Sisilagni: A portrait of the radical as a young man

15 February 2022 12:00 am Views - 202

Ananda Gunathilake’s debut novel‘ Sisilagni’ is based on events dating from the 1960s to 1971, and can be called historical fiction. Even what happened yesterday is history, and material for the discerning writer to unravel a story from the confusing trajectory of events blurred by fast moving time.  

It is also a political novel, a series of events narrated by the book’s youthful, idealistic narrator. Such young men and women have all but disappeared from our society. Failed rebellions and the collapse of any alternative political vision which can challenge the dominant, self and money centered neoliberal political juggernaut which replaced the left-centre right tussle from 1948 till 1977 have brought about this post 1980s ‘Me’ generation which has consolidated itself as the dominant socio-political model for Lankan youth.  

This isn’t a highly literate generation compared to the old, but some of them do read books (other than best sellers on how to get ahead in life), and Sisilagni should lead them to a brave old world, back to the time of their fathers and grandfathers, when a good number of young people believed self-sacrifice for the betterment of society was a laudable goal, funny as that may seem now.  

The narrator and principal protagonist Awantha is a radical with a conscience, which is his principal failing in the harsh world of radical politics. The author mixes fact and fiction in his story telling. Prominent political figures from the era, such as trade unionist Shanmugadasan and JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera figure in the narrative.   
But Ananda Gunathilake doesn’t glorify them. Both are shown in a somewhat negative light. As far as I can determine, he may be the first writer to do so in a fictionalized account of  actual events. The author is not an apologist for the left’s failures and he does not white wash events charred by the rude passage of time.   
What he attempts here instead is to portray the dedication and sincerity of those young men who gave up dreams of the good life and threw themselves into the creation of a better, more just and resource-sharing society. Why they failed is a question that may not be answered satisfactorily till the end of time. But the author succeeds in convincing us of their sincerity, single mindedness in the pursuit of an ideal and naivete in believing that self sacrifice would necessarily lead to an utopian state.  

The narrative begins with Awantha’s school days and ends with a question mark with his arrest. The story isn’t entirely about politics. The yearning for love and sexual awakening of adolescents waking up to the fact that they are no longer schoolboys or girls is a parallel story.   

The sexual experiences of a young man who almost accidentally discovers that he is attractive to the opposite sex, including older women, opens a window to the hush world of Lankan man-woman relationships outside of marriage. The author writes about it with a candidness which makes it believable without dropping to the level of pulp fiction, and these adolescent sexual experiences are narrated in a way which shows them to be part of the main character’s growing up and maturing process, not something extraneous added on for mere titillation.  
But these passages detract from the vital story of his love for Sithuli, which should have been developed earlier and becomes an essential parallel story to the principle one of radical politics. Their love, too, is radical by definition, but it loses its vitality by being presented too late.   

Another defect is the author’s attempt to narrate the story from two points of view. Multiple point of view story telling is difficult, and has been attempted by novelists such as William Faulkner. One feels that the author as a debut novelist should have left it alone.  

The ending (when Awantha is arrested by the police) takes us back to the beginning, but leaves us with a question mark. All in all, this is a remarkably packed first novel, and should interest those who enjoy period settings and the unraveling of actual historical events, for we are the products of those events and their fallout whether we like it or not, and the author succeeds in getting across to us the  fever-pitch expectations and  idealism of a ‘lost’ generation active during what is undoubtedly the most exciting, intellectually stimulating and socially experimental period of modern Sri Lankan history.