Theena Kumaragurunathan - First Utterance - Devika Brendon Interview Sep 27 2016

Published in Ceylon Today

1. Could you explain your choice of the title for this book? It has more than one meaning, doesn't it? Both thematic and personal?

I settled on the title of First Utterance when I realized I had at least one book in me. The idea was to make my debut with a collection of short stories and poetry - thus my first utterance. Also, at the time (circa 2008) I discovered a fairly obscure album by a band Comus titled 'First Utterance.' The album is remarkable for a number of things, among them the theme of madness. 

Around this time I was going through a bad case of writer's block. I had stopped reading fiction and began reading a lot more non-fiction, particularly comparative religion and mythology. And one of the things I stumbled upon was the mythological trope of a first utterance. It occurs in a number of cultures and myths - in Hinduism, for instance, there are entire scriptures devoted to the sound 'Om'.

So while these ideas were playing around in my head, I hadn't really written anything. Around 2010, as my father's health was in terminal decline, I discovered Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude. By the time I read the last sentence in the book - an incredible last sentence by the way - I knew I had to write my book and I had an idea of how to go about it.

I had the plot for three short stories where the protagonists from each of the stories were labelled mad and the more I learnt about these men and their families by writing it down on paper, the more I realized how much common ground they shared. The question was how to bring them into one universe, where their fates would be intertwined. And that is when I remembered the myth of a first utterance. That was an eureka moment - the entire book's structure just sort of revealed itself thereafter. After that it was a 6 months of writing, rewriting.

2.  The book is the first in a series. Why did the cyclic structure appeal to you in relation to a story about Sri Lanka?

See, when I was writing 'First Utterance' I didn't know it was going to be the first in a series of books. It was only when I finished writing and rewriting it, did I realize how much Mirage's mythological framework hints at a cyclical fate for the nation and its people. It was only then the sketch and structures for book II and III were conceived, and it was only then I formally called 'First Utterance' Book I of the Miragian cycles.

The cycles that I refer to is a dramatic interpretation of karma. We tend to think of karma at an individual level. I wanted to explore the cosmic workings of a phenomenon like Karma on a national scale.

3. At first reading, the reader is aware that you are initiating this story cycle by infusing it with allegorical symbolism which is stark and poetic. Could you expand on the usefulness of allegory in relation to this story?

I think that had a lot to do with my interest in comparative mythology. Joseph Campbell wrote that there were two kinds of mythologies: one seeks to free the essence of man to reach his spiritual zenith, and the other that seeks to order the society in which it operates. Upon reading his work, Campbell draws your attention to the common way both myth frameworks were communicated and trickled down to their respective societies: allegory.

In many instances, it is the same story being told by different cultures, using different protagonists and vastly different languages. They are told these stories through allegories that resonate strongly within each of those cultures. The genius of those first storytellers was taking these large ideas and making it comprehensible to the masses using allegory. They were the most effective early storytelling devices, particularly in primitive societies where oral storytelling played an important role in myth-making.

Mirage’s mythological framework is one that orders a society in place – with one brief allusion to the consequences of men choosing to shirk that societal order to reach their individual notion of spiritual enlightenment. That allegorical style that kicks off First Utterance was a deliberate choice to illustrate how the simple language of our forefathers can continue to impact life in contemporary society. And that’s a theme that will continue to be explored in Book II of the Miragian Cycles.

4. What narratives and which storytellers have impacted on you as a reader, and influenced you as a writer?

The first writer I can recall reading obsessively was Arthur C. Clarke. To this day, I don't think I've explored any other writer's work in as much obsessive detail as I did Clarke's when I was in teens. Then, as I mentioned earlier, I went through a period in my mid-twenties when I hardly read fiction at all - that changed with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So these two men are my primary influences.

Besides them, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Conrad, Mark Z. Danielewski, Herman Hesse, Alan Moore and two men who write exclusively for the screen, David Milch and David Simon.

5.  I rejoice in your invocation and utilisation of Magical Realism in this story. This is not a genre which has been widely chosen by writers in Sri Lanka, and yet it is particularly appropriate as a form to the cultural self-concepts and issues of this country. Any comments? And do you think that the reading public's relative unfamiliarity with this form might negatively influence their reception of your story?

I believe it is a bad habit for writers to question their stylistic and narrative choices from the point-of-view of potential readers. A writer’s loyalty and sensitivity is to his characters and their world – no one else. So I didn’t think too much about how the stylistic choices I had to make would go down with a typical Sri Lankan reader. I was subservient to the narrative, and the choices made – whether it was in using magical realism, long form non-fiction, poetry or even the dialogue-focused layout of a play – were made because it was in the best interest of the story and its characters.

As for magical realism specifically, in my view it is the closest (in rhythm, in phrasing, in its ability to draw on the imperfections of colloquial language) to the oral storytelling traditions of ancient societies – and the simple fact is mythology and myth-making wouldn't exist without oral storytelling.

Also: too often we associate magic realism, or any particular stylistic device, as belonging to one place – and possibly only that place; Latin America in the case of magic realism. I don’t necessarily believe in that. My first exposure to magic realism or the post-modernist literature movement came when I had no notion of what either of these things meant. What is important is the skill of the writer and the plight of his or her characters. Marquez, for instance, revealed that the voice in One Hundred Years was his grandmother’s - he tried to recall how she used to entertain him with her stories when he was a boy.

The point I am making is the stylistic choices are made in the best interests of the characters and the overall story. And if your characters are real, believable, relatable then the invested reader won’t get too distracted by any perceived novelty in the writing of the story.

6. I question your portrayal of the few female characters in this story. Would you say that the narrative viewpoint is almost exclusively filtered through a recognisably male perspective? Women seem in this first story to be seen merely as sex partners, or vessels of various kinds. Is this a deliberate representation of the patriarchal nature of contemporary society, via the mythic narrative mode?

Yes it is. Mirage, like a number of societies, began as a matriarchal society - Mother Mirage, as far as the citizens of Mirage are concerned, is the reason behind their existence. But in Mirage, as in real societies, there is a push among religious leaders to move into a patriarchal model - and that's reflected in First Utterance. That tension between a female-centric cultural genesis to a contemporary society where the men are viewed as the sole guardians of the said culture, will come to the surface in the second book.

On a personal note, I tend to get pretty annoyed with myself reading First Utterance's female characters. They come across as far too one-dimensional and one note-y for my liking. On the other hand, the women in Book II are already among my favourite characters I've ever written. I can't wait for the world to meet them.

7. What, in your opinion, is the reason why Sri Lankan literature in English has not (with the exception of some individual writers) reached an international market in the way that the writing of Indian writers has? And that writers writing in Sinhala have not often been translated, to reach an English-speaking audience?

I can't speak for the state of the Sinhala and Tamil writers, but in my view most of our English writing is stuck in a little bubble where nothing interesting has apparently happened in this country except for the war. And the war is the background for almost every story.

And unless it is Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost or Shehan's Chinaman, most of the time it is handled badly. You can also see the writers don't want to offend so the stories are sanitized at the time of writing and it shows. So fundamentally, I think we need to be more ambitious storytellers.

As for translations of Sinhala and Tamil writing, I can't understand why it isn't being done. Maybe it is a case of finding great translators. Marquez used to say how much he is indebted to Gregory Rabassa for translating his work from Spanish to English - and when you read the English translations, you can see how much work goes into it. I just hope we can create the culture here too. It's about time.

8. What suggestions would you make that could encourage young writers in Sri Lanka to actively seek a wider readership? How could the existing literary culture be improved, and made more effective?

Stop relying on traditional publishers. Become the publisher, own your intellectual property, understand the global publishing landscape - its pressure points, the volatility, how agents think. Understand technology and how to use it to get more readers interested. Collaborate with other storytellers - the collaborators needn't be other writers, but painters, musicians, et cetera.

9. How important are literary festivals and awards in increasing interest in writing as an activity which is culturally valued?

The last time the role of writing in culture was debated as fiercely was in Socrates’ Greece. The philosopher deplored writing and the impact it would have on his students ability to remember, and fearing they would mistake data for knowledge. Two millennia later, writing has become part of the cultural fabric and we are worried if its value is no longer appreciated. 

The writers of today are faced with the knowledge that if we don’t get the attention of readers in the first few sentences, we’ll lose them to a movie or YouTube video. Does that awareness influence the writer’s work? If so, how? Does it make him/her a better writer? Better how? These are questions that we need to start thinking about.

And in that sense, a literary festival that brings all of us who care about good writing to come together to celebrate it is a good start. It shows the world that a gift humanity learnt to harness a few thousand years ago still matters today - despite all the distractions modern life offers.

It’s a good start, but the more important function that literary festivals need to play, more crucial than giving out awards, is debating how literature can continue to shape culture.

10. What are the positive influences in your life so far that have enabled you to find your own voice as a writer?

My life is thankfully not as dramatic or volatile as that of my protagonists. My dad was a Tamil lyricist and poet so we, my sister and I, were always exposed to literature from a young age. I also had an incredible literature teacher in high school who made me from an apathetic literature student to becoming a proper reader. I didn't go pursue a Creative Writing MFA or anything like that, but I had a fine writing instructor in Delon Weerasinghe over the last decade. He read and dismissed so much of my early, self-indulgent writing - I am a better writer with a thicker skin today because of him.

I also don't read methodically in the sense I haven't felt it necessary to explore every written work by every writer I admire; that way my voice doesn't become derivative. I read about 10-12 different longform writing a day, only one of it may be fiction. I am always looking for new ways to tell stories so half the time I am exploring how narrative devices used in non-fiction can be adapted to my writing.

I am also naturally curious so I tend to have a wide array of interests and thus a wide array of material to read. As a kid I wondered if it was a bad thing because I wasn’t good at any one thing except useless trivia, but I am so glad now because it means I have so much of material to mine from when it comes to my writing. I am not just learning from my favourite fictional work and writers, but sometimes something as unrelated to my writing as sport will give me an idea that I end up incorporating into my writing.

11. What challenges have you faced, in your 'story so far'? Both in the mythic narrative of your story, and in your development as a creative writer?

The challenge now is to fully realize the remaining two books. I feel I've changed as a writer since finishing First Utterance - remember I did complete writing it in Nov 2012 - and the biggest change has been a mental shift: I am no longer subservient to the plot, but my characters. And the result is an even more organic narrative where I am constantly surprised and enthralled at the direction my characters take the story. The challenge is to stay in that mind frame until Books II and III are done.

12. And finally - Could you comment on the choice of the visually striking cover? The image, the colours and the embossing effect fuse into an unforgettable picture. The serpents swallowing their own tails suggest infinity, eternity and causality, all visible when one takes a big picture view of a nation's history. Three snakes! The colours are surely symbolic of the colours of the flag & the nation itself - and there will be 3 narratives in the cycle?

The ouroboros is one of the oldest symbols in ancient societies. And I always found the image of a snake eating itself to be a powerful illustration of the cyclicality of life. I dreamt the cover image just after I had finished writing the first draft and was playing around with the idea that there maybe two more books in the series. It wasn't the traditional ouroboros but the symbol adapted in the vein of a hydrogen atom. I can't draw or sketch to save my life so I commissioned Madhri Samaranayake to realize that vision. Madhri is an incredible artist whose work possess a startlingly unique visual signature. I was floored when she showed me the first drafts of the design.

The three snakes are called 'The Triad of Ancestors' - and yes, your reading is correct. The colours chosen are adapted from our flag, yes, because they represent the three tribes of Mirage. And yes, there will be 3 novels in the cycle.