Mouni - from a critic's perspective
M. Sundaramoorthy
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Mowni - another perspective
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This is purely a condensed translation of an essay on
Mowni, "mowniyil mownamana yatharththangaL" by A.Marx published
in a small literary magazine, Kanavu, coming from Secunderabad.
For those who are not familiar, A.Marx is well known in the
literary as well as political circle as a leftist writer and cri-
tic.
Since M.Sundaramoorthy already presented a nice article on
Mowni in the last issue which touched upon the perception of
Mowni by one section of literary critics, I have included parts
of Sundaramoorthy's article which are very relevant to the arti-
cle of A.Marx within the +++ lines. Pls don't consider this as
my rejoinder or opposition to Sundaramoorthy's article, because
my reading of Mowni is negligibly small. I just present the cri-
ticism of Mowni in another angle.
S. Sankarapandi
ssan...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
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Mowni's stories are based on the uncertainity of human life,
human relations and their manifestations like love, disappoint-
ment, failure, death etc. The theme for most of his stories is
the love between man and woman (to be precise, boy and girl).
Though most of his stories appear to be built on the manifest-
ations of romantic experiences, they pervade through many dimen-
sions of human life. They are not stereotype love stories nor
do they move towards the marriage of the people involved, family
etc., which is commonly the case with the romantic stories. (Only
one of his stories, `kudumbaththEr' is based on family life). The
relationships are beyond physical attraction and sexual appeal,
and there is hardly any physical description of the characters in
his stories. They hide behind the abstract images characterized
by the feelings and thoughts of their inner minds that are beyond
the common experiences manifested by the materialistic life. He
successfully portrays the characters through their feelings and
thoughts and introduces them in the dark or twilight by which he
could avoid the narrations of their physical features. Most of
his stories are set in dawn or dusk. His characters wander in a
world that is in between real and dream worlds, without strong
attachment to the materialistic world. The stories often change
between realistic and metaphysical worlds.
His characters lack strong social identities and hence the
stories as such lack the social character. The characters do not
represent any particular section of the society and the stories
do not portray the life of any particular class and discuss any
social issues. Essentially his creative world is romanticised one
and does not have the social and political dimensions. His
stories are synthesis of semi-realism and romanticism. This
brought him strong criticism from left wing critics that he
lacked social concern.
The `form' of his stories is one of the main reasons for their
success. His stories are sculptured meticulously with great
artistic touch. His story-telling techniques and the narrative
power definitely added a new dimension to the prose writing in
Tamil.
Mowni's stories are very difficult to comprehend at the first
reading because of their unique nature both in form and content.
Several reapeated readings are needed to fully appreciate his
stories and with each reading they are capable of unveiling a new
dimension and providing a new experience.
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A.Marx's article begins:
-----------------------
Recently Mowni has gained more attention; his stories are
being recompiled, his interviews are being republished etc. But
I have never been atracted to Mowni. I should feel shy to tell
this now, because critics like ka.Naa.Su, Venkat Swaminathan and
Pirumil have elevated him to such an intellectual level. I also
reread Mowni's writings in order to understand the depth of his
personal space as described by these critics. I wish to bring
him out of the imagniations of these critics and present his
`original' to the readers.
* * * * *
Before going into Mowni, I have to explain the following
features of a literary or artistic creation, which are often
forgotten by the feudal critics. The subject (the literature and
also the literateur), `subject'ism, the relation between the sub-
ject and her/his abstract ideolgy, the subject's individuality,
the texual strategy etc have to be analyzed.
All our activities are defined within our physical environ-
ment. We, the consumers of a subject, are not literary machines
using just the brain alone. We cannot totally separate physical
space from personal space. So a subject's independence is always
mixed with the historical background. A literary piece may ap-
pear to be in pure form when it distances itself from historical
or social dimensions. This is the reason Mowni's stories are
praised to be unique and capable of unveiling different dimen-
sions depending upon the reader's comprehensive power.
Just because the subject appears to distance itself from the
historical background, it cannot be concluded so. This type of
sub- jects actually stand for some minute aspects of the history
at the abstract level.
Subjects cannot be merely defined as to reflect the society
or arise from the society. In stead of claiming them to reflect
the realities or arise from the realities, they are actually
built upon realities using fictitious characters. Raw materials
for such a construction are chosen from the social and cultural
aspects. The creater follows a strategy to discriminate between
the innumerable materials and her/his abstract ideolgy plays a
major role in that strategy.
Though Mowni's stories do not present the physical environ-
ment, though they seem to distance themselves from the society
and history, though they appear to pervade through metaphysical
worlds, they should not be analyzed indepentantly from the his-
torical roots. This is essential because in his stories the phy-
sical or realistic environment is not concretized. Rather, the
writer's abstract ideology is concretized.
It is important to figure out which abstract is concretized
and which realism is silenced. A critic's duty is not only to
unravel the silenced realisms but also to question why they were
silenced.
* * * * *
Let us try to analyze the texual strategy followed by Mowni.
What are the silenced realisms in Mowni's stories ? Majority of
them do not talk about the work-place and less than five percent
of his characters are manual labourers. Rest of them belong to
the Brahmin or other upper castes (veLLala communities). None of
them has any worries related to hunger. All of them are present-
ed in their homes. Even when they are present in public places
such as temples and beach, the general nature of those places are
not intro- duced. The common activities in public places are not
mentioned. They are just presented as personal spaces of the
main characters.
Even the five percent chracters of the lower classes are not
described with the visible problems of their lifestyle nor the
contradictions in their equations with the higher class charac-
ters. Male chavunism and upper caste thinking has been concre-
tized in his stories. He seems to regret the fall of the land-
lord scoiety and `devadasi' system. Women are shown to achieve
perfection in marriages and married life for a woman is stressed
to be important in many of his stories. Upper class characters
are presented with romantic physical features and they seem to
traverse through dream worlds whereas the lower class characters
are ignored and presented just as uninteresting human beings. In
a few stories, their physical features are described with a sexu-
al appeal.
Now we should analyze the above aspects of his literature in
the background of his personal life. He was living analogous to
a Brahmin landlord in Tanjore district, finding pleasure in
employing home servants, enjoying vedhantha philosophies, car-
natic music etc. His activities in the world ended with enjoying
such a pleasure. He had no major worries or losses except the
death of his close relatives. So his abstract ideolgy carried
only a feudal-capita- listic-landlord form and hence it reflected
as romanticism in his stories.
* * * * *
--
M. Sundaramoorthy
sun...@indigo1.hsis.uci.edu