The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXIV, Part 1-2, 1976 - Khamkoo

REVJEWS
417
Wibha Senanan, The Genesis of the Novel in Thailand (Tpai Watana
Panich, Bangkok, 1975), pp. xii+l68.
This short volume is the first to appear in a Western language by a
Thai that deals with an aspect of recent Thai literature. Up to now
most Westerners have had to be content with Schweisguth's volume in
French (which is not even listed in Dr Wibha's bibliography) and
scattered articles in the pages of the Journal of the Siam Society, of
which none of those by Westerners are mentioned. It is a pity that Dr
Wibha did not refer to these, for one has the impression that a good deal
of academic debunking could have taken place; it is unlikely that
Westerners viewing the Thai fictional genre would have very similar
optics to a Thai literary critic.
Dr Wibha's volume 'was written originally us a doctoral thesis' for
London University, and seems to have suffered remarkably few textual
changes. Even the biographical notice for Si Burapha (Kulap Saipradit)
says that he is stillli ving in the text, though this is modified by a footnote
saying he died in Peking in June 1974. Does one see here the traditional
Thai respect for a text so tbat one does not modify it, even when it is
one's own and more recent information makes the original inaccurate?
PhD theses for some reason do not make good reading, and it would have
been expedient for Dr Wibha to have exercised greater editorial freedom
with her text. There are far too many repetitions, jumps backwards
and forwards and apparent irrelevancies to permit the reader to formulate
a coherent picture. There is a long aside in Chapter V oo the
Franco-Thai dispute of 1893, with another on the same subject, of
shorter duration, in Chapter IX. Inevitably King Vajiravudh's plays are
given fairly fulsome treatment, though they are not pertinent to the
subject.
Starting off with an outline of the poetic tradition, Dr Wibha
moves on to a consideration of the prose tradition and then deals, after
a survey on the introduction of printing, with the influence of journalism
at some length. Indeed one might with reason feel that this volume
could be accurately described as a survey of the early printed word in
Thai as much as a study of the rise of the novel. Not until we reach