The Novel Bringing Tony Home conveys a deep sense of nostalgia for the past. Discuss.
Bringing Tony Home by TissaAbeysekara, the 1996 winner, is a simple story. The writer is a noted scriptwriter and his propensity to see narration in visual terms comes through. It is a tale of a boy's attachment to his dog, Tony, and, as the family shifts, the lengths to which he goes to bring Tony home form the narrative. Abeysekara uses the story to map the changes in the suburban geography of Sri Lanka, not far from Colombo. Years later the adult returns to the scene of his memories but of course the world has changed. He can still hear the roly-poly fluffy pup yap-yapping but it was now nothing mischievous or joyous; it was "the plaintive cry of a chained dog trying desperately to be free".
The novel covers a period of time in the past when the life style of the people used to be leisurely and relatively uneventful. It was a time of less competition with lesser modes of entertainment such as TV, internet computers etc. However, the narrator certainly seems to have enjoyed his childhood during those days. He climbs the social ladder through free education and becomes a famous film director. Yet, he feels a sense of something missing, a sense of nostalgia for the past. It is this sense of nostalgia which triggers off the novel, when he visits his village to shoot the film “Pitagamkarayo”. It suggests that possibly we might never have given up our past.
Especially in the third movement, the narrator has turned into his elderly age but he is compelled to explore the memories of his past and see whether he would be able to trace out any evidence from the localities, Depanama and Edodawatta where he spent his childhood. He sees vast changes in these villages and the past memories begin to rush into his mind.
For instance, when he reached Depanama, he visits Weragalaestate, he remembers how he used roam in that estate with his pet, Tony. Also, he recollects how his small parental house stood somewhere on the slope to the fields. He also remembers how with heavy monsoon rains in July and August, the paddy field would turn into a lake and the three brother, Piyasena, Jayasena and Jinadasa who lived by the edge of the quarry, would teach him how to make a boat with plantain tree trunks fixed together with thick pieces of bamboo and go rowing in the water and Tony who couldn’t get into the boat kept barking madly from high ground… Now, this tank has vanished and it has become a thing of the past.
The novelist describes the lush greenery which characterized the countryside those days using highly evocative language:
…The village began at the end of the rubber plot and sloping gently through old homesteads strewn all around with straw and cow dung and dark and damp under coconut, Jak, breadfruit and all kinds of other trees.”
The novel thus explores the deep nostalgia we human beings have for our own past. It suggests that possibly we might never have given up our past. Like an image from an old movie, or a passage from a novel or a verse form an old poem, the past is embedded deep in our psyche and all it takes is one visual, thought or a sound to unleash those memories.