Item 1: Chetan Bhagat often gets letters from readers who don’t understand what a novel is – for example, the person who sorrowfully reprimanded him for revealing the name of a girl who engages in pre-marital sex in Five Point Someone: “You’ve ruined Neha’s life; her family and others will guess who she is; who will marry her now?” (More in this post)
Item 2: Aarushi Talwar’s father tells a policeman that his murdered daughter had been reading Bhagat’s The 3 Mistakes of My Life. The cop responds: “Hah, you’re saying she was reading this book because she has made three mistakes in her life? What were the three mistakes?” (As reported by Patrick French in India: A Portrait; also excerpted here.) A case of a policeman clumsily bullying a suspect? Probably, but also possible that the man had little understanding of a book as a work of fiction unconnected to the circumstances (or mental state) of the person reading it.
Item 3: Orhan Pamuk discussing certain types of literal-minded readers in his new book The Naïve and the Sentimental Novelist: "Completely naïve readers always read a text as an autobiography or as a sort of disguised chronicle of lived experience, no matter how many times you warn them that they are reading a novel."
But at the other extreme, Pamuk tells us, are "completely sentimental-reflective readers, who think that all texts are constructs and fictions anyway, no matter how many times you warn them that they are reading your most candid autobiography. I must warn you to keep away from [both types of] people, because they are immune to the joys of reading novels."
Item 1 - It is a good intentioned Reaction than sensitive response by the reader. Writer has unknowingly has challenged Taboo of sex before marriage of an Indian mindset.
ReplyDeleteItem 2: The moral guardians played by the cops are always based on his/her experience with the dark side of the life. A cop without any understanding of social sciences faces more darker matters of society than any person . He has only knowledge of ethics deeply embedded into religion. When the society fails to give even basic training to its power holders about violence and human rights, these circumstances will be made again and again in the future investigations.
Item 3: Orhan Pamuk warns of human tendency of going to extreme in judging any matter. But, no one knows middle of the road path....
Quite Nice read sir.Looking for more apt reading material like this.
Item 2 is scary. And the cops behave so even when they might not have read the novel just judging a book by its title. Was it an off hand remark by the policeman or part of the legal proceedings?
ReplyDeleteAnd the cops behave so even when they might not have read the novel just judging a book by its title.
ReplyDeletethequark: I'd think such a remark would have to be made by someone who hadn't read the novel. Though of course, even many of us who think of ourselves as experienced and sensitive readers frequently judge a book by its title.
A cop without any understanding of social sciences faces more darker matters of society than any person ... When the society fails to give even basic training to its power holders about violence and human rights, these circumstances will be made again and again
Yayaver: true. thanks for the comment.
Chetan Bhagat often gets letters from readers who don’t understand what a novel is
ReplyDeleteWhy only novels? Do people "understand" what a film is I wonder? I am told that in the 70s people would tear of/deface Pran's face on movie posters. And, of course, one only needs to look at the Tamil film industry to understand why we use the term 'hero' for 'male lead'.
What is really interesting is how a book called Imagined Communities argues that the very concept of the novel (and newspaper) was one of the moving forces behind the rise of the nation state. Considering so many Indians don't get the concept of novels/films, maybe that's one reason why India--with one sixths of the world's pop.--is such a unique (at least from the classical European POV) state.
Item 3 is slightly unfair, no? How is it that the so called 'naivete' of most readers is so readily obvious when there is a far greater percentage of writers passing off barely manipulated versions of their own lives as (often "groundbreaking") first novels? One may be referring to those 'pretty girls who go to university in the US and write about their mums and dads' per H. Kureishi. Chuckle.
ReplyDelete