Unplugged Quarter by Vihanga Perera

Oh it is the beginning of the Book Fair and I have already got away with stacks and stacks of books. I will certainly go back again middle of the week to stock up even more. This year it was kind of messy with stalls not in their usual places and me getting annoyed with having to deal with the rain and the mud and the crowds who seem to come for other reasons other than books. The long walk from the parking lot was enough to deter even the most die hard book lover but it is an event that I just do not miss. Call me a total boring bookworm but I honestly get goose bumps from being in a place that has all these books. Book fair - Rock on!

In one of the comments to a previous blog entry (The Prince), someone recommended Vihanga Perera's Unplugged Quarter. As I had reviewed a previous book of his ( Stable Horses, in May 2009) I thought it might be interesting to review his newest book. In a previous review I read of this book by someone whose name I cannot quite remember (a foreign girl I think) the reviewer compared Vihanga Perera to Aristophanes. Yep, she did! And I was quite surprised. Aristophanes after all is a very big deal. After reading this book, I think she got it wrong. Vihanga is no Aristophanes, instead he is closer perhaps to James Joyce in his word play and combinations.

Unplugged Quarter is certainly a more mature book than Stable Horses. If I remember right, I just didn't like Stable Horses. This book is different. There is a story line of some sort. The writing except for some instances is mostly smooth. It stays amusing.

Very quickly, the story concerns the Head of the Department (written throughout the book like that which after being funny became annoying) Vahanya Bertolt (!!!! her parents must have hated her) referred to as Bertolt Breast by the uni students and her live in uncle Bheem. They both live in a collapsing house. It would not be a Vihanga Perera book if there was no reference to the university system and university students. So they duly appear. Peradeniya university and English Honours students: Sri, Manishka, Poornaka, Nipunika, Kesha Godapola and a student constantly referred to as Sucked Cock - Nishadi Denagama; then there is a failed guitarist Nayana who is related to the Head of the Department and who is in hiding from some sordid escapade with a young girl in Negombo. I believe those are the main characters. A series of sub characters enter and exit throughout the book. There is a chapter entitled Aeschylus or Euripides where two university professors go head to head in a poetic encounter. Does this actually happen in the University of Peradeniya? If it does kudos to them, because it told me of the existence of a vibrant artistic culture that I did not know existed. Perhaps the English lit graduates of our university system have quite a different experience from those in other departments.Earlier in the book there is a discussion of Nihal de Silva's The Road from Elephant Pass by the students. I for one will agree with them in their interpretation. I seem to be the exception to the rule and really didn't like the way the book was written and couldn't believe that people fell hook line and sinker for the pc drivel! But that is another review.

Anyway back to the book - I actually didn't have a big problem with this book. True the writing is uneven. True, Vihanga Perera has flashes of brilliance, and wittiness and true talent but it peters out all too fast. There are nice references to ideas, music, situations and wicked and sarcastic asides. Vihanga's strength is that he conveys student life so accurately. Unlike Chucking the Dragon, the very names, the very language, the very attitude smack of authenticity and doesn't seem to be written just for the sake of a good read. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Dragon, but it didn't feel quite authentic.

All this leads me to believe that eventually Vihanga Perera will produce the great Sri Lankan novel - well I certainly won't be surprised if he does so, but does he have to inflict his journey towards it on us. I have decided that I must be a masochist as I keep on reading his work. Therefore, perhaps it would be wise for me not to review Vihanga Perera's future work until I read the great Sri Lankan novel that he shows promise of writing.

Stable Horses by Vihanga Perera

According to C.S. Kaushalyan, the protagonist in the novel Stable Horses, the Salalihini Sandeshaya nor the Hansa Sandeshaya are epic poems. Consider his statement in Vihanga Perera’s new Gratiaen shortlisted novel: “To say the least, none of the Lankan writers had ever – ever - versed in epic formats.” But perhaps he didn’t know of our epic poems existence and for that he could be forgiven in making such a broad statement. But I do hope that statement is not a reflection of Vihanga Perera’s personal opinion.
Just weeks after the Gratiaen Prize shortlist, I picked up a copy of the book.
The very first sentence, the very first paragraph was unfortunately replete with akwardness, missing articles, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes that are so numerous, they cannot be listed. The sentence construction of the whole novel was also clumsy and graceless but that could be a particular style and I could get used to it, if it was consistent. Think Animal’s People by Indra Sinha or Londonstani by Gautam Malkani. The point was that it wasn’t. Even though the blurb at the back says: “It is the story of his entering a literary competition. With the necessity of winning. With the urge to rhyme it to the top.” The novel itself other than for the introduction is nothing about the literary competition but rather about the complexities of life and growing up.
Perhaps Vihanga Perera is writing for an uber intelligent reader. And that I confess, I am not. For us average readers, this book was confusing in the chapter arrangement, confusing in the presentation of ideas, confusing in the use of language, confusing in the theme. I admit that it was a tough read for me. The book begins with informing the reader the book is to be submitted to the prestigious GoldenFoot prize. Everybody and their grandmother knows that this is a reference to the Gratiaen Prize. Ok, so the judges may have had a little giggle at that ‘clever’ reference. Then the ‘novel’ but it really is a series of interconnected short stories, with pompous and vague titles, stumbles through a series of themes: A young man working unhappily in an advertising agency, arranges to meet a young woman later that day. We are then taken into a chapter that delves on an attempt at writing poetry or song, I am not sure which. To tell you the truth it is not that good. But perhaps that is point the author is trying to depict. Then there is a little aside about saving drowning ants in the loo, a little pseudo- philosophizing and then we are moved abruptly onto a lover’s parting. Perhaps one of the better chapters. After that a school teachers funeral, a rambling on the last year of school, and then onto another good chapter on rejection at love again. Then more bad trite chapters and a good chapter. It goes on and on.
Oh dear! I am rather upset. Here I am, an amateur reviewer who has not read the winning submission at the Gratiaen and is reviewing now the second Gratiaen shortlist and its not going well either, I am beginning to wonder if something is wrong with me! Perhaps I cannot appreciate good writing by our good Sri Lankan authors. It must be me because the alternative thought that the Gratiaen judges could be wrong, is too disturbing.
What really bugs me about this book, is that the author spent a few weekends in his newspaper column complaining about the difference between Sri Lankan English and Standard English and then I find that this book is nothing but Sri Lankan English and written badly at that!
Don’t get me wrong Vihanga Perera has potential. His writing has moments of being funny, clever, witty, etc but to get there you have to wade through numerous hours of pure rubbish. So in the end, I don’t think its worth it at all. At this rate, I have to take back my previous review on the Gratiaen shortlist and say that Anthea was much better! Trite, but much better.