Literature lost
Readers are lapping up racy literature
“…my heart is pounding, my blood singing as it courses through my body, desire pooling, unfurling ... everywhere.”
Reads one of the lines from first in the series of erotic trilogy, 50 Shades of Grey. So when E.L. James, real name Enrika Leonard, is being criticised for being unable to club two sentences together the book has already sold more than 10 million copies and continues to top the bestseller’s list.
50 Shades of Grey is not the first heavily sold book to come under criticism for lack of literary flair. We have been seeing this trend with most of us reading this so called literature for a while now. Strange — sometimes bizarre — long snappy titles with lots of dots and unnecessary exclamation marks stare at you in the face whenever you visit a book store. I Never Thought I could Fall In Love, Of Course I Love You..! till I find someone better, Love Life and Dream On, You Were My Crush!... till you said you love me! etc. are usually about 200 page quick reads with superficial plots, common problems — all mournfully lacking in depth and full of grammatical and spelling errors.
But there is no denying that there are takers for these books as well. Quite a few takers actually! And the proof is about a 200 per cent increase in the sales of the books in the Metro Reads section that was launched by Penguin Publications to tap this readership. “In 2011, it was a 100 per cent increase compared to 2010. Kolkata, of course, tops the chart in sales,” says Rahul Dixit, product manager, Penguin Publications India.
Mostly dealing with college and hostel life, hook-ups, break-ups and marriages the trend of hip writing first experimented by Chetan Bhagat is picking up. Such is the confidence he fills his readers with that many of them have already turned into writers. In 2010, Metro Reads published seven authors and this year 15 are already in line.
Seeing the popularity of these books, freelance writer and critic, Jai Arjun Singh says that most of these authors are looking for short-lived fame. “Most of these young writer are not even good readers to begin with. Instead of gaining good writing skills they are looking for quick fame with short stories and Facebook pages,” he adds.
Any writing that doesn’t pay attention to the language cannot be considered a piece of literature, agrees well-known writer and academic Amit Chaudhari. “Though I have not read any of these books I believe language skills are the most basic part of writing,” he says.
While Leo Tolstoy, after years of research, took six years to write the epic War and Peace, 25-year-old writer Kamini Patel says one year was all she needed to pen her first book, The Morning After. And she has no qualms about accepting that her characters lack depth. “I just wanted to write something that people could relate to,” says Kamini. She thinks that real talent is to be able to write as many books as possible and aims to write nothing less than 30! She insists that as long as there are readers there will be such books even if they lack literary depth.
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