New Age Writers - A Boon or Bane?

Unorthodox, Witty, Candid - seems to be the qualities of new age writer’s.

One such person who enjoys lime light these days is Chetan Bhagat. Anyone in 20’s or 30’s has got full of accolade for him. Anyone who is known to read perfect literature English has got all the cursing for him.

The changing face of Indian writers, they write about next-door boy rather than a fiction that starts in Newyork & ends in London.

On the other hand biggies are accusing him of spoiling English literature by not following the nuances of it.

Are these so called literature lovers over reacting? Or the young people getting carried away too much? Writers like Chetan are boon or bane to literature?

BTW… Did any one of you read his latest fiction “ The 3 mistakes of my life”? I’m yet to.

Cheers
M;~}

Books are to entertain or to convey some information or to preach philosophy. As long as they do, I don't see any problem. I am yet to read any of Chetan Bhagat's book, however we had very few authors with international acclaim and so I would say it's boon for India as a country.

Chetan Bhagat has done to English language what Rockstars have done to music. A purist, no doubt will frown upon his style;but there is no denying there is this quaint charm about his way of writing.He certainly represents that style of writing which has come to stay, at least, in Indian English.To quote his own phrase -"writes decent books".
Whether he would become the avant garde writer and contribute (again to use his expression)"majorly"to contemporary literature would depend largely on how popular he is as a writer.Will he have a large readership and a lasting presence in the literary circles to exert an influence at all? I doubt it.
To me he comes across as a story teller of limited capabilities;his themes are not engaging enough. In his Five-point someone, the plot was good and the characters touched you somewhere. But in the Call-centre and in the Three mistakes the plot is hardly interesting and the narration is not crisp to savour it for long. He makes us believe that these are true stories - as related to him by a living person (one of his character in the book)!While this helps the author to use first person in narration, it leaves us wondering whether it is fact or fiction!! Either way it is boring. Mercifully all his books are short...
Unless he improves as a story-teller,his readership base will shrink.After all who has the time to read books and especially the ones that are not appealing ?!
So, in this stage I don't see him emerge as an iconic writer threatening to corrode or nurturing a trend --as yet only a flash and not a torch !
As far as reading his 3 Mistakes goes:if you are as jobless as me then it could be picked up;otherwise you aren't missing much if you skip the same.
Heres hoping CB wouldn't set eyes on this.

Talking of new age Indian authors, it all started with good old Salman Rushdie and his "Midnights Children" which in volume alone would be more than all the three Chetan Bhagat's books put together. Once this book was internationally acclaimed, everyone started looking at Indian authors and we had Vikram Seth, Arundathi Roy and others.

Personally I feel that Indian authors especially, Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth are a complete bore. I read Midnight's Children and gave up halfway through "A Suitable Boy" - neither book interested me. My idea of a good book is surely not reading 700 + pages of innumerous characters and an uninteresting plot with a lot of sub-plots thrown in. Don't think that I am against Indian authors or that I like only "phoreign" authors. I do like regional authors and my all time favourite is Sujatha, Balakumaran and Saandilyan. And also, it is not that I don't like reading BIG books because I really enjoyed Saandilyan's "Kadal Pura" which consists of 3 parts and should be around 1000 pages. But neither Salman Rushdie nor Vikram Seth interest me. When compared to them, I think Arundhathi Roy and Chetan Bhagat are far better. If nothing else, atleast their books are short and Arundathi Roy has stopped with just one book. I have read CB's "Five Point Someone" and it was good - not great or excellent but surely good. But after that his standards had come down in "One Night at the Call Centre" and I have not yet read "The Three Mistakes of My Life" and hence can't comment upon that. But after reading Prabha's comments, I think it would be better if I skip it.

So, I feel that if Salman Rushdie could inspire so much of Indian authors in his wake and if international publishers are ready to publish the books of Indian authors, it is really good for Indian literature. Hence, let's welcome them. Whether you like it or not, they surely are a great inspiration to aspiring novelists.