Bad boy of Lankan lit
Remembering Carl Muller, the first recipient of the Gratiaen Prize and author of the famous Jam Fruit Tree trilogy, saga of the railway Burghers
Having spent the last chapter of his life in his eyrie up in Kandy, ensconced in his beloved den of books, Carl Muller, the literary enfant terrible of Sri Lanka, is no more.
On December 2, the first Sri Lankan to be internationally published breathed his last, surrounded by family.
With gimlet eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses Carl delighted in kicking the hornet’s nest with his novels depicting uproariously salacious Burghers. (“There are skeletons in every cupboard. It’s not fair for me to rattle these skeletons about, but if they make a damn good story then why not?”). To the end he would be a pugnacious fighter with a dry wit.
But he was at the same time a devoted family man- and losing his son Destry in 2001 aged 21 dealt a blow he would never recover from. Carl would bring forth a collection of Destry’s poems which would win a State Literary Award posthumously- an award he himself won for the historical novel Children of the Lion.
Once I would meet a younger relative who sadly shook his head over ‘Uncle Carl’. “It was rather too bold” was the gist of his take on the oeuvre which exposed a hilarious, incestuous, licentious clan- the railway Burghers who - other relatives irately claimedwere really very respectable. But Carl, coming from a family of 13 children, always maintained that a lot of Burgher life remained unspoken amidst the breudher, the bolo fiado, the love cake and the milk wine- and the von Bloss saga in truth was a hyperbole of that darker vein.
Carl would point out also that he also showed how “while the other buggers are throwing bombs at each other, we Burghers are getting on without any problems… All I did was celebrate Burgher life”.
Carl Muller the literary Goliath is best known for the Burgher saga- the Jam Fruit Tree trilogy, the first of which won the Gratiaen in 1993. Two separate von Bloss novels and historical novels followed, while he also produced poetry, short stories, and children’s books and even consulted his crystal ball, writing the science fiction novel- Exodus 2300.
Carl like his Carloboy von Bloss of the Burgher novels was expelled from three schools before entering Royal College and drifted to the Royal Ceylon Navy, the Ceylon Army and then the Port of Colombo as a pilot station signalman.
Through his Burgher saga, Muller wove into English literature a fresh voicethe rhythm of Sri Lankan English at its most native- though somewhat caricatured- a distinct leap from characters who spoke as if they had stepped out of a Jane Austen drawing room.
In 1992, the year of the Jam Fruit Tree, this diction fresh in print came as a great revelation to a young boy called Shehan Karunatilaka--who would later go on to win the Gratiaen award himself--so, “literature didn’t have to be aristocratic and elegant. It could be mad, bad and filthy. Who knew?”
Certainly Muller would light the way for so much later genius in Sri Lankan writing.
His own literary avatar was Carloboy, a young ‘Amden’ if ever there was onewhose misadventures endeared him to countless readers- an autobiographical renegade braving the high seas of adulthood.
I visited his book-filled home in Kandy a few times and found him every bit as colourful and as wise as you’d expect the chronicler of the Von Bloss family to be.
We’re lucky to have had him. Madhubashini Disanayaka-Ratnayake: The world of English writing in Sri Lanka is a very small one. When I began writing, around 1991, it was smaller still and we knew the giants. When Carl Muller appeared on the scene with his Jam Fruit Tree, we were introduced to a text that sparkled like wine - words glinted and winked on the page like diamonds. A whole ethnic group came alive with a rambunctiousness not encountered in Sri Lankan English fiction before. I had imagined a large wild figure as the author, some walking chaos – but when I actually got a chance to meet him in Kandy, who I saw was a quiet and thoughtful man. His manuscripts were handwritten in the smallest, neatest handwriting possible – straight unwavering lines–in no way could one imagine the boisterousness they were describing. He was also something else. He was a very kind man to young writers. When my second collection of short stories came out, and I asked him if he could write a review for me, in the post came a handwritten document from Kandy. I read it with fascination. He had given my stories meanings that even I hadn’t thought of – that was the first time that I realized how external to the writer, writing could be. That kind man is no more.
And I grieve with the rest of my tribe. Carl could make champagne out of water.
Suddenly the world seems to have run out of sparkling stuff.
Ashok Ferrey:
He opened the doors for so many of us. Raconteur, wit and lovable old rogue: I am eternally grateful to him!