Malinda Words: Completing unfinished texts

There’s a novel that floored me with poetry, the sociological explication and an ending that was tragic. 'Swarnavanniye Valliammalaaaa' by Simon Navagaththegama. Even now, so many years after reading this novel, which came out years after Simon died, I can’t decide whether or not it should have been published.

It has Simon’s inimitable command of the language and his ability to say the simplest thing in exquisite poetry. It’s all there: the keenness of his mind, his grasp of social, economic and political processes and the almost inconspicuous and yet so very pronounced philosophical predilections that frame his work. And yet he leaves the reader stranded in the worst possible way: the story is incomplete. To be fair, it’s not his fault. He died before he could complete it and it is hard to think of Simon agreeing to an incomplete novel to be published, even though it would have sold like unu kemun simply because he is the author.

Now all this is understandable. Some stories are never completed, some never told and some impossible to tell. It is also true that stories, however neatly tied up with a plausible conclusion, don’t really end with the author’s insistence expressed with ‘The End.’ If they provoke reflection, they continue to live, long after the books themselves have made their way to dust-laden shelves in the dingy back rooms of used books stores and are replaced in the public imagination by newer if not better stories.

Some stories, paradoxically, are birthed with an ending and I’m not referring to the novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez who begins most of his novels with a death or reference to death. This is about stories or poetry, if you will, that need to be completed or, put another way, are left incomplete. It is about a Facebook post written by Chinthana Dharmadasa, a friend and a man with lots of opinions, often vilified and sometimes praised. It is about a young boy I had never heard of, Arya.

Chinthana says that he anticipated a time when Arya emerged as an artist. They were close or rather Chinthana felt he was close to the boy. So close that Chinthana was or made himself vulnerable to be destroyed by the boy.

‘There is a monumental life that does not end, I believe and in that valley I will meet you again. There’s an incomplete song that you and I need to finish. Arya, wait for me.’

Common sentiments at the death of a loved one, but written in an uncommon way.

But it’s not only death that interrupts poetry. Indeed, there are times when we realise that poetry has been interrupted, when words abandon us and half-written verses get lost in the labyrinths of our minds and hearts, only to resurface at inopportune moments, crippling us with thoughts that begin with what-if, if-only, why-not and now-what.

Some poems begin with a word and stop there. Sometimes we can’t get past the first letter, the first syllable. Thoughts get stuck in throats, love-ink does not quite make it to fingertips with which we can trace the contours of what someone or something has carved all over our hearts and minds.

Then there are poetic completions that never get to join that which was written before. They remain in private archives. They cannot be added on to other half-written stories, poetic or otherwise, without wrecking the flow. Completion will not be obtained, not of the kind that would ensue in an organic, seamless narrative.

We must wait. We must wait for another meeting, in better circumstances, a moment where conversation is not only possible but is not interrupted. Just like Chinthana, hoping for an encounter in a different and happier landscape where poetry can be composed collectively, upon soft earth, under a friendly sun and in the company of winds that bring all the words that are now imprisoned, for one reason or another.

Sometimes, though, unfinished texts will remain that way. But there are no laws which forbid that which could complete them from getting written, from being tossed into the air and turning into petals that decorate waterways and inspire love and poetry hitherto thought to be impossible.

Simon’s story ends without an ending. We can end it as we will and liberate ourselves from the tyranny of suspension. And my friend Chinthana will, whether he plans to or not, write down things that Arya could read with a smile. It would make the exercise of poetic-completion that much more delightful.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

04 March 2023

Completing unfinished texts

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