Generally, I’ve been pretty much on top of my literary taste since I turned 20.
Be it the fact that Chetan Bhagat is not fit to be mentioned as an author, or that P G Wodehouse showed the English language some feelings it never knew it had, - if I have a stand, I’m pretty much convinced about it.
In fact, I’m fanatic about very few authors. My favourites are mostly specific works. For example, I was absolutely blown away by ‘Midnight’s Children’, and ‘Veronica decides to die’, but I wouldn’t name either Rushdie or Coelho among my favourites, - as the other works by them I’ve come across, didn’t appeal to me that much. To love an author, I need to love most of his works I’ve read. And once I do, plan your final will and testament before you call him/her anything less than a genius in front of me.
There are, however, a couple of exceptions. Two authors whose works I absolutely adore. At least, most of the ones I’ve read.
Arthur Hailey and J K Rowling.
I know, you can right now think of a million reasons to argue why they can by no means be called literary greats.
But..... don’t bother. I can tell you a million and one. In fact, no part of my mind ever had any illusion that they ARE among the greatest. Yet, whenever a new Harry Potter comes out or I get hold of an unread Arthur Hailey novel, I can’t help but dive in with my mouth watering.
I’ve done some serious thinking about it lately. What makes them so special?
The characters?
The world they create?
The issues they address?
The language?
The plot?
And I must admit, all the answers were no. They may be pretty good, but nothing special in any of these aspects.
In fact, I find the characters of Arthur Hailey and the issues addressed by J K Rowling painfully suggestive, terribly cliché, and almost without any shades. Even in the areas they are good, I could think of a hundred others who are way, WAY better.
As you can understand, in order to love something I can hate so systematically, it has to appeal to something very, very basic in me.
I soon found out it did, and for the most obvious reason.
In different ways of course, but they are two of the greatest storytellers of our time.
Stories, like every story, plays a pivotal part in my story as well.
I learnt to read at quite an early age and ever since, every moment I lived has been a life, and every life, - a story. And this journey has made me realize a true storyteller does not tell us a story.... he wraps it around us.
He makes our lives butterflies, waiting in the cocoon of the caterpillar.
He makes our lives dewdrops of pearl, waiting in the mossy seashell.
Above all, he makes our lives stories....waiting for a storyteller.
I still cannot decide whether this is a post about stories....or storytellers. Maybe, its because I cannot think of one without the other.
Something that fascinates me about both, is that neither have either a beginning, or an end. In fact, the process of an author becoming a storyteller is somewhat like going off to sleep. You can never pinpoint exactly when it happened.
I shall try to explain. When I sit down with, say a Terry Prachett novel, I am very conscious of the words, the thoughts, the philosophies coming out from the printed words of a book in front of me. But, after a while, its all gone. I am running through the dingy roads of Ankh-Morpork, looking desperately for the tall lean figure of Sergeant Vimes slumped against the Dibbler’s.
But, no matter how much I try, I can never make out when the book became a story, and the words became senses.
A storyteller never wants us to be aware of his existence, at least not for long. So, of course he uses the most convenient hiding place. The story itself. I guess every story has a bit of the storyteller in it.
Can we deny that each of us knows a different Cinderella……. uncannily resembling our mother?
Of course, the simplicity of the story itself plays an integral role in this hide-and-seek. That is, the simpler the story is, the less place it offers for hiding. Perhaps, this is the reason why fairy tales are more personalized than novels.
This made me wonder, I don’t actually know a definition of story!!! Is it about the content, the language, the interpretation, or the feelings evoked? What definition can uniquely separate a story from a sonata, a painting, a sculpture, or a cinema?
Perhaps….none. There isn’t such a definition, perhaps because all these, in itself, in the very core, - are stories. In fact, I believe, anything, ANYTHING that conveys a thought process other than its face value is, potentially, a story. A story without a beginning or an end maybe, but a story nonetheless.
But even if we take this definition to be true, it still leaves a vast grey area unexplained, in the phrase “other than”. And this is the area where the storyteller hides, and in the process, changes the story a little, or rather, moulds it a little in his own shape.
That’s why stories never grow stale.
Simply because, the storytellers keep on changing. And when we don’t have anyone else to tell us stories, we tell them to ourselves, and mould it into us.
THAT perhaps explains, what I sat down to say.
How can I understand why I love stories, when I have hid the feeling itself in myself?
Be it the fact that Chetan Bhagat is not fit to be mentioned as an author, or that P G Wodehouse showed the English language some feelings it never knew it had, - if I have a stand, I’m pretty much convinced about it.
In fact, I’m fanatic about very few authors. My favourites are mostly specific works. For example, I was absolutely blown away by ‘Midnight’s Children’, and ‘Veronica decides to die’, but I wouldn’t name either Rushdie or Coelho among my favourites, - as the other works by them I’ve come across, didn’t appeal to me that much. To love an author, I need to love most of his works I’ve read. And once I do, plan your final will and testament before you call him/her anything less than a genius in front of me.
There are, however, a couple of exceptions. Two authors whose works I absolutely adore. At least, most of the ones I’ve read.
Arthur Hailey and J K Rowling.
I know, you can right now think of a million reasons to argue why they can by no means be called literary greats.
But..... don’t bother. I can tell you a million and one. In fact, no part of my mind ever had any illusion that they ARE among the greatest. Yet, whenever a new Harry Potter comes out or I get hold of an unread Arthur Hailey novel, I can’t help but dive in with my mouth watering.
I’ve done some serious thinking about it lately. What makes them so special?
The characters?
The world they create?
The issues they address?
The language?
The plot?
And I must admit, all the answers were no. They may be pretty good, but nothing special in any of these aspects.
In fact, I find the characters of Arthur Hailey and the issues addressed by J K Rowling painfully suggestive, terribly cliché, and almost without any shades. Even in the areas they are good, I could think of a hundred others who are way, WAY better.
As you can understand, in order to love something I can hate so systematically, it has to appeal to something very, very basic in me.
I soon found out it did, and for the most obvious reason.
In different ways of course, but they are two of the greatest storytellers of our time.
Stories, like every story, plays a pivotal part in my story as well.
I learnt to read at quite an early age and ever since, every moment I lived has been a life, and every life, - a story. And this journey has made me realize a true storyteller does not tell us a story.... he wraps it around us.
He makes our lives butterflies, waiting in the cocoon of the caterpillar.
He makes our lives dewdrops of pearl, waiting in the mossy seashell.
Above all, he makes our lives stories....waiting for a storyteller.
I still cannot decide whether this is a post about stories....or storytellers. Maybe, its because I cannot think of one without the other.
Something that fascinates me about both, is that neither have either a beginning, or an end. In fact, the process of an author becoming a storyteller is somewhat like going off to sleep. You can never pinpoint exactly when it happened.
I shall try to explain. When I sit down with, say a Terry Prachett novel, I am very conscious of the words, the thoughts, the philosophies coming out from the printed words of a book in front of me. But, after a while, its all gone. I am running through the dingy roads of Ankh-Morpork, looking desperately for the tall lean figure of Sergeant Vimes slumped against the Dibbler’s.
But, no matter how much I try, I can never make out when the book became a story, and the words became senses.
A storyteller never wants us to be aware of his existence, at least not for long. So, of course he uses the most convenient hiding place. The story itself. I guess every story has a bit of the storyteller in it.
Can we deny that each of us knows a different Cinderella……. uncannily resembling our mother?
Of course, the simplicity of the story itself plays an integral role in this hide-and-seek. That is, the simpler the story is, the less place it offers for hiding. Perhaps, this is the reason why fairy tales are more personalized than novels.
This made me wonder, I don’t actually know a definition of story!!! Is it about the content, the language, the interpretation, or the feelings evoked? What definition can uniquely separate a story from a sonata, a painting, a sculpture, or a cinema?
Perhaps….none. There isn’t such a definition, perhaps because all these, in itself, in the very core, - are stories. In fact, I believe, anything, ANYTHING that conveys a thought process other than its face value is, potentially, a story. A story without a beginning or an end maybe, but a story nonetheless.
But even if we take this definition to be true, it still leaves a vast grey area unexplained, in the phrase “other than”. And this is the area where the storyteller hides, and in the process, changes the story a little, or rather, moulds it a little in his own shape.
That’s why stories never grow stale.
Simply because, the storytellers keep on changing. And when we don’t have anyone else to tell us stories, we tell them to ourselves, and mould it into us.
THAT perhaps explains, what I sat down to say.
How can I understand why I love stories, when I have hid the feeling itself in myself?
1 comment:
I would buy your 'story' argument behind success of such authors like Rowling...perhaps that's why most of Shankar's books are still the among the bestsellers in bangla bazaar. The blog is well-written as always, but I somehow heard a confused note, maybe because it is really difficult to define a 'story'...and speaking of fairy tales, just to share, these days I have started reading between the lines, and finding them in new lights...overall, your blogs never fails to invoke a thought process AND I like the style. Keep it up...:)
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