Fusspot!?!

 Well, despite being a trueblue "literary classics" disciple, I am not exactly averse to reading 'pop lit' or 'pulp lit' as it is known. In other words, I may not exactly enjoy an "M-n-B" or a Barbara Cartland  or a Harold Robbins. I may not repeat a Danielle Steele either. I am not allergic though to occasionally reading a Stephen King or a Robin Cook or a Jeffrey Archer, for instance. 

It gives me an adrenaline high to find out how J. K. Rowling is a petered down version of the great Charles Dickens or how Paulo Coelho writes  "how to" versions of easy spirituality. In brief, despite being a hardcore Lit. Crit enthusiast, I unashamedly own up liking a Chetan Bhagat. 

It is in this context that I found this particular scurrilous attack on Dan Brown a little funny. His novel "Da Vinci Code" is quite some read in my opinion. There was this article blasting the book and the author. One of the objections was his loose hold over the  sentence structure in English. 

Indeed, it is important to write well, to construct ideal sentences. The current insistence on the primacy of communication alone, the constant objections to prioritising the standard language, et al, are partially relevant, but partly problematic as well. Indeed, the 'everything goes' , the 'juggad' tendency is not exactly my cup of tea to use a mixed metaphor.

And yet I found the attack on Dan Brown quite a puzzle. Both his content and his style were lambasted in that article. That set me thinking. Where does purism end, and where does pedantic nitpicking start? Is an insistence on stylistic perfection a kind of literary ocd/obsessive compulsive disorder? Is it being scrupulous or is it being a literary dictator with megalomania, and, perhaps, envy cloaked as disgust? 

Actually, populism can be located in every ideology, too. The Left, for instance, has its own populist modes, too. Given such realities, is it right to be a snooty 'nose in the air' quibbler? Or is it better to understand and learn from the skills of the oh-sooh-low pop lit? Even if one loves Eisenstein or de Sica, what is wrong in appreciating a Bhansali despite all the facile faux-pas therein?

 I believe in self-reflexivity, and in locating my lacunae rather than looking at the moat in the eyes or "I's" of others. I hence find pathetic the punditry of narcissists who glibly dismiss the democratically  elected governments or authors much loved by millions!

Pratima@ I believe that it is better to have a head high in the stars, but the feet better be solidly planted on terra firma!