Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions

 

 A book written in Sinhala about Pablo Neruda and his work was launched in October 2016 at the Library Services Board auditorium. It was the second print of ‘Ceilan doopathe deepthimath hudekalava (En Ceilán: La Soledad Luminosa), Indrani Rathnasekara’s translation of a selection of Neruda’s writings. It is one of the many books she has translated directly from the original Spanish to Sinhala. This alone is remarkable.

We do get Sinhala translations from languages other than English but for the most part they are Sinhala renditions of English translations from the original language. An exception would be the voluminous work of Dedigama Rodrigo, who translated into Sinhala directly from Russian. Typically, however, English is the intervening and enabling language. Something is always lost in translation and when there’s an intermediary language it’s a double loss.

The task Indrani set for herself was certainly formidable — it is harder to translate poetry than it is to translate prose. There’s a greater possibility of losing nuance in the former.  I do not know Spanish, so the true worth of her translations in terms of being faithful to the original Spanish has to be ascertained by someone well versed in both Sinhala and Spanish. That said, I still remember being delighted by what she offered. They were, to my mind, quite ‘Nerudian.’  

This, however, is not about translations and their relative merits. It is about some comments made at the book launch. W A Abeysinghe, poet, lyricist, journalist, prolific writer, lawyer and administrator, has lived an epic life, in and out of literature. I wrote about him a few years ago, capturing a minuscule slice of his epic story under the title, ‘W A Abeysinghe, the villager wielding an insomniac pen.’

Having lost Indrani’s number (I wanted to know the titles of the books launched that day), I called Abeysinghe Mahaththaya. It was wonderful to be told that even at the age of 84, he is still writing and that a collection of 50 essays has just been published. He didn’t have the number, but Prem Dissanayake of Fast Publishers, who had brought out a few of her books, did.

Not in the best of health and yet not having lost an iota of her enthusiasm for literature, especially Spanish literature, Indrani informed me that she has translated three plays of Federico García Lorca and that the collection is to be published shortly by Godage Publishers. The phone conversation ended with a promise: I will visit and interview her.

Back to our story. W A Abeysinghe spoke at the event. He offered some wonderful insights about Neruda specifically, about world literature broadly and the place of Sinhala literature within it. At one point he read out a poem in Sinhala.
 

He may have given some back story to the poem, but I may have zoned out just then. I do remember that as he was reciting, I was convinced that it was a poem by Mahagama Sekara. Later it became obvious that he had translated one of Neruda’s poems. He ended by observing, ‘api monatharam punchi da (how small we are!!’ He was referring to Sri Lankan literature.

I had also been invited to speak and at some point realised where I had heard the poem. It was an English translation of a poem that’s at the end of an Italian film called ‘Il Postino (The Postman),’ about the time Neruda spent part of his exile in an Italian fishing village around the time of the coup in Chile (1973). Interestingly, the story is based on the 1985 novel ‘Ardieente Paciencia (Burning Patience) by Antonio Skármeta, which he adapted from a film he wrote and directed in 1983. A beautiful and appropriate poem to end a fascinating, sad and yet hopeful story, I’ve always felt.

I used the poem as a window, drawing from the playful exchange between the postman and the postmaster, i.e. Neruda the Poet of the People or Neruda the Love Poet. I added my two-cents worth to what W A Abeysinghe had said, roughly translatable as follows:

‘Yes, it is not entirely unfair to exclaim, “how small we are!” When I listened to Abeysinghe Mahaththaya reading that poem, I heard the voice of Mahagama Sekara. So it might not be unfair to exclaim at the same time, “how great we are!” Thank you.’

I caught Abeysinghe Mahaththaya’s eye as I finished. I saw his inimitable chuckle but also noticed he was nodding his head.  

The world knows Neruda. In my piece about Abeysinghe Mahaththaya, I observed the following: When Sinhala lyricists are talked about there are certain names that tend to be left out of the conversation.’ I mentioned Sunil Sarath Perera, Mahinda Algama and W.A. Abeysinghe, and noted that this should not surprise anyone considering that Mahagama Sekara is also frequently forgotten, bypassed or footnoted.

That’s how truly small we are, I now feel.

malindadocs@gmail.com

 

['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.]
 

Other articles in this series:

The universe of smallness

Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers

Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills

Serendipitous amber rules the world

Continents of the heart 

The allegory of the slow road

 

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A surrealistic encounter with Pablo Neruda

A random email from a stranger inquiring about a Sri Lankan Chilean took me to an article I had written 14 years ago.  The stranger sent me a link, which was what had prompted the email in the first place. I had forgotten all about it.  Pablo Neruda brought together Eda Cleary, a Chilean and me, a Sri Lankan.  Common love for his poetry brought us to common ground, one might say.   Anyway, here's what I wrote, an account of a tribute to that great earth-poet born in Chile, a poet of love and of course a poet of the people, Pablo Neruda.

It was around ten years ago that I first browsed through Neruda's 'Memoirs.' I looked for and found the book in the Peradeniya library. I just wanted to read about his time in 'Ceylon'. It was all too brief, I recall. The browsing, I mean.

But two weeks ago, my sister gifted me a new edition of the poet's biographical musings. It did not strike me, as I allowed Neruda to walk me through his life, his oceans and continents, roots and sorrows, his roads and encounters, as I traced the tapestry these threads wove, that June 11, 2004 would be his birth centennial.

I knew this only last Sunday, the 10th, when I saw a newspaper notice announcing a celebration of sorts organised by the ICES (International Centre for Ethnic Studies). The commemoration was to include an address by Tissa Abeysekera, a recitation of Neruda's poetry and the Italian film 'II Postino' directed by Michael Radford. I went. I heard and saw. I was floored by it all.

Senake Bandaranayake chaired the proceedings. He sketched Neruda's life for us and went a little overboard with it, I thought. The room, packed though it was, was nevertheless small. Those who came, one would have expected, knew enough about Neruda to be spared this.

But then again, I reasoned, anyone who was familiar with Neruda and was touched by his poetry naturally tends to lose track of trivial things such as time and proportion. A slide show of photographs of the young Neruda as diplomat in 'Ceylon', including his residence in Wellawatte, was an unexpected gift. It was well received.

Tissa came next, but I must come to him later, for Prof. Bandaranayake promised us that a Chilean Sri Lankan would also address us. Another unexpected "gift", I presume it was meant to be.

Roberto (I forget his last name) talked about Neruda. He educated us about the Latin American diplomatic traditions. He said that all students in Chile would be reading Neruda that day. Roberto, apparently, had been working for the World Bank "mission" in Sri Lanka. "What would Neruda have said?" I wondered. He did not speak about the World Bank. But he knew all about imperialism.

All about capitalism. He knew about the violence, the blood, the dismemberment and misery unleashed by these monsters. Neruda certainly would have had something to say to all those present. Bandaranayake clearly did not see any contradiction. Nothing in what he said about Roberto betrayed even a trace of irony, even though he did mouth some veiled misgivings about globalisation, the new name for capitalism.

I thought Tissa would have made the pertinent point, but then again, he himself seems to have, in his practice at least, evolved beyond Trotskyism's dogmatic trappings. Maybe he has evolved too much.

Tissa's piece was exquisite. He proved that his considerable work in film-making had in no way made him forget the great truth of Neruda's poetry: the word is no less visual in the matter of narration. It was a crafted and marvellously executed meditation that only someone who has allowed Neruda to become resident in his or her sensibilities and who has a superior ability to employ the word could deliver.

Like Neruda's work, Tissa's gathering and juxtaposition was not without political problems. He spent quite some time saluting his "mentor", Regi Siriwardena. A card carrying member of the LSSP bowing low to a communist is certainly worthy of comment, but I believe Tissa consciously or unconsciously demonstrated that the ideological baggage of Trotskyism sits light on his mind. Since Neruda has clearly touched him, this should not come as a surprise.

Neruda, an ardent communist himself, and a defender of Stalin and Stalinism, did after all entertain doubts, both about Stalinism and Soviet dogmatism in the arts. He was a communist who did not see a contradiction between his internationalism and his fervent nationalism, his patriotic love of and nostalgia for his native Chile. Neruda, especially towards the latter part of his life, became a root-seeker and his search for humanity's sacred congealing elements became more nuanced. As he moved with greater fidelity to the import of history, event and personality, he refused to be entrapped in Marxism's doctrinal binds, especially its culture-blindness.

The recitation. The selection was thin in that the Captain's Verses is a collection wherein there is only a sip from the wide waters of Neruda's range of subjects. Neruda describes the book, written while in exile, as "a book of love, passionate but also painful," containing his love for Matilde Urrutia, his wife, homesickness for Chile, and the passions of social consciousness.

The political side is present more as a shadow and an absence. The selection from the Internet did nothing to compensate either, for, unfortunately, Neruda lovers in cyberspace know him almost exclusively through the film. 'II Postino' and the typical search takes you to many websites carrying the poem that comes just before the credits. "It was at that time that poetry came to me..." Sandra Fernando gave a competent performance, dramatic without compromising the music of nuance.

The film came next. Bandaranayake thought it important that the audience be warned of what he believed was the injustice done by the film to Neruda's political sentiments and indeed the pride and passion with which he carried and articulated his political concerns. Introductions and explications of something creative before the reader can get his or her hands on the creation, generally put me off.

To begin with, II Postino is not a documentary on the poet and was never marketed as such. It does not even matter in the end, for, as the postman himself points out, "poetry does not belong to those who write it, but to those who need it." Bandaranayake ought to know that such needs are eminently subjective.

Speaking strictly for myself, I found nothing in the film that contradicted Neruda's deep concern with the human condition. Indeed, I could not help thinking, as they showed how the police waded into a communist rally, which resulted in the death of our hero, Mario Ruoppolo the postman, this is what the World Bank does everyday to people whose hands Neruda relentlessly sought in his poetic and political lives, so inseparable from one another. The politics does not have to arrive with a shout, holding a banner.

There are softer ways, as or more effective.

Neruda was born one hundred years ago. Garcia Marquez was correct when he said that Neruda was a King Midas of literature, that whatever he touched turned into poetry and that even when his poetry got him into murky ideological waters, it contained the glorious quality of rising above it all simply on account of its poetic splendour. He was that good.

In the long twentieth century that has passed, his love and poetry has travelled far and wide, and among its many residences, ironically, is the ICES, ideologically so problematic and out of sync with Neruda's anti-fascist and anti-imperialist sensibilities, for reasons I have articulated elsewhere. Takes nothing away from the man.

And nothing from his poetry either. Or his love of life. Which is why, I believe, I do not cringe when I say, "Thank you ICES". Especially for inviting Tissa Abeysekera to let us borrow his discerning eyes to see Pablo Neruda. It was, all in all, an elegant tribute.

First published on July 18, 2004 in the Sunday Observer

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