Yesterday Myself and my brother in law and me had a discussion on - What is real literature? He is a voracious reader. ardent fan of PS has read it minimum 7-8 times. His voracious reading has taken him into the blog world where he bumped upon such topics. In those forums they have certain thumb rules I guess
1. Literature should not be SWARASYAM (Can I replace it with the word "Interesting" / "Entertainer") 2. It should be YEDHARTHAM 3. YEDHARTHAM is always (Most of the time) painful 4. SWARASYAM & YEDHARTHAM dont go hand in hand
We concluded our discussion when we started surfing the TV channels - Chandramukhi was being telecast in one of the channel. he says - Manichitra Thaazh is Yedartham and Chandramukhi is Swarasyam. Manichitra Thazh is classic / Chandramukhi is Entertainer. In their opinion who ever writes in "Vegu Jana Pathrikkai" is not an "ilakkiyavaadhi" and things that are published in such magazines are not literature. So in that lines Kalki is not an ilakkiyavadhi. Ponniyin Selvan is not a literature. Did we have discussions in this line before?
literature especially fiction is broadly divided as you say. a man who wants to tell a story to the best of his ability. kalki is one. a man who expresses feelings and situations in great amount of detail and writing skill. there are so many contemprory writers.
simply like your page three stories in hindu and the editorial.
"life of pi" a booker winning book has some 200 pages with one man and 3 animals on the boat in mid sea. imagine the skill of the author who describes the scene without any real development in the story.
rushdie's books too explain a broad design visible only when you complete the book. i think most of us who are kalki lovers will come under the category of readers who want a story. venketesh
Nice topic. i guess its more to do with individual's preferences, and they keep changing as well.
on that subject, not sure how many have watched this yourtube video earlier. its nature at its very best - every minute is thrilling, and am sure all of us will see a moral in this
Thank you Vijay, yes it is nature at its very best and amazing footage.
Regarding the literature part, as Venkat said Kalki is enjoyed by heard from my teachers - lack of contrivance/coicidences forms a big part of classifying any work as great literature. Kalki liberally used those and hence his work is sometimes disqualified. It is difficult to agree with everything technically labelled that way though - Akilan for example had very flat characters with no humor or romance and yet he won Sahitya Akademi Award.
So it is a combination of taste plus some critical factors also.
In Simple terms, cant we say, a literature is something, which makes sense irrespective of the time period? Or rather which lasts in the memories of people even 100 years or 1000 years after it is written. Our sanga padalgal, tirukural, avvayar padalgal, kamba ramayanam, or the recent times Bharathiyar, bharathidasan et al...we read and re-read irrespective of the time period they were written. In that context, I think PS can be classified as a literature.
swarasyam - yathartham....may be true superficially, but what moral we learn from them, what is the goal....yathartham can just picturise the emotions of an individual, but what it tells the reader? SPS rightly pointed out about the goals, and the purpose of literature.
Anything which talks about something in a micro level will never last long. It can be a good read for a few years, but am not sure whether it will affect the people after a few generations.
Somethings are even referred as classics and I remember reading somewhere a definition of classic as 'something which everyone talks high about, but no one reads'. Probably yathartham falls in this category :)
> > In Simple terms, cant we say, a literature is something, which makes > sense irrespective of the time period? Or rather which lasts in the > memories of people even 100 years or 1000 years after it is written.
if we talk about good and bad arent we going into the quality. sometime back we had a list of novels published in tamil. ran into 1000's . but most are out of print and not available to the public. isnt it injustice to the writer, publisher and upto the proof reader for them to be left out. i think literature is anything at all that people write for other people to read( of course we should exclude letters and wills) however i remain sympathetic to the cause of loveletters which must be included in literature. i wonder if people even write love letters these days??? venketesh
> Our sanga padalgal, tirukural, avvayar padalgal, kamba ramayanam, or > the recent times Bharathiyar, bharathidasan et al...we read and > re-read irrespective of the time period they were written. In that > context, I think PS can be classified as a literature. > > swarasyam - yathartham....may be true superficially, but what moral we > learn from them, what is the goal....yathartham can just picturise the > emotions of an individual, but what it tells the reader? SPS rightly > pointed out about the goals, and the purpose of literature. > > Anything which talks about something in a micro level will never last > long. It can be a good read for a few years, but am not sure whether > it will affect the people after a few generations. > > Somethings are even referred as classics and I remember reading > somewhere a definition of classic as 'something which everyone talks > high about, but no one reads'. Probably yathartham falls in this > category :) > > Regards, > Satish >
Thanks for the link Vijay, amazing video and lot of lessons to learn from.
"Ondru pattaal undu vazhvu" "Stick to your parents like glue" "leadership skills"
Who is the less fortunate? Crocodile or lions!!. Who is the most fortunate? person who video tapped it or the calf. What will happen to the life cycle if the preys start attacking and carnivores go hungry. I was happy to see the calf escape, but also felt for the lion that he did not get to eat ( "Kaikku etinaadhu vaikku ettavillai").
Am I getting it wrong? Is there any thing which we call literature is of bad quality? Only good quality work will surface over time. Junk will be discarded in the natural process. So if a literature survives, surely it will be of good quality. If whatever is written, except letters and wills are literature, what do you thing - will all the novels published in 'Pocket Novel','Crime Novel' etc will be treated equal with PS? both are literature as per your definition, right? Which will survive the test of time?
Anything should have a goal, purpose and should address this irrespective of the time period. It can either be swarasyam (PS) or yathartham (alai oosai) but should be for a specific purpose. If i read something today and is not relevant, whats use of reading?
I feel nature (or should I say time) always handle things in a balanced way. As we got only the cream of Thevaram and the rest were destroyed by nature, only the cream will survive and rest will perish. May be in a short time, it can termed injustice to the author, but after 1000 years??
> Somethings are even referred as classics and I remember reading > somewhere a definition of classic as 'something which everyone talks > high about, but no one reads'.
Dear SPs, very well put..I would rather say Puranaanuru or Sanga Illakkiyam instead of Shakespeare or Paradise lost though just for a comparison.
I believe it is positive and very important to develop a likeness and taste for both - the classical as well as the mundane. The problem we have most people think they can only appreciate one of the two, and mostly do not want to make any effort for appreciating something more difficult or challenging. It is easy to read PS than it is to read Sanga Illaiyam of course but we would lose glorious literature if nobody like our Vairam made the effort to read it, is it not?
On the same lines am reading Arvind Adiga's White Tiger, the most recent Pulitzer winning novel, am only a few pages into it. The library here in US had a book discussion which I was a spectator of, for this novel. One gentleman there asked a question to me - why are you Indians so keen on selling your poverty/other weaknesses to the rest of the world, we in America have lots of problems too, nobody writes books and wins prizes for them. Interesting point, isn't it not? (Adiga's argument was that his book raises awareness, also not to be dismissed).
> > Am I getting it wrong? Is there any thing which we call literature is > of bad quality? Only good quality work will surface over time. Junk > will be discarded in the natural process. So if a literature survives, > surely it will be of good quality.
literature can be suppressed as it is usually done for other reasons. just imagine the 1000s of book that must have been written and never published in soviet russia, or today's china or north korea. imagine the struggle solsenztien went thro to get his book see the light of the day. how many could have done it? does it term them bad DR ZHIVAGO nobel laureate boris Pasternak wrote his autobiographical hero Zhivago, derived from the Russian word for live in 1953-54 As the book was frowned upon by the Soviet authorities, Doctor Zhivago was smuggled abroad by his friend Isaiah Berlin and published in an Italian translation by the Italian publishing house Feltrinelli in 1957. The novel became an instant sensation, and was subsequently translated and published in many non-Soviet bloc countries. In 1958 and 1959, the American edition spent 26 weeks at the top of The New York Times' bestseller list. Although none of his Soviet critics had the chance to read the proscribed novel, some of them publicly demanded, "kick the pig out of our kitchen-garden," i.e., expel Pasternak from the USSR. This led to a jocular Russian saying used to poke fun at illiterate criticism, "I did not read Pasternak, but I condemn him". Doctor Zhivago was eventually published in the USSR in 1988.
on the other hand back home Godse's speech during his court testifying was published after a court order 30 40 years after it was delivered. forget the author, the content reflects a viewpoint doesnt it?
venketesh
If whatever is written, except > letters and wills are literature, what do you thing - will all the > novels published in 'Pocket Novel','Crime Novel' etc will be treated > equal with PS? both are literature as per your definition, right? > Which will survive the test of time? > > Anything should have a goal, purpose and should address this > irrespective of the time period. It can either be swarasyam (PS) or > yathartham (alai oosai) but should be for a specific purpose. If i > read something today and is not relevant, whats use of reading? > > I feel nature (or should I say time) always handle things in a > balanced way. As we got only the cream of Thevaram and the rest were > destroyed by nature, only the cream will survive and rest will > perish. May be in a short time, it can termed injustice to the author, > but after 1000 years?? > > Regards, > Satish >
I think any writing that gives enjoyment to the intellect (Budhi) rather than to the 'mind' would fall within 'Literature'. Some novels are not so easy to read because you have to 'think' while you are reading. Most popular novels are easy to read. As with many things, the distinction is relative. The more intellectual entertainment and enjoyment a piece of writing gives, the more chance that it will be categorized as 'literature'.
Similar distinction can be made between cassical music and popular music, cassical dance and popular dance,subtle humour and vulgar humour,etc.
Literature is an expression of a deeply felt feeling. An expression of a beautiful mind. When we savor it - our mind embeds it into the dimension of another mind. That is why we all had so many interpretations of Dasavatharam movie. What more is literature that Nature cannot offer? Literature in my humble opinion, is not confined to education from others, what we observe from our mind is the greatest literature one can read.