Eric Illayaparachchi’s most recent literary work, the novel ‘Messa’ has done a profound work which needs the attention of a larger audience, which seemed to have gained less. Eric Illayaparachchi has an extensive ability to distinguish the untouched mindsets with a reasonable expression to the human souls. This story is also led by so called justifications and condemnations of human anomalies, as it prolongs the discussion towards a rather comprehensive call to the society.
‘Messa’ is very readable, and brings the assumption that Eric has evade the advanced story telling method which he uses in previous books, as he adds a novelty to the story line, than twisting it to the complexities and tries keep the complexity within the simplicity. Although the book reminds of Maxim Gorki’s (1868-1936) trilogy; ‘My Childhood’, ‘In the World’ and ‘My Universities’, Eric’s attempt is to unify these three together and accumulate a social political weight hiding it behind the academia. And it could say this is a parallel touch to the novel by the Irish novelist James Joyce (1882-1941), “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (1916).
The Art Work
‘Messa’ is written as a first person perspective, and has tried to build a meaning within the structure of the work. Every phase of the story begins with a climax and ends with a denouement, but does not bring a sound solution for the characters in any way. ‘Messa’ can be distinguished as a question, rather than a resolution. Other than that, the writer’s exquisite competency of forming the story, ruling the main character and rendering an intrinsic value to the plot should be admired.
The story moves around this one person, and his experiences, people, and books. The sarcasm in which the writer distinguishes to be within the neutral society, the deceitful cynicism is remarkably addressing the common man. Though it is not surprising the availability of the most common feature of Eric’s work, the anxious, nostalgia with an introspective inwardness to the conscious and unconscious urges recalls the present day cry for the existence of the Sapiens’ kind.
This narration promotes the writer’s viewpoint through the main character. There are certain instances that the featuring of the main character is pressed by the persuasions of the writer. However, this intervention is needed to address a broader discussion since it empowers the meaning of the novel. ‘Messa’ is an advanced negotiation between the intellectual and emotional dimensions of the person. The intellect is being played with an intention of soliciting the psychosocial satisfaction along with the emotional recognition of the existence simultaneously.
The Philosophical Discussion
‘Messa’ is a lovable philosophical debate. This is the medium which writer denotes his love for philosophy. The narrator’s insecurities are deeply analyzed within a philosophical means. Reader is pulled into an existential vacuum where an investigation is happening on the purpose of the life. As the internal conflict moves with the being and non-being of the narrator, a reasonable justification for his situation is provided with daily interruptions on the life.
This heroic character features a number of precognitions, i.e. the history, the present and the future. The history describes the development of the person as the main character of the book, and the present emphasizes the moment which the reader is affiliated with. And the future, the anonymous. This anonymousness is derived with the major arguments that the writer adds to the story; changing mathematics into a philosophy degree, the critique on Simon-Sartre relationship, and Ceylon Flat Earthers Association. Rest of the incidents support the chief proposition of the deprivation in the mind and the matter, which best suits as a phenomenological analysis to understand the life conditions of the narrator.
All the mentioned three major attempts of the narrator are to find a meaning to the life. The sarcasm behind these only enriches the esteem needs of the narrator rather than leading towards an actualized self. At the same time, the narrator’s actualization becomes a subjective and an external reality which is derived from the formed self-structure, the sense of the individual and the biological organism. To explain the above statement, the Simon-Sartre relationship is critiqued as forming a subjective reflection to the text. Ceylon Flat Earthers Association is the deprived mindset of the narrator that is seeking for a paradigm shift. Although the constant emergence of the mathematics- philosophy degree issue, degrade the flow of the story, limiting the vastness that narrator is achieving through reading.
As a Psychological Measurement
The first question one can ask about ‘Messa’ is ‘why memories?’ This story engages for a deeper conversation on the memories, and diversity in the relationships. Books, people and several incomplete incidents confer a satisfying pleasure to the reader’s mind. Starting from the narrator’s brother and sister, the order and the nurture of the relationships brings solitary feelings, anxious and a sense of incompleteness to the mind, yet a remarkable lining to the plot.
The derivation of the narrative character that comes to Colombo with a broken windscreen explicates the non-being. ‘Messa’ is aloud nostalgic reinforcement that provokes the problem of the existence. Every sign or the symbol the writer uses is to distinguish the absurdity and the adherent sickness or the disorderliness of the narrator. The more the narrator becomes intelligent, the more he pulls out the realities. A metamorphosis is needed for the narrator to absolve the dignity as an intellectual.
Also, the unsatisfied, narcissistic psychosexual deprivations and the deviant mentalities are well accounted in the story. Each person’s whiteness is marked with a contemptible grey line, which reminds the reader of ‘Dorian Grey’. The wickedness has become a monument that burns the intrinsic values and fluid and constructed by the external forces of the person. That is why a phrase from Rig Veda has been the prelude to the story.
The Failure of the Academia
From the early days in the school, till the suspensions of the university, the narrator was not the best nor the stupidest, but as a child till the adulthood, the seriousness of the plot brings a resoluble question to the reader, asking them ‘What was the issue? Where it began?’ To a psychologist, it would be the hyperactive disorder which existed in the child and to a philosopher; it could be this existential crisis, where the narrator desperately wishes to figure out the purpose of being the ‘being’.
Apart from the previous work, ‘Messa’ can be counted as a representation of the writer’s viewpoint to the existing academia. The inability to provide a greater extension of the knowledge, and inquiring the provision of real meaning to the process of knowledge production, the failure of the humanities and the social sciences seem to be the current disappointments that the writer is experiencing.
Therewith, the writer questions the inadequacy of the academia to establish an assertive viability to promote the academic discussion. The narrator is the mode which he uses to interrogate the university education, and the writer starts paving the way from the first chapter of the book. The culmination of the writer’s assaying is the days within the university where the narrator plays the role of the silent hero, fighting the ragging, changing the stream of engineering to Philosophy, and most importantly sarcastically obtruding student activities. The Ceylon Flat Earthers Association is the most significant incident included that defines the inauthentic accession and the arbitrary ideological persuasion within the education system.
Above all, the writer believes in a practical necessity of a proper academia rather than moaning on in inabilities and insecurities. This is not another discussion that preaches the morals or the virtues. But it is mediating between the two major propositions of the era, why a good academia is needed? And how should it be made? ‘Messa’ is the shadowy wail of the academic failure of the previous generations, the inability to establish an elite cultural propaganda within the education system, which the writer deploys the incapacity of the political moments to contribute to a progressive development within the education.
Concluding Remarks
Messa’s inability to grasp the surrounding figures to produce a greater intellectual discussion has become the doom of the Sri Lankan society. The narrator’s ambition of generating a standard understanding to the worldly phenomena has been just a dream. This abolishes the narrator from the existing context. The book does not let us explain or critique the story within our expectations. Yet, ‘Messa’ itself is a critique to everything that we follow within the story line. Hence, the writer requests the reader to unify all knowledge in a place where the world seemed to gain a better appearance. It is not a false course or not a weak induction to the present matters, but a flame of hope to build stronger.
Miurangani Karunaratne
Temporary Lecturer
Department of Philosophy and Psychology
