The new Chetan Bhagat, and thoughts on 'entertainment'

(A tense moment as the jabberwock contemplates this big announcement he is about to make - an announcement that might easily drive half his readers away for good.)

Oh what the heck, it’s not like this is a paid site. So here goes: I thought Chetan Bhagat’s new book was pretty good. There, I’ve said it. I have nothing to fear anymore.

No, I won’t go on about how it isn’t great literature etc, because that should be evident to anyone (even though it’s rarely evident what "great literature" is exactly). It’s something the author himself makes a point of saying in his every interview (to the extent that he’s almost too defensive now about the fact that his work doesn’t have any literary pretensions - even his narrators say things like "if you’re expecting something posh and highbrow, you won’t get that here").

I won’t talk about the book’s plot either - in the unlikely event that you don’t already know about it, read about it here. In any case, if there’s one book that doesn’t need any more publicity, it’s this one - it’s going to sell hundreds of thousands of copies regardless of what any critic or blogger says about it (that’s largely thanks to Rupa’s smart, and brave, marketing strategy of pricing it at Rs 95, something that worked phenomenally well for Five Point Someone). It’ll far, far outsell many vastly better-written books, and so maybe I should feel guilty about writing a post about it.

But there are a couple of points I want to make about Bhagat’s writing:

- I think CB is a good storyteller, more gifted in that respect than many people who are, technically speaking, "better writers". And this can be as vital to good writing as erudition or command over the language. Though his writing is conversation- rather than description-oriented, he has a definite gift for characterisation; his little observations about people and relationships are the mark of a perceptive mind.

- Importantly, I think one night at the call centre is a slight improvement on its predecessor, and that’s always a good sign. The writing is tighter on the whole and the funny, seemingless effortless one-liners (which Bhagat has a knack for) work better here. Also, it required more research than the first book, for which Bhagat had drawn on his own experiences at IIT in the mid-1990s.

(Note: the "God" section of the book didn’t work for me - it wasn’t as syrupy as it might have been but it was still too preachy for my liking. Nor was I too sold on the parts about "saving the call centre by working on American fear".)

Many authors use the "I’m not literary" defence - it’s often a way of shirking responsibility, of keeping people’s expectations of you as low as possible so they won’t be disappointed. But very few of those authors are as readable as CB is, and in the final analysis readability does count. This is the second book of his that I finished in a single sitting despite being pressed for time. That’s not something I usually experience with pulp/non-literary fiction, regardless of the authors’ claims that their aim is to provide a fast, easy read.

P.S. Indirectly related to this post. When I met Bhagat yesterday, he went through the "I write to entertain" routine as well. While I understand why people feel the need to make the "serious v entertainment" distinction, I don’t relate to that kind of talk. It’s very annoying, for instance, if you’re discussing Bergman or Godard with a friend and someone pipes up with a, "Oh, I only watch movies for entertainment." That’s insulting – it’s based on a pre-judgement of what "entertainment" must be, and an assumption that some of us are forcing ourselves to watch "boring" films for some lofty purpose only we know about. But my foremost criterion for judging any film/book is that it should provide me enjoyment. For instance, my ever-shifting list of 20 favourite films usually includes both Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and George Lucas’s Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back, and both films entertain me.

The most concession I can make is that different films/books entertain us in different ways: that on some occasions more than others the fun quotient is increased by the knowledge that you’re being intellectually stimulated as well. But that’s about it. I’d feel very sorry for someone who forced themselves to plough through a book they didn’t like just because they thought it would improve their mind. For heaven’s sake, we’ve all been through enough of that forced crap in our school and college days.

(Conversely, I don’t think there’s a law on earth that says you have to be entertained by an Adam Sandler or David Dhawan film. I’ve been bored stiff on many occasions.)