Novel · A way to begin
The Way of the Lotus
විරාගය
Martin Wickramasinghe · 1956
Synopsis
A childhood friend returns to the village and receives from Siridasa the notebooks in which Aravinda has told his life. Born into a Buddhist family of the South, Aravinda gives up medicine for a job as a clerk and lets Sarojini, the daughter of a rich merchant, go when she proposes that they run away together. He lives alone, takes into his service the servant Gunawathi and her daughter Bathee, whose schooling he pays for despite the reproaches of his sister Menaka, and listens to Kulasuriya, an old retired postmaster, talk about the world.
Context
The novel appeared in 1956. The narrative passes from a friend of the hero, who discovers his writings, to the voice of Aravinda himself; critics have read it as a psychological novel, fed by the author's existentialist reading, and the title denotes renunciation of all attachment. Ashley Halpé translated it into English in 1985; in 1995 it became the first Sinhalese novel published in full in French, from L'Harmattan. Long judged impossible to film, it was brought to the screen in 1987.
Who it is for
A novel of introspection, slow and without incident, which can be read in French in the 1995 translation.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the greatest works of modern Sinhalese fiction, perhaps the most remarkable according to the historian K. M. de Silva.
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