Walter Perera

Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen
by Carl Muller
Penguin (Indian), 287 pp., Rs.299.00

In his scholarly review of The Jam Fruit Tree, Nihal Fernando rightly declares that 

[t]he stress on feasting and sexuality may invest Muller’s portrait of the Burghers with a trace of a stock perception of this race, but his account of their life includes, too, a darker dimension that saves it from being crudely stereotypical.  The fun and conviviality that figure prominently in the lives of Muller’s Burghers are balanced by loss, suffering, brutality, and socio-cultural displacement and fracture. (137) 

These sentiments were subsequently echoed by others, especially Charles Sarvan, who claimed that the von Bloss trilogy constituted “a celebration and valediction” (527) of the Burghers in Sri Lanka.   Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen, Carl Muller’s latest novel, which is preoccupied with merciless assaults, sex in its many manifestations (including paedophilia, exhibitionism and incest), feasting to the point of gluttony, the tendency to laugh at “Ceylonisms,” and the dispersal of the von Blosses to various parts at the end is very much in this mould; where it differs, however, is the inclusion of introspective moments, more tender exchanges between individuals, the realization that less fortunate members of society need to be cared for, and the insistence  that “deviant” characters could be redeemed.  It would appear that sixteen years after publishing his first novel, during which time he had added to the von Bloss lore in three other books, Muller has discovered ameliorating facets about his ancestors and Burghers in general that allow him to set down a more balanced account. 

If the jam fruit tree was the controlling metaphor in Muller’s first novel, it is the family kitchen that serves this function in Maudiegirl. Although individual stories are situated elsewhere, this eccentric, multifaceted, Burgher family regularly returns to Maudiegirl’s domain to partake of her healthy fare, discuss familial issues, and decide on courses of action.   A fussy reader may object to the many recipes that are brought in but they are consonant with the “hybrid narrative structure” (134) that Fernando identifies as a technique in Muller’s fiction; the recipes are often linked to the stories, and never interfere with, or distract one from, the narrative proper.

The spirit of the kitchen is not confined to the von Blosses.  In a novel that is much more inclusive than its predecessors, Maudiegirl encourages the family to interact with others, especially the marginalized.  The chapter entitled “Eels Galore” in which all the women in the lane pack themselves into the kitchen to learn the intricacies of cooking eels from Maudiegirl shows Muller at his best.  Vasuki Walker has identified such a characteristic in The Jam Fruit Tree as well (96), but there the kitchen was mostly the preserve of Maudiegirl and her family whereas in this novel it is often open to outsiders.   Equally significant is the manner in which the family helps Mrs Neydorf to save her children from starvation and disease in “The Ladies of Charity and Elsie’s Engagement”. In the course of this story, Muller also contrasts the genuine altruism of the von Blosses with what he considers the ego-boosting projects undertaken by church societies.

If Muller brought in degenerates and oddballs for their comic potential alone in his previous fiction, here he demonstrates the need to understand such individuals and to provide them with a path for redemption.  While Dunnyboy’s exhibitionism is still meant to be comic, readers are made aware that such actions are the consequences of retardation. Father Romeil informs the despairing Maudiegirl who turns to him for advice in  “The Making of Dunnyboy and the Roast Lamb” after he had been caught fondling  his sisters, that “[h]e is driven by the sexual demands that his body makes on him, but, like a child, he is also afraid of his feelings. He does not molest or cause pain. He wants to show himself to others and that, too, to children of his age.  Yes, his age, because that is the age he is imprisoned in” (54).   Such insightful passages were rare in Muller’s previous novels.  What the priest does is to provide Dunnyboy with distractions (to polish church candlesticks) so that he would leave others alone.   The portrayal of the urbane, worldly-wise Mr Quyn, who lives as a recluse so that he could sodomize young boys, is another example of authorial tact and understanding. This pervert has committed enough offences to be imprisoned, but Muller, while scrupulously detailing Quyn’s vulgarity, focuses as well on his many acts of kindness, his ability to teach the “lane” people about the world outside, and crucially, his renouncing such ways for a normal life at the end which includes taking in an impecunious widow and her children.  One could argue that these gestures by themselves do not absolve Quyn of the heinous sins he had committed before; given that in previous novels characters rarely changed in the course of the narrative. However, even partial atonement is encouraging. Furthermore, the text suggests that restitution was made possible because of his interaction with Maudiegirl and the von Blosses. 

The other method of dealing with such aberrant behaviour, which is to employ corporal punishment, does not meet with Muller’s approval, especially vis-à-vis young children.  In “A Kitchen Clean-Up and Quyn’s Teals for Dinner,” in fact, he appeals for a sense of proportion in chastisement by citing an incident that reads like a medieval exemplum.    The young Leonard who had been asked to look after his baby brother tries to stimulate the tot sexually.  Discovered by his mother, he is locked up in the bathroom and left to the “ministrations” of his father who, instead of advising Leonard on the errors of his ways, flays him thus: 

Mr Duckworth dragged Leonard out of the lavatory. The boy dripped urine, convulsed in terror.  The first blow with the brass-studded belt slashed across his face and his world blackened. Duckworth sliced at him again and again and, in his fury, did not see the blood that marked his son’s shirt, did not even realize that he was dragging an unconscious boy to the edge of the canal. There, with a huge oath, he flung the boy into the water, then strode home.  “Lesson he got never to forget!” he snarled (187).  

The boy never internalized this so called lesson because he drowns in the river, but Mr Duckworth presumably spends a long time learning his own “lesson” in jail for committing manslaughter. In the Jam Fruit Tree, when Sonnaboy rapes his wife Beryl soon after she returns from hospital after ridding herself of a foetus that she had conceived during an illicit affair, violence seemed gratuitous (207-8); here it is often used for more complex reasons as the above example establishes.

Muller has certainly not lost his ability to narrate wonderful yarns, or his inimitable sense of humour (though the latter may still not be to everyone’s taste).  His claim that Sri Lankan eating houses that are pretentiously named “hotels” and offer “BISSTAKE, FISSTAKE [,] CHINIZ ROLLS and SHOW TITS” (65) is one illustration. The author’s almost Dickensian ability to capture the oddities and foibles in humanity also remains undiminished although allied with it are some questionable traits.  Consider the following description of the people in Colombo during the last stages of British rule which is reproduced at length since the effect is cumulative:

. . .and lo! there in the Pettah and Wolfendaal and Bloemendaal and Maradana, indeed all over Colombo and its environs, there sallied the comedians of the Empire.  The standing, sitting and walking jokes: Tussore or garbardine suit, white shirt buttoned up to the Adam’s apple, lurid handkerchief in the left coat pocket, carefully folded and draped Indian sarong held up by a tie firmly knotted above the navel, a Clod-hopping pair of Mabel Stores paratrooper’s and a big umbrella or mahogany walking stick.

Of course, the more monied the yokel the better. Such types did not resort to ties to hold up their sarongs but wore broad black many-pocketed belts that were all the rage. Each pocket had its silver stud and in each was money, toothpicks, a wad of betel leaf, even a small earspoon, loose change, whatever else was necessary. He would then walk the street with a measured stride, part Rabelais, part Winston Churchill and another part a la Mariyakadé, and the dogs would bark and the ayah’s hearts would beat faster. Of course, the handkerchiefs were never used (38).

 Some of these dress codes post-dated Independence and those old enough to remember will acknowledge that Muller’s account is diverting, accurate and evocative.  However, the downside of any kind of satire is the patronizing tone or contempt that attends it and the worth of the satire is dependent on the values against which the aberrations are judged.  These are decidedly the narrator’s views and not those of the obtuse Viva (whose journey through the city, it is, that makes the “revelations” possible). The word “yokel” says it all.  While the descriptions capture perceived eccentricities, pretensions and “ignorance” in dress and carriage among locals during colonial rule, the possibility that they were part of a fashion is not referred to (“abnormalities” could be identified in trendy clothes in the modern day, too, surely depending on the taste of the beholder). More damaging is the author’s superior-than-thou stance, which is no different from those of travel writers during Empire. The respectable, educated, discerning Burgher observer’s views are structured as given truth, and the bumpkins and the nouveau riche “others” are not given a voice but merely ridiculed. In this context, a web reviewer’s chance remark “[t]hey [Burghers] felt superior to the natives but were, in the final analysis, on the margins of society” (Sharma) is significant indeed. Such a perspective ever-so-slightly compromises the text and takes away from the telling, pertinent critiques made elsewhere.

The new trend to bring in moments of reflection though salutary on the whole does sometimes result in trite philosophising; take, for instance, the authorial ruminations on the extent to which being sexually abused as a child would affect one as an adult (134-35) and the chapter “Dinner for the Old Cat and Getting Jamis’s Goat” which painstakingly describes the manner in which a goat is slaughtered and cut into joints. The latter is as superfluous as is the sequence on boning a chicken in Romesh Gunesekere’s Reef which this reviewer has identified in a previous essay (Perera 68-69).  Still, to judge the novel on such supererogatory sequences and the other deficiencies noted above, rather than to consider it as a whole, is futile and self defeating.  More to the point is to reiterate that Muller has expanded his horizons in his latest work of “faction” even though some infelicities remain.

One does not need to focus too much on the elegiac final chapter in which the “live and let live” Burgher world collapses after the demise of the matriarch of the family to realize that Maudiegirl on the whole projects a kinder, gentler tone than Muller’s previous novels.  Here, even the brutish Sonnaboy carries out occasional deeds of grace, and the lazy Cecilprins who relished being waited on by his wife urges her with some tenderness to rest on occasion because he realizes that by taking on too many duties, Maudiegirl has jeopardised her health. By adding philosophical reflection, remedial action and the possibility of redemption to the other components that fashioned his novels, Muller has generally countered those critics who accuse him of confirming the stereotypical image of the Burghers and has largely succeeded.  One wonders whether Maudiegirl is Muller’s last testament to the von Bloss family.

Works Cited 

Fernando, Nihal. “Representing the Burghers”.  The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities XX 1&2 (1994): 133-40.

Perera, Walter. “Images of Sri Lanka through Expatriate Eyes”. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 30.1 (1995): 63-78.

Sarvan, Charles. “Carl Muller’s Trilogy and the Burghers of Sri Lanka”. World Literature Today 71.3 (1997): 527-32.

Sharma, Ardhika. “Tribute to Grandmother”.  The Sunday Tribune: Spectrum. 19 April 2009. Web. 11 Oct. 2009.  <http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090419/spectrum/book4.htm>.

Muller, Carl.  The Jam Fruit Tree. New Delhi: Penguin, 1993.

Walker, Vasuki. “The Image of the Burghers in Carl Muller’s Trilogy: Fact, Fiction or Faction”.  Navasilu 15 & 16 (1998): 90-103.