Thoughts on Me Kathawa

You stand before a large door with an intricate design and gold mixing into the brown of wood. You are taken aback by the beauty of this door. This what it feels like reading the first page of Sureka Samarasena’s Me Kathawa. The cover and the first page of the story, white letters on black paper, makes you have great expectations about what’s in store for you. So you open the door and to your disappointment you find an ordinary house, the kind you won’t remember after you leave it. You walk through the house in hope of hidden treasures, but besides a small jar of emotion at the very end, you leave from the back door feeling empty.

Me Kathawa isn’t a bad book. I tend to buy books I’ve never heard of and so I’ve read quite a number of crappy books. I wouldn’t put Me Kathawa to that category, but I wouldn’t call it a good book either. It’s entirely subjective if a book is good or not, so this is merely my opinion.

When I saw the cover (it’s absolutely beautiful) and when I read the first page, I thought, “I need to buy this book right now!” I ended up not buying it, simply because it wasn’t a book I would want to have with me at all times.

And here’s why I didn’t like the story.

I would call a story good if it in anyway strikes a chord in me and if it leaves me with something. So basically, I would say I like a book depending on how it affects me during the journey through it and how I felt after.

While reading Me Kathawa, I felt nothing. It was like listening to a grandparent tell a story and waiting for the climax. Except you never get there in this story because it’s not the kind of story that, I felt, gives into the traditional storyline or ‘how the story should flow’ guidelines. While there is a beginning and ending, it didn’t feel like the story was trying too hard to be a story. This I liked. No, this I loved about Me Kathawa.

However, even such stories can move me in some way. In fact, reading Me Kathawa was like reading an article. I’ve felt this before when reading another journalist’s short stories. However, it didn’t feel like reading an article for the first time. It was like rereading your own article to reduce the number of mistake before you send it to the section head. You read it in a bored, ‘I’m just trying to get to the end of this’ manner.

Further, the book’s blurb implies it will be a female’s story. And it is. It is about three-four generations of women. You’d think it’s the kind of book feminists would use as a weapon. However, it didn’t feel strong enough. It was like drinking weak tea. You drink it, but you are embarrassed to even call it tea. And this isn’t because the women aren’t victims here but because not enough happens. This could be because, as Samarasena said at the book launch on July 9, half the story didn’t make it to the final book.

I haven’t read many Sinhala books. So this sort of story could be new to (modern) Sinhala literature but I’ve read this sort of story before. It felt more like reading an online article on Arundathi Bandara. It made you wonder why the story was published.

I like big books. I love big books. This is because I’m given time to get used to the author’s language, to get to know the characters and imagine myself in the book’s world. Me Kathawa is tiny. I’ve seen poetry collections that are thicker. You can’t judge a book by its size but before you can warm up to the book, the story ends. However, an author, if skilled, can involve the reader in just a few pages or paragraphs. For instance, Malak Katha Karayi by Isuru Chamara Somaweera, one of the few short story collections I’ve read and maybe the only collection I love, involved the reader in the story even though the stories were only a few pages long.

So the book didn’t move me or affect me while I was reading it.

I had hope that maybe the book would make me feel something after I read it. I remember how, after reading On Sal Mal Lane by Ru Freeman, I felt all these emotions slam into each other. I felt torn, as if something had been taken away from me. This is what a good book can do to me.

Did I feel that way about Me Kathawa? No. I read it, I put the book back in my bag and went on Twitter and Facebook. I felt so empty that I didn’t even know if I liked or disliked the book.

It is nice. The story is nice, and it’s told nicely. But I wouldn’t call it a good book.

However, reading the book did make me have an argument with myself about books and the purpose of publishing a book. Now, I found Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala to be a strong story. But I still don’t understand why she had to ‘sell’ her story, her life and why at such a high price. While Me Kathawa isn’t as expensive and it didn’t feel like Samarasena was ‘selling’ her story, it made me wonder why she thought it should be published.

But who am I to ask that?

So why are stories published? What makes an author think his story is good enough to be sold to people? During a time when most of what we write, whether they are poems or stories, are published online for free and accessible to people for free, one would expect only the best of the best to be published. However, reading books, you realize that that’s not the case.

So what makes a story publish-worthy? I would assume it should have the ability to move the reader. If a story is empty, then what are you giving people? Are you giving them a nicely done cover or good quality pages? Are you giving them ink? You are giving them something of value. You are giving them a part of you, your time and effort. You are giving them your words. But when the reader pays money for your book and gets nothing but paper and ink, are you selling something you shouldn’t be selling?

Again, let me tell you, whoever you are, this is merely my opinion. Just because I didn’t like Me Kathawa doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be read. There were many who seemed to have liked the book and many bought the book at the launch. However, for reasons I don’t understand, the story, the entire story, was basically discussed at the launch. Where does this leave the people who hadn’t read her book? A trailer of a film shouldn’t give the viewer the entire story. Likewise, book launches shouldn’t reveal all about the book.

And finally, let me just say that the plot was good. It could have been a favorite book if only it had been told differently.