(by G Waugh)
This piece shall be in response to a question that has been put to me numerous times by my group of friends that predominantly consist of people who have not been bitten by the reading bug yet.
“Why do I have to read? When there is a glut of content that the internet can give me any time, why do I have to break my back sitting and reading a book?”
I have faced this question a lot of times and the first time I really felt inclined to answer it, was when I had completed Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, some seven years ago. I was possessed by the ghost of Charles Bovary then as a result of which I replied at once with the serenity of a hermit,
“Reading makes me forgive everyone. It helps me empathize even with the insane, the borderline psychotics and even the most sinister minds in the world”.
The answer I gave was strongly backed by a very puerile perception that since I was able to empathize with Emma who in spite of having been blessed with a loving husband and a comfortable existence, subjected herself to adultery and consequent ruin, I would be able to forgive every single wrong-doer in the world. I know the answer looks far-fetched now but for a few days under the influence of the book my senses were under suspended animation and I could not have done better.
***
Some years back, to the same question, I had found a different answer when I was under the spell of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It was a ‘magical realist’ novel. The reason why I found the book addictive was because the book appealed to a centre in my brain whose existence I never knew until I read the novel. Before reading ‘One Hundred Years’ I was of the firm belief that one cannot draw himself to reading a book, unless one of its characters has some traits that resemble that of the reader. Every novel I used to believe should look like the reader himself had been installed to operate in a different universe. ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger was one such novel for me which appealed to a lot of readers around the world solely because Holden Caulfield, its protagonist acted in some ways, exactly as their own adolescent alter-ego.
When I started ‘One Hundred Years’, I felt I was in for a disappointment since there were too many characters and lot of story in it and the author did not seem to care about delineating his characters enough to make us root for them. To be precise, the novel did not have anything that conformed to the rule-book of classic literature but when I was halfway through it, I was shocked to find that I could not pull myself out of the strings through which the book had stuck me to its web. As mentioned earlier, there was some unknown centre in my brain that must have responded to the call of the book and I still descend into a reverie whenever I think about it.
”Alright it appealed to your brain but so what? How did it make you feel better? Did it make you any wiser or help you look at life better?”
***
“Reading, in many ways kindles my imagination”
I know I start evasively but I am sure I can build my case from here. Whenever I read a novel, I am very much part of the storytelling as much as the writer is. The writer directs me to create ‘his’ world inside ‘my’ head and the onus of executing his directions is totally with ‘me’. When Kalki describes Arulmozhivarman as ‘a muscular warrior blessed with enchanting beauty and charisma’, he does not sculpt his image and display it to me like an Agra doll-hawker. It is my duty to construct it based on his instructions and when I imagine a slim Sivaji Ganesan (of the Manohara days) for the role, the job is only half done. Since he is described to be muscular, I have to develop my image of him further by adding a few pounds to his biceps that fit neatly on either side of an inflated chest. Now the figure of Arulmozhivarman is neither Kalki’s nor Sivaji Ganesan’s altogether. I chiseled him myself into a distinctive figure whom you cannot replicate or find anywhere else. If Kalki is a distinctive creator, so am I.
The writer in general,does not simply invite you into his head and make you look at things the same way he has been seeing them so far. Just like how your wife’s invitation to place your palm on her belly to sense the baby’s movements and behaviour does not give you instantly a live-visual of what is inside the womb akin to what we saw in Endhiran’s pre-interval scene, an author’s work of fiction is just a set of guiding instructions on how to interpret the world that is inside him. The task of realizing his vision is completely yours.
***
I know, not one explanation I have given above can fully answer the question. But it is important to note that at the end of every novel I finish, I have always felt to my satisfaction, that my capacity to be empathetic to people a tad inflated than what it had been before. With a cultivated habit of reading fiction, my imagination-engine has learnt to function with lesser friction and smoke and my ability to derive joys from simple things and events sharpened and better tuned to the vagaries of time and destiny.
But there might still be people who can ask, ‘Ivlo book padichu enna kilicha?’ (‘What have you achieved by reading so much?’) and I know I cannot answer that question better than what I have done so far. If this question appears in an examination paper for sixteen marks, I am sure I will not get more than four or five. But as I said earlier, the writer can do only so much. The onus of passing me in the examination rests with the reader.
Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
September 10, 2020
I totally agree with the empathy point, Jeeva. It reminded me of this article from last year:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190523-does-reading-fiction-make-us-better-people
Though the article says (rightly) that this sort of thing is not easy to research, I think a lot of points mentioned do happen when you read fiction.
“Of course, you could argue that fiction isn’t alone in this. We can empathise with people we see in news stories too, and hopefully we often do. But fiction has at least three advantages. We have access to the character’s interior world in a way we normally do not with journalism, and we are more likely to willingly suspend disbelief without questioning the veracity of what people are saying. Finally, novels allow us to do something that is hard to do in our own lives, which is to view a character’s life over many years.”
Over time, I have found that — anecdotal evidence alert! — my friends who read fiction are far more tolerant of shades of grey in people than those who don’t.
I’m saying this automatically makes us better people. We have tons of other flaws. I’m just talking about this particular aspect: empathy.
And on a personal level, fiction has really helped my writing. Every time I read a great page or even a passage, I find the review or article I subsequently write is a notch or two better than usual. Maybe it’s the challenge, something inside that slaps you and says: “Aspire to write like THAT!” 😀
LikeLiked by 3 people
Jeeva Pitchaimani
September 10, 2020
@Rangan Read the following quote somewhere “A good book only does two things – it either makes a writing me to stop or an unwriting me to start” – Lord Jeeva Tennyson Pitchaimani
LikeLiked by 3 people
Rahini David
September 10, 2020
LikeLike
krishikari
September 10, 2020
Beautifully expressed. The empathy point makes a lot of obvious sense, fiction can make you think like another completely separate being. And I loved the idea that you and the author create a character together.
But I have to say, I have never come across these antagonists who ask “Why read fiction?” They do look down on the kind of fiction I sometimes read, they say why read sci-fi or why read historical romance?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Madan
September 10, 2020
I want to ask a different question. Do we really need a utilitarian or ought to answer for why people should read fiction? Why do capitalists start sounding like Marxists when it comes to art? As if everything THEY consume has utility and ‘merit’. If you are ok with somebody owning a ranch, a yacht or a Ferrari, you should be ok with somebody reading a book of fiction. I just like to, man, too bad if you don’t.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rahini David
September 10, 2020
Never understood why books are sooo high rated that people consider ALL TV a waste of time and ALL reading a productivity exercise.
And read any listicle on advantages of reading and you are told that Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey read a lot and look how much money they made. Elon Musk has been added to this elite list.
Nelson Mandela read a lot too, but somehow never captures the mind of listicle makers. Seems like a terrible reason to read more.
LikeLike
Jeeva Pitchaimani
September 10, 2020
@krishikari
Thanks. Most people of this generation like me do not come from a well-to-do family. Most people of my circle and friends are first-generation graduates and they have always been trained to look at reading as some activity linked to their economic advancement. Till the end of college, the only book apart from my textbooks I had read was Five Point Someone. From then on, somehow I got afflicted by the reading bug and most people around me both elders and those of my age remained disinterested in books that didn’t help them earn an extra cent. Whenever they saw me with books, their first reaction was one either of indifference or that of a mild scorn. I know a lot of people who have told me, “I learn from life. So I don’t have to read.” And some people think that I am a very unoriginal guy who has to depend upon books to entertain myself. Some of them have told me ” You are fit only to exist inside books. You don’t know anything about reality”. This might look crude but that’s how some people treat those with the habit of reading.
The same people haven’t shown much scorn when it comes to non-fiction but whenever they have found me engaged with Flaubert or even Khushwant Singh they have always wanted to show their innate ‘intelligence’ and ‘maturity’ that never needed a backing from books. You cannot blame them for being like that and after some generations with more economic advancement we might see some institutionalised reading everywhere similar to what we see in Kerala or Western Europe. My target audience for this article was those very people who never had tried to understand the magic behind reading a book and those who had always thought they are saving so much time by seeing films and videos and meeting their knowledge needs with improved efficiency.
@Madan Excellent point as usual. A lot of people programmed in today’s career-crazy neo-liberal environment have raised questions like you raised. What value does the book add to you and blah, blah.. I had never wanted to answer them.
LikeLiked by 6 people
H. Prasanna
September 10, 2020
Good writing, as usual @Jeeva. Your reply reminded me one of my favorite protagonists in fiction: a disillusioned teenager in Subramanya Raju’s short story “Indru Poi…” There, the protagonist takes up reading books his neo-liberal brother leaves behind. Earlier, his brother preaches left-liberal values before marrying into a rich family and settling in a cushy job under his father-in-law. The protagonist’s father picks up the book, reads a couple of pages, and says “Vela illathavan padikkave ezhthuna maathiri irukku” (“looks like it was written for the jobless, lazy audience”).
LikeLiked by 1 person
krishikari
September 10, 2020
@jeeva I never really thought about what a privilege it is to be around people who respect reading, what you said pointed that out. So thanks.
Till the end of college, the only book apart from my textbooks I had read was Five Point Someone.
So great to hear that you went from the worst fiction every written to the best. (Madame Bovary).
LikeLiked by 3 people
Eswar
September 10, 2020
Irrespective of the political and ideological shades one wishes to paint to reading, Why should I read? is still a valid question. Finding an answer to this question helps to know oneself better. Irrespective of the answer, questions of these nature paves way to self discovery. If the answer is all about self, is it even worth sharing the answers with others? Yes and no. Yes because it is a window to one aspect of the individual and the individual is a window to one aspect of being human. Yes also because sharing bringsThe Hero’s journey to a closure.
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man. – The Hero with Thousand Faces
No because sometimes these answers can be very personal and in a way sacred. When one feels so special about a thing, they should think twice before leaving it in open for others, who do not appreciate this emotion, to trample and destroy it.
Personally, I try not to treat reading as a sacred thing. Getting too close to a thing and making it unquestionable, is a recipe for becoming a slave to that thing. However, I have and I will continue to expose people to books. Like most other things, it’s up-to them then how they want to capitalise on that exposure.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Anu Warrier
September 10, 2020
I’m so glad to have been surrounded by people who read, and who exposed me to reading. My father, who bought us books as presents of choice, or ‘just because’; a house in which no book was considered out of bounds or age inappropriate – if you wanted to read it, you could. I still remember reading The Adventurers when I was in the 8th, and mom having a fit over it and my dad explaining that ‘If she can understand that, she can read it. I don’t buy any book that has to be hidden from my children.’ I read The Thorn Birds when I was in the 9th; and discussed it with my mom and our neighbour, whose book it was.
I don’t think reading is ‘sacred’ or makes me better than anyone else. But I must confess that I would have been very, very disappointed if my children didn’t have the reading habit. Thankfully, for me, they do. I follow my father’s policy – my sons could pick any book off our shelves to read. There’s no book we own that had to be kept away from them.
LikeLiked by 2 people
RT
September 10, 2020
We read to know we are not alone.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Anu Warrier
September 11, 2020
some institutionalised reading everywhere similar to what we see in Kerala
I’m from Kerala, and am curious to know what this is.
LikeLike
Varsha Ganesh
September 11, 2020
Lovely article Jeeva. I am actually surprised neither you nor anyone here mentioned good ol’ escapism 🙂 Even for those who live a fairly charmed existence without too many problems, the monotony of life can crush something in them. Fiction is the most harmless coping strategy I know of! Knowing I`m a couple of clicks away from being whisked to a faraway land and faraway people gives me more grace in dealing with my reality.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Jeeva Pitchaimani
September 11, 2020
@Anu I heard almost everyone in Kerala have the habit of reading. That is the only state in India which reads the most number of newspapers and reading rooms. And I have seen European classics being translated into malayalam on a large scale. And even writer Jeyamohan and a lot of intellectuals have regarded Kerala as a much, much well-read society. Correct me if I am wrong.
LikeLiked by 1 person
krishikari
September 11, 2020
@jeeva, sorry to jump in here, you are not wrong, there is a lot of reading in Kerala. You know those Malayalam movies set in small towns where men are gathered at the tea shop reading newspapers? That is a typical scene I remember from childhood and yearly visits these days. (Women also read of course, we just don’t see it on the street)
As for recent fiction, if you haven’t already picked up a book by the very popular Benyamin, please do! My favourite of the older authors is Vaikom Mohammed Basheer. I have unfortunately only read them in English translation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jeeva Pitchaimani
September 11, 2020
@krishikari Thanks a lot for your recommendation.
@prasanna Can you give me some links related to the short story you have mentioned? I couldn’t get it anywhere on the internet.
@varsha Thanks a lot Varsha.
LikeLike
Anu Warrier
September 11, 2020
@Jeeva, no, you aren’t wrong. I was just perplexed by ‘institutionalised reading’. As Krishikari says, there’s a lot of reading going on in Kerala. In fact, my first exposure to Guy de Maupassant was through its Malayalam translation that my brother had. And I read Camus in Malayalam before I ever got to reading him in English.
Adding to the love for Basheer. MT, Malayattoor, Lalithambika Antharjanam, Madambu Kunjukuttan (if you can get ‘Bhrashtu’ – ‘Outcaste’ in English, do grab it) are all novelists from an earlier period who are available in English translations.
LikeLiked by 2 people
hari
September 11, 2020
Some like books some don’t. My wife keeps asking me what do I get from reading, I don’t have any good answer other than to say I like reading. I use it as an Ice breaker. Lot of books move me, make me laugh, cry, sad etc. Lot of books also give out a lot of new info that I was not aware off. Recently read the idol thief, a non-fiction, which gave a lot of information about how our gods are taken away and what goes behind the scene to get them back. What I tell my daughter who is a voracious reader is, books are friends for life, they will help us reach places that we cannot imagine, so treasure them.
One thing I don’t like about some people who read lots of books, is their snobbery. Some feel books written by Amish/Chetan are somehow low class. Whats’up with that attitude? This kinda attitude does throw people off.
Even after trying to start multiple books of Marquez, Ayn Rand, Rushdie I cannot finish them. Feels more labored reading for me. So any day I would prefer any easy reading book than those heavy weight book. It is just me.
Good article Jeeva.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Madan
September 11, 2020
” Some feel books written by Amish/Chetan are somehow low class. ” – It goes both ways. The CB fans like to tout his book sales as if that is somehow a more objective criterion of measuring quality. Or they like to project that the only reason some of us book lovers don’t read CB books is because of snobbery and to be in an exclusive group separate from other readers. No, at least speaking for myself, I just thought the topics were uninteresting and the writing was average. Light reading can be accomplished too, like James Hadley Chase or PG Wodehouse. That critics would still sneer at JHC is a different issue. But the writing itself is technically impeccable.That cannot be said about Chetan, at least not the first couple of books. I have heard that his writing was better on Three Mistakes but I cannot comment on it without reading it.
BUT:
“Even after trying to start multiple books of Marquez, Ayn Rand, Rushdie I cannot finish them.”
– Yes! I tried and gave up on Midnight’s Children. One Marquez book that I no longer recall the title of. And what seemed to be a collection of angry anti-commie essays by Rand. Not being a communist, I should have been receptive to the message but it was so strident I gave up. In general, I can’t say stream-of-consciousness writing works too well for me. It it’s in essays or short stories, I can concentrate. But an entire novel of it becomes a difficult read, for me.
LikeLike
Jeeva Pitchaimani
September 11, 2020
Amish’s content is great but his quality of prose is too ordinary. Chetan’s content is ordinary but prose is okayish. I can take okay content and good prose anyday. As you say JHC fits in with the last category. For me, the quality of the prose is paramount.
After all the prose is his medium and even if the writer is not the master of it, he must atleast know the basics of it and convey exactly what he wants to. Amish at times makes grammatical mistakes and some of his sentences are badly formed. Even if his imagination is nice, this kind of lazy prose-writing puts me off. Again it differs from person to person.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Eswar
September 11, 2020
Varsha Ganesh: I am actually surprised neither you nor anyone here mentioned good ol’ escapism
Escapism is a common theme in the hundred plus letters written about ‘Why We Read’ in A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader– https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/11/20/a-velocity-of-being-letters-to-a-young-reader/. I didn’t have to resort to reading to escape reality, yet. But I can see that reading has been helping people to deal with hard environments especially in times when other forms of media was not so accessible like today.
Anu/Krishikari: Thanks for those Malayalam recommendations. I have only read Chemmeen so far, translated to Tamil by Sundara Ramaswamy. It was also through his J.J.Sila Kurippugal that I came to know about Camus for the first time.
Hari: One thing I don’t like about some people who read lots of books, is their snobbery. Some feel books written by Amish/Chetan are somehow low class. Whats’up with that attitude? This kinda attitude does throw people off.
This kind of looking down is unfortunately there in most things people do. Not just reading. In a way I guess people despise reading and readers because it is projected at times as an intellectual activity. I also wonder if people choose reading because of this eliteness, like Sanskritisation.
Because you mentioned Chetan Bhagat, here is a favourite quote from him. This is from a decade old conversation with Jai Arjun Singh while talking about his critics.
“A lot of people don’t realise that taste can be used to run other people down. But all of our tastes are a product of our environment, the families we were born into, our upbringing. If I’m from a sophisticated background I might have exposure to the finer points of Japanese cuisine. But a traditional Jain family won’t know anything about it – does that mean these people are dumb?
http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2009/01/festival-notes-5-chatting-with-chetan.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
krishikari
September 12, 2020
I found Chetan’s writing just horrible to the point I could not read more than a couple pages of five point someone, if anyone wants to label this opinion as snobbery go ahead. I read and watch a lot of pulp that others would look down on too, doesn’t bother me much if they do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Anu Warrier
September 12, 2020
@Krishikarim – I found Chetan’s writing just horrible to the point I could not read more than a couple pages of five point someone, if anyone wants to label this opinion as snobbery go ahead.
Amen! I’m happily a snob (if that’s the definition of snobbery!) I can forgive a lot of stuff; just not bad writing. And he makes a virtue of it as well!
There are so many Indian authors who write beautifully – give me RK Narayan any day! Simple stories, simple English – but oh, how beautifully written! Give me Ruskin Bond (who, for me, is an Indian author). Mulk Raj Anand. Vikram Seth. Anita Desai. Manohar Malgaonkar. Nayantara Sehgal. Kiran Nagarkar. Amitav Ghosh. Rabindranath Tagore. Khushwant Singh. Heck, Anand Neelakanthan, for heavens’ sake!
Disclaimer: That doesn’t mean I look down on anyone who reads Bhagat’s books – or any book for that matter.
I like Rushdie – I found Midnight’s Children compelling; love Marquez – but others have the right to think they are hard to read. (Can’t stand Ayn Rand.)
And my light reading comprises Wodehouse, Heyer, Enid Blytons, Chalet School stories, Asterix, Tintin, and Amar Chitra Kathas, anyway. So I’m not sitting here on any moral high ground about who reads what.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Anu Warrier
September 12, 2020
At someone who mentioned Amish – oh, I wish he would write in Hindi! He has interesting concepts, but man! His writing is a slog!
LikeLiked by 1 person
H. Prasanna
September 12, 2020
@Jeeva
Subramanya Raju is not as famous or prolific as his contemporaries Balakumaran, Asokamitran, Sujatha, etc. As far as I could search, his complete works are the only available book: http://www.nannool.in. It is currently unavailable in Amazon or on the internet.
LikeLike
KayKay
September 12, 2020
Anytime you read it’s a personal conversation between you and the book and external opinions really shouldn’t matter. A “literary classic” certified and extolled by critics and academia across decades can be an excruciating read while a dusty paperback pulp thriller you picked up browsing in a second hand bookstore can rock your socks off. AND vice-versa.
After years of having my eardrums perforated by a friend who couldn’t stop getting rapturous about the genius of Nabokov, I finally picked up Lolita an found it an exercise in tedium, as 400 pages spent inside the mind of a pedophile is just boring. I was far more interested in hearing the thoughts of his pre-pubescent victim, and was denied.
Read exactly half of Naipaul’s A House For Mr.Biswas before chucking it aside, finding it’s gormless protagonist and his largely self-induced problems tiring.
Loved Lean’s Dr.Zhivago and decided to read the book and gave up after 200 pages, Pasternak’s rambling and plodding narrative a perfect soporific.
On the other hand, Marquez’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude and Love In The Time Of Cholera, sucked me in, blew my mind, whipped my emotions into scrambled eggs and spat me out, spent and satisfied. In fact, I finished Solitude, and immediately turned to Page 1 to start reading it again.
Started and gave up on many a Rushdie, but read Midnight’s Children and found it deeply satisfying and enjoyable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
KayKay
September 12, 2020
“But I have to say, I have never come across these antagonists who ask “Why read fiction?” ”
Lady Farmer, I come across this all the time. Can’t speak for India, but in Malaysia and Singapore, there’s this HUGE demand for Management and Self-Help books which are devoured by all “serious” professionals, many of whom can’t keep the scorn out of their voices when they tell me “Oh, I don’t read fiction. I read a lot of Management books instead”
Far be it for me to knock those who love these types of books, if they work for you, good. I can’t stand them, having had to read some in preparation for a training course or had it shoved into my hands by someone in Senior Management, finding most of them repetitive in spewing the same old wisdom many wiser people you meet everyday have accumulated over a lifetime of living and learning, albeit packaged attractively with catchy anecdotes and bullet point action plans and sold by world class marketers with a gift of the gab and awe-inducing self-promotion skills. I abide by the maxim of the late, great George Carlin who said “If you need to read a book written by someone else for help, it’s not self-help”
My response to those who mock my love for fiction is: If you think Macondo and Middle-Earth are foolish constructs, I equally couldn’t care less about picking up 7 Habits, let alone an 8th, have no interest in Winning Friends and Influencing People, would rather NOT awaken the Giant Within, don’t give a toss if my Dad is Rich or Poor, couldn’t give a rat’s arse if the Monk Sold a Ferrari or a 2nd hand Toyota and you can keep your Secret.
LikeLiked by 6 people
krishikari
September 12, 2020
@KK You know how Dorothy Parker said “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”? That’s how I feel about not just about management books but also about MBAs. Bright young minds churned into self important middlemen. I do read non-fiction though, Teaming with microbes could even be labeled a management book.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Anu Warrier
September 12, 2020
Double Kay, I agreed completely with your first comment. I had that same response to Lolita, by the way (Also Tess of the D’Urbervilles though everyone told me it was a classic.)
But your second comment? That was Exhibit A – Good writing. It knocked my socks off! Take a bow.
@ Krishikari – that Dorothy Parker quote is always the one that comes into my mind when I see a Chetan Bhagat book. Of course, he’s not the only one who wrings that response from me. But man, he’s surely the most prolific!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Madan
September 12, 2020
I have actually read a lot of non fiction during the past few years. J D Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. Then there was this book GE: At Any Cost which accurately tore apart the Jack Welch style of management back in 1999 and received scant credit for it at the time. The book Rahul Pandita wrote about Kashmir. Was several chapters into India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha when the pandemic struck and my reading habit collapsed overnight. There is nothing like the isolation of travelling alone in a crowded train /metro to read, watch movies or docus, listen to music, etc.
LikeLike
Aman Basha
September 13, 2020
I simply find reading fiction a relief, reading a very well written fiction book can give me an amazing dopamine rush that improves the quality of anything I do.
About Amish Tripathi/Ashwin Sanghi, I hate this sudden bandwagon of mythological reinterpretations that everyone’s jumping on. I really liked Rozabal Line and Chanakya’s Chant, but was very disappointed with Krishna Key and Sialkot, he did come back to form with Keepers of the Kalachakra. Really confused with the Ram Chandra series so far, though I loved what he did with the Shiva Trilogy. His content and concept makes me completely overlook his prose.
This Chetan Bhagat/Ravinder Singh genre of fiction is depressing, earlier their writing, though simple, had some heart, but now they seem to be churning out potboilers with plots that’d leave the 90s embarrassed. Chetan’s formula in particular is so transparent these days: a 200 page book, with at least 3 pages devoted to descriptions of sex, a protagonist graduating from IIT/IIM, simplistic descriptions and rants about the system around, rise rinse repeat. Probably the only author all of whose movie adaptations were better than his books, one of which had Arjun Kapoor for god’s sake.
A favorite of mine is Shashi Tharoor’s Great Indian Novel. The prose, sense of humor, the brilliant conceit of combining the Mahabharata and modern Indian history. It was an amazing read and ranks up with great works around the world, IMHO.
LikeLike
Voldemort
September 13, 2020
KayKay : I equally couldn’t care less about picking up 7 Habits, let alone an 8th, have no interest in Winning Friends and Influencing People, would rather NOT awaken the Giant Within, don’t give a toss if my Dad is Rich or Poor, couldn’t give a rat’s arse if the Monk Sold a Ferrari or a 2nd hand Toyota and you can keep your Secret.
Wow. Jaw drops to the floor
Regarding How to Win Friends and Influence people, wonder how this anecdote filled holier than thou book which basically tells us to flatter people and manipulate them is considered one of the greatest self help books ever.
And Amish/Ashwin Sanghi and Chetan Bhagat are not the same! There is good story telling in the case of the former. The Shiva Trilogy is a great story IMO. The writing is not great, but it still is leagues ahead of CB or Ravinder Singh or Durjoy Dutta.
Ashwin Sanghi’s books are great fun in the Dan Brown-y sense. Though the villains are predictable, and the writing mediocre, they are one heck of a good fun read.
LikeLike
Eswar
September 13, 2020
The distinction between fiction and non-fiction is non-existent at times. A non-fiction like The Emperor of All Maladies is narrated like a story with lasting characters. On the other hand one of the most recommended readings in modern software development practices is a ‘novel’ by Gene Kim The Phoenix Project.
Naval Ravikant, when talking about his reading habits, is spot on about the failing point of non-fiction books. These books carry a singular idea that can be explained in a couple of pages or a chapter. And then they fill the rest of the book with the same idea in different forms. While explaining this, Naval referred to Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto. The idea of a checklist is a great concept and its implication on saving lives of people in the hospitals and elsewhere (The checklist used during The miracle on the Hudson incident is a chapter in his book) is undeniable. However to convert such a single concept into a book may not necessarily work out for everyone. For someone like me who is slow to grasp new ideas, this repetition works well. But for most smart people reading such books is painful, which is totally understandable, and a pointless exercise. The contempt for non-fiction partly comes from this eagerness of the authors to convert a singular idea into a three hundred page book which may not be always appealing.
LikeLike
AdhithyaKR
September 13, 2020
This article struck a chord! Beautiful
LikeLike
Madan
September 13, 2020
” The contempt for non-fiction partly comes from this eagerness of the authors to convert a singular idea into a three hundred page book which may not be always appealing.” – It is also because of over-domination of non fiction by three categories: (1) self help books (2) management books (3) celebrity tell alls which can be very hit-or-miss. GOOD non fiction as you said often comes close to fiction in terms of narrating real events like a story.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Anu Warrier
September 13, 2020
@Aman – The prose, sense of humor, the brilliant conceit of combining the Mahabharata and modern Indian history. It was an amazing read and ranks up with great works around the world, IMHO.
Ohhh… so glad to find another fan. That man’s command over the language, and his writing makes his books a great read. I don’t have to agree with everything he says (in his non-fiction books) but he knows how to lay out a logical argument and make it interesting to read.
@Madan – GOOD non fiction as you said often comes close to fiction in terms of narrating real events like a story.
Word!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Varsha Ganesh
September 13, 2020
I read somewhere that the reason most non-fiction takes a single idea ( which could have been an essay) and makes it a 300 page belabored book is to access the very lucrative market of conferences and speaking engagements. It’s become a prerequisite that they become authors to be considered an authority on that subject and hence we are subject to too many books-that-never-should-have-been.
Personally, if it’s one of those non fictions I’m not sure I wanna read but am curious to know more about, I listen to one or two interviews of the author, read a couple of reviews and am done. I’ve gotten access to the idea and the writer’s voice without the chore of having to sit through a non entertaining book.
LikeLiked by 1 person
AnuSri
September 16, 2020
Thank you Jeeva for such a lovely article. Several of the comments here echo my thoughts so much that I just could not pass this without adding my bit. Like many others here, I was lucky to grow up in a house full of books, with easy access to everything from Amar Chitra Katha, to Erle Stanley Gardner, James Hadley Chase, and Irving Wallace. And I never ever did our annual summer vacation train journey from New Delhi to Coimbatore without carrying a hold-all filled with books. I would so look forward to those 36 hours of uninterrupted reading lying on the top birth and under very poor light conditions. Did you know some of these trains (Kerala Express or GT) had a lending library in a trunk box next to the pantry car?
I have been “looked down upon” and chastised so many times for reading a James Hadley Chase in my pre-teens. The memory is so powerful that I still hesitate to admit publicly that I have read Harold Robbins. And it is not just books, this snobbery extends to music too. Listening to film music and western pop songs was always accompanied by a feeling of bunking – that was time I should have spent practicing/listening to Carnatic music.
I feel any book that manages to grab the reader’s interest from the beginning and manages to hold on to it till the end is a good book. Ultimately, books are a very personal choice. What works for me might not for you.
And the joy of discovering a great author or a book that I had not yet been aware of – priceless. I came to know of Anne Tyler by reading this blog.
@Anu Warrier. @Madan and @Eeswar, thanks for all the author/book recommendations. The Great Indian Novel has been on my TBR list for long enough. Time to move it to the top.
A fiction book that I loved recently – A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.
@Madan – GOOD non fiction as you said often comes close to fiction in terms of narrating real events like a story
Two sterling examples of this (for me at least):
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harrari and The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
LikeLiked by 2 people
Madan
September 17, 2020
“Listening to film music and western pop songs was always accompanied by a feeling of bunking – that was time I should have spent practicing/listening to Carnatic music.” – Yes, this is a nonsense shibboleth spread often by traditional/conservative parents and uncles and aunties. Funnily, my grandfather had a massive collection of Carnatic recitals covering a virtual who’s who from Ariyakudi coming to O S Arun. But he never told me I ought to listen to Carnatic as it was the ‘real music’.
I can intermittently listen to Carnatic and Hindustani but it’s not my staple. Likewise with Western classical. Ultimately, I need some fizz – whether it’s music, novels or movies.
LikeLike
Eswar
February 7, 2021
This post reminded me of this thread:
Yet as we travel deeper into the strange world of the story, the feeling we get is of being understood — which is odd when you think about it, because at school learning is based on whether or not we understand what we are reading. In fact it is the story (or the poem) that is understanding us.
Books read us back to ourselves.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2021/01/31/jeanette-winterson-reading-oranges-audible-introduction/
LikeLike