Thriller Fiction and Literature

Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/200919/

Date: 21-May-2024

 

Dear J,

To what extent is the premise of 'Padukalam' realistic? You write this as a thriller. Generally, thrillers take place in a context we hardly know - like Underworld, Police etc. When it is set in a known context, question arises over its credibility. I am asking this because I too hail from Tirunelveli.

Krishnamurthy

 

Dear Krishnamurthy,

In Tamil milieu, those who have written something are usually the ones that are required to explain it.

I have been keenly watching the fiction space from world over; not sure whether anyone else has that interest. Most of them have formed an opinion through the residual information available here and there. It can also be said that most of them are deprived of a lifestyle amenable for constant reading.

Even in Europe, reading literature is drifting away from being a social event. It is the self help books which reign both in readership and sales. Literature is reduced to a narrow space akin to listening to opera or symphony. Here, readership for literature was already quite poor, even general reading isn't up to the mark.

Today, upcoming generations ought to be coming into literature readership. Today's middle aged readers of literature possess past mindsets and thought processes. Their readership is leading to stagnation of literature. Literature cannot progress till the time their supremacy reigns. Like everywhere else, old must be purged even in literature, especially the stagnant old readers.

Two concepts are getting stale nowadays. One, the plain societal reality and individual's recordings of thoughts presented in the guise of 'pure literature'. Realism was advocated in abundance by political movements and sociologists. It contains their subject matter and they could understand only that.

Even the best among the realistic creations are merely categorized as 'honest portrayal'. Today's magazines and videos have started providing a more intricate and detailed direct recordings. Several crores of people the world over have started writing about the intimate worlds. This is similar to the demotion of live recording in painting, once photography started getting adapted. Today, except very rare realistic recordings and individual's recordings, others do not have a significant place in literature.

Secondly, the knotted writing** called as fiction play, that were popular from eighties aren't being read today. Post eighties, when the various co-scientific domains (anthropology, sociology, linguistics etc) developed and used literature as their medium, people started focusing on such writings. The significance accorded by educational universities increased their literary importance. It is but a reading of those who instead of viewing literature as an aesthetic or an esoteric experience were approaching it as a subject matter to be classified and examined.

Still, the books that were noticed purely due to the interest shown by the educational institutions, are not being read today. Even within educational institutions, they are being downgraded. Nobody outside of these institutions has the mindset for reading them. The analytical method employed by the institutions for literature then are now being utilized by the popular news medium.

Today's challenge is to 'make people read'. In fact, today world over, it has come to a stage where every kind of writing is deemed essential. During the previous generation of small-scale magazines, we opposed commercial-entertainment writings. I was taking such a stand. Since, commercial-entertainers were considered the only literature then, it was necessary to advocate for the real literature. Today's view is different. Reading is like a forest. Every tree and plant within it contributes its share to the forest's habitat. There is no weed in forest. I have been advocating for the past two decades that the commercial entertainment writing that establishes reading as a movement ought to proliferate.

More than that, even as part of literature, fictions that make for compelling read ought to be created. Not every part of literature need to be like that and isn't possible as well. In a novel like "Kadhanayagi", a sharp reader can grasp its layered structure only by expending effort for reading. Its historical thread is its core concept. A reader can appreciate it and its ambience only if he is able to grasp history right from Roman to British times. But one part of literature must have the quality of intensely alluring its readers and providing the reading by itself. I have been advocating for that and its my nature to exemplify in writing what I advocate. "Kanni Nilam", "Pathu Latcham Kaaladigal", "Aalam", "Padukalam" are such novels. 

Even in pure literature, for the allure of reading, all possible genres like thriller, mystery, horror etc ought to be utilized. Such literature are being developed nowadays world over. Each such genre has evolved its own grammar. Such writings then take up that structure and explore on the possibilities of literature within that format. "Aalam", "Padukalam" are examples of such writings. Their structure belongs to thriller. But deep down they contain a portrayal of life, description of emotions and a foundational quest related to human life. Those are literary aspects.

These cannot be compared and evaluated against the usual fictions of thriller and horror. An usual commercial thriller wouldn't contain a realistic portrayal of life, intricate feelings nor a perspective on life. It would just keep connecting the events one to another. After completion, it would end there. Detective stories are merely playing a game of intelligence with its readers. When the novel ends, the game gets completed. All world-famous fictions in that genre are of such kind.

But literature tries to deliver a literary experience within this construct. These are then breaches as per the grammars of fictions of thrillers or mystery. Readers used to such fictions would feel that those sections are unnecessary diversions. The portions portraying Santhanam's love for his child in "Aalam" novel and the portions covering the conversation between the protagonist and his mother in "Padukalam" novel are examples. These cannot be seen in America's popular thriller fictions. Those fictions would contain quite a compact organization with expert editors downsizing those portions and providing a very brief gist on the events. But "Aalam", "Padukalam" happen to be literature purely due to these breaches. The realism, intricate emotions and the life-view in them converses with the readers on a different space.

The 'blunt & direct realism' inherent in the realistic novel cannot happen in these types of writings. Thriller or horror is a sort of breach on realism, because life isn't something that happens associated with a singular emotion. Life has several emotional spaces, we live in all of them simultaneously. Life has many sides, all connected together. This kind of novels aggregate their predominant emotion and present them as realism. Horrors would contain only horror events. Thriller fictions would have related events threaded together and only a few characters would dominate advancing the story. This can be termed 'clipped realism'.

The quality of these writings are solution and brevity, while a literary creation's qualities are augmentation and complications. This is the difference between the novel series like 'Vishnupuram', 'Pin thodarum Nizhalin Kural', 'Venmurasu' and these kinds of creations. Large novels try to present the life 'in its completeness', whereas these kind of novels focus on a 'singular' entity.

The way they portray realism is also constrained. One thing is conversations cannot be realistic, for they would become lengthy and boring. There is a chance that it may not be understandable at the first reading, hindering the reading pace. Therefore, everything would've been transformed for pace. Slang and accent would've been simplified. The scene description would've been restricted to a compact and rapid couple of sentences. (Eg: Refer to the compact description about the Nambiyar water front and Thenkarai Maharaja temple). There will be sufficient data to describe an event or a situation, but wouldn't be exceedingly plenty so as to hinder the reading.

Generally the world over, thrillers and horrors take place in the specific artificial milieu that were created for them. Specific worlds like mafia, spies, wild west, scientific experiments, Space have been created by fiction writers. They are kept aloft like those of epics. Everyone can write in those worlds. Reader will know that it is artificial, but he is ready to accept it for the sake of the reading experience. (Maybe, there are people in our nation who believe those worlds to truly exist).

It is usual to imagine even real places as fictional when being used in thrillers, because thrillers need their own world. Most of James Hadley Chase's novels are set in Miami beach, a world that he is not quite aware of. He created it out of the information that he had. Many among us aren't aware of a fact that several British writers have written novels set in Ooty, Tamil Nadu. They hadn't visited the place even once. It is a Ooty that they created.

Thrillers must transform and fictionalize their backdrop to suit to its needs. When thrillers are used for literature, the extent of this transformation is a challenging proposition. I have tried to keep realism to internal and transform the external aspects. Other creators can attempt this as per their style.

A reader of literature can easily recognize the ways of literary elements in the novel Padukalam. It is present in its real characters, in the intricate workings of every soul, in its portrayal of a foundational trait of human life. But a new reader would read it for its pace and would be attracted, without his knowledge, to its literary aspects. He would travel towards it earnestly.

I wish that these kind of fictions keep getting written. If twenty such creations get developed a year within the literary landscape, I believe, reading would get established as a movement here. The reception rendered to these novels and the scale of new readers that these bring in are proofs. New writers of today ought to write in this genre as well. They must realize that the bland realism and internal thoughts that are being written in the guise of technique do not find any readers.

Its true that not all writers can write like that. Constant reading, an interest in various life spaces and a knowledge on different domains are necessary for that. It is also essential to keep learning about the different structures of fictions. Tamil wiki is a gigantic information repository for such a new aspiring writer. Pudhumaipithan is a great role model for writing on such myriad themes.

J

 

**NOTE:  சிடுக்கெழுத்துமுறை: Couldn't find an appropriate translation for this. Therefore, loosely translated this as "knotted writing"". 

 

References:

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0CWNBY8LL?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=1217a7bc-8127-4efa-9a09-1f2217d72239

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirunelveli

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58524035-kadhaanayagi

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18790680

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58670244-pathu-laksham-kaaladigal

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/200629940-aalam

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213676678-padukalam

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9397242-vishnupuram

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28371361-pin-thodarum-nizhalin-kural

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venmurasu

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hadley_Chase

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooty

 

https://tamil.wiki/wiki/%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B4%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudhumaipithan