Observer and The Island, this book presents 160 pages of cameos from columns which Pathiravitana wrote with a lighter touch under the pseudonyms of 'Autolycus', 'Stylus', and 'Ariel'. A substantial collection, in fact, and one which, due to the chronological arrangement of the chosen pieces, permits us to view a series of events as they appeared at the time. An important feature of the book is the tone in which those events (and the writer's thoughts about them) are presented for the reader's consideration. His easy, conversational manner recalls what Jane Austen famously defined as 'the best company' in Persuasion:

"My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company." "You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company, that is the best."

An ironic humour surfaces in Pathiravitana's writing, conveying in essay after essay an impression that one is in the cheerful presence of a wise individual to whom one has just been introduced. That impression is important because it reinforces the book's point; which is to encourage, in the author's own words, the putting away of colonial mental chains' which still survive among Sri Lankans fifty years after the departure of the British.

It is no accident that the earliest published essays in the collection pay tribute to certain authors who strove in their time to awaken in the increasingly alienated Ceylonese, a better understanding of the spiritual worth of their own culture: among these authors are Ananda Coomaraswamy, Paul E. Peiris and Ponnambalam Arunachalam. In the pieces he has selected for this book, Pathiravitana emulates his mentors in this regard, bringing an Asian sensibility to bear on the changing world around him without an attempt to lecture, browbeat, or condescend to his reader. Here is what he has to say on that most international of subjects, the Nobel Prize:

Not many may be aware that there is something called the Alternative Nobel Prize. It has been in existence for some time now and awards prizes annually for achievements in what I would like to call sane living. The better publicized Nobel Prize award has a tendency to add more to the chaos of our lives by encouraging high-tech advances rather than its intended purposes to promote harmony...

This year's alternative Nobel Prize goes to two land reform organizations in Brazil, some ecological British activists and the victims of nuclear testing in the Pacific. This one million Swedish kroner award begun by a Swedish-German writer, Jakob von Uexkull, is worth a modest $165,000.

He raised the fund by selling his valuable collection of stamps. In future, don't call it the alternative Nobel Prize. It has a name of its own and one with meaning. The donor named it Right Living. It's a phrase von Uexkull chose from among the eight noble paths the Buddha named. Right living is samma aajivo.

The impact of these essays is cumulative. Their persuasive effect is enhanced by the variety of the author's subjects and by his easy, addictive style - one finds oneself finishing an essay and going to the next because of the possibility that the next will prove to be even more enjoyable. This is not an easy task for writers to accomplish, especially writers of non-fiction who cannot rely on mystery and suspense to keep their readers 'hooked'.

Enlightening
The choice of 'Autolycus' as a pseudonym is an interesting one, for although it is plain that Pathiravitana brought to his journalistic task over many years an unusually wide-ranging acquaintance with English and Sinhala literature both classical and contemporary, the illustrations he has snapped up for the thoughtful points he makes are by no means trifles; on the contrary, although a poem by Robert Herrick or William Butler Yeats, a story from the Panchatantra or the Jataka story cycle, or a satirical parody from the pen of his colleague E.M.W. Joseph (writing as Chevalier Sooty Banda, Lord Protector of Menikes) seem to come from him with equal ease, they are always aptly chosen and never fail in their aim, whether that aim is to amuse or to enlighten.

Essay No. 24 (The Pukka Sahibs) is devoted to a commentary on Growing, Volume 2 of the autobiography of Leonard Woolf. It is obvious that Pathiravitana admires Woolf, and especially admires Woolf's forthright assessment of his own role as a colonial administrator. It may not be generally known that Woolf also compiled an anthology.

Titled A Calendar of Consolation, and sub-titled "A Comforting Thought for Every Day in the Year", his collection was published in 1967, two years before his death. Ever since I learned of its existence, the idea of it fascinated me: I am interested in every aspect of Woolf's experiences in Sri Lanka, and I was intrigued by what the anthology might reveal of the state of Woolf's mind towards the end of his life. Were there particular days of the year, perhaps, which brought him melancholy memories, anniversaries that required consolation and comfort? I searched vainly in libraries and bookshops for Woolf's Calendar, without result until, having chanced upon a lone copy advertised this year by a British second-hand bookseller on the net, I became its owner by the use of email and a credit card.

Leonard Woolf, who is remembered in Britain today chiefly for the political essays he published in British journals such as the New Statesman, devoted his writing skills and his considerable intellectual energy to a lifelong attempt to influence his countrymen in the direction of humanity, decency and good sense.

The choice and arrangement of the 365 short extracts of prose and verse in his Calendar of Consolation reveal a good deal about his outlook on life. How pleasant, then, to meet Pathiravitana! For like Woolf's Calendar, the essays and reviews reprinted in Through my Asian Eyes support my conviction that one can depend on 'clever, well-informed people' for good conversation, as one can look to them for good anthologies. From his performance as an anthologist the reader can expect the best possible company.

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