Ponniyin Selvan Varalaatru Peravai

Dr sridhar Rathnam,

When does a work is called a literature and as a junk?What judges it?
What is the parameter?Is it people's acceptance or pundits
acceptance?

Its the pundits acceptance.Its the literary critics who accept a
work as a masterpiece.Only when we get their stamp of approval we
can call anything as masterpiece.This is the way literature is
created.This is how junk is seperated from quality stuff.

When a book is published it is torn apart into pieces by the
literature critics.They discuss it page by page.Some critic calls it
as junk,some calls it great,some call it average...the debate goes
on and finally a consensus emerges.The work is popular or not doesnt
matter.The aesthetics,the grammar,style and the utility(valued less
nowadays) is given paramount importance.

Its critics who judge master pieces.Interestingly the work's
contribution to society is given very less importance.Have we heard
of "slavery in England in 19th century?"-It was an important social
work.It was widely recieved by public and created a social awareness
among public.But critics rated it poorly after a heated debate.Now
nobody knows about it.They rated uncle tom's cabin by charles
dickens which highlighted the same problem very high.Not becasue of
its utility to the society,but only because of its aesthetics.The
message of the novel was called as a "skeleton".Useless
stuff.Dickens was rated high since he decorated and hid the skeleton.

Only critics decide literature.Not public.Never.The works that are
torn apart by critics and emerge as consensus candidate are accepted
as masterpieces.Thats the world norm.That was the norm of the sangam
age tamils.Tamil sangams accepted and hailed thirukural.They tore
apart kamba ramayanam but accepted it in the end.

By applying such criticism's I said our work is junk.In fact we dont
have many such critics in our state.Subbudu is there for bharatha
natyam.Ananda vikatan is there for movies.For books and novels
mainline magazines do a bit.But we dont have full fledged literary
critics.Dinamani criticizes books to an extent.But we dont have
heated arguments and debates on it.

Popular appeal is never taken into consideration dr.Im sorry.The
public verdict is viewed with disdain by critics.I have seen some of
the criticisms about Dickens novels.He is literally torn apart and
hung like a slaughtered goat by critics.But in end they accept him
as a great author.That criticisms make a work great.That culture
died in tamilnadu after Malik gaffor's invasion.

All the movies you mentioned were hit.You might listen to them
before you sleep.But were they accepted by critics?Were they
screened in film festivals and debated?Thats recognition of quality
stuff doctor.Mass appeal and public verdict might look glamorous.But
that wont make your work great.Never.Subbudu's approval make you a
great dancer.Not the tv ratings your programs fetch,not the public
acceptance you get.critics give you immortality.Public give you
money and temporary fame.

I dont buy the argument of sheldon being a pornist.He uses porn as a
part of life in his book.He uses porn since his characters did
that.If they murder he writes murder.Its not my view.Sheldon and
forsyth have been rated as "THE BEST" by critics.So they are THE
BEST.

All your ratings of forsyth were similiar to the critics opinion
too.But you left out an important work of forsyth."day of the
jackal".It is his best ever book.

Money to our authors is not a consideration doctor.Let them rite
junk too.Kalki too was writing for ananda vikatan every week.He too
had to produce lots of short stories to run his profession.But he
spent some time for himself and created masterpieces like PS and
SS.Where is such a master piece for other novelists?Even Kalki
produced ordinary stuff like "poi man karadu".But he had time to
create PS.You create some qulaity stuff occasionally to prove that
you arent ordinary.And do ordinary stuff in the mean time.Else you
are ordinary.

I called bharathiraja soft pornist since he isnt a hard pornist like
surya(new) or selvaragavan.His alaigal oivathillai,tik tik tik, was
porn work.I dont object porn since its porn.That too is an art
form.But he did not know to portray porn.His porn was abasam.Nabakov
portrayed porn in his novel Lolita.That book was even banned for
some time.But as long as sun and moon exists lolita will live.Such
was the quality of that novel.Crtics hail it as the masterpiece of
nabakov and accepted him as an intellectual only because of Humbert
Humprey in Lolita.The aesthetics of that book won it that
acclaims.Such critics will dump bharathiraaja's porn in waste paper
basket.Its like difference between saroja devi stuff and kamathu pal
of valluvar.

public never give immortality to a work doctor.They give
money.Immortality is given by critics.Thats the norm of literature.