Pop Literature for Mass Entertainment
Prologue
When my editor asked me to review two bestsellers, preferably novels, at this year’s Ekushey Book Fair, I was at a loss, for by no means am I a devoted reader of contemporary Bangladeshi fiction. In fact, after Akhtaruzzaman Iliyas, I have read only a few novels of Bangladeshi writers published in the recent years and that, too, by chance or at some people’s requests.
Anyway, a command is a command and so one day I marched to the fair and asked around about which titles were selling the most. The unanimous answer was the books by Humayun Ahmed were at the very top, followed by those of his younger brother Mohammed Zafar Iqbal and next were those of Anisul Haque. So, I bought a copy of Humayun’s Kichhu Shoishob and one of Zafar’s Jalmanob. Reading them was as entertaining as watching a well-made Hollywood film. But if you ask me about their impressions on me, I must say there were not many and the few that I had had little intensity. A major one of them is, like the movies made as commercial products and those made as works of art, literature, too, is of two basic categories —the popular and mass-consumed that has recreational merits and the literary art that demands some erudition and acquirements to enjoy and understand, reading which usually is an experience that is obsessive and invariably influences the mind in various ways and to various degrees. For example, in the first category fall writers like Harold Robins and Sydney Sheldon and in the second Garcia Marquez and Gunter Grass.
Here, I also must say, while I found Humayun a fully commercial, professional, and expert producer of literary entertainment, Zafar appeared less of a pro and to be endeavouring to achieve some sort of aesthetic quality in his work, which leaves him standing in a kind of no man’s land.
The rest of my impressions about the books include the following.
Kichhu Shoishob
By Humayun Ahmed
Anyaprokash
Ekushey Book Fair 2007
ISBN: 9848684166
Price: Tk 120
I remember the time more than 30 years ago when after reading Humayun’s Shangkhanil Karagar and Nandito Narakey we thought they heralded a new genius in Bangla literature. But, over the years, that impression became more and more corroded by the acid of disillusionment and at one point we realised that promising writer had turned into a mere expert and successful storyteller.
At this year’s book fair, he came up with 12 books, which is a real feat for any novelist in the world. There is nothing wrong with writing a great many books only if the books are distinct in content and colour. I have sampled quite a few novels of Humayun, most of which seemed just variations of a single theme, not unlike a series of cartoon films where a fixed set of characters plays out some new acts to make a new episode. In Sartre’s terms, setting out as a potential intellectual Humayun has gradually degraded himself to a mere writer, a mass-entertainer.
But that does not mean he does not have any skills or talents or merits. I fact, he has a lot of them; otherwise he would not have become the most-read and of a very few professional fiction writers of the country. His language is lucid and very readable. He never delves into any complex issue of any sort, which is ideal for the purpose of entertainment, although not for any involvement of the intellect. He is a grandmaster of the storey tellers, who tells the tale impassively for a while and then makes a sudden twist in the narrative that thrills or charms or invokes some other emotion in the reader and thus retains his or her attention in the story. He never judges his characters but simply and merely accepts everyone as he or she is — another of his excellent techniques.
For example, Kicchu Shoishob, in which he reminisces about his early childhood in Sylhet, can be compared with a photographic landscape, with some figures producing mirth, some sympathy, some nostalgia and so on, and that is all. It does not give rise to any question or goes deep into any event, psyche, trend, idea—nothing. Everything is superficial and there is nothing to bother or worry the reader about. It tells about some events of a man’s childhood, makes a pleasant reading, and after finishing it one simply forgets and with a satisfied yawn can go to sleep, like after having any other refreshing recreation.
In a nutshell, this book, like most of his other works, has very good entertainment value for the simple minds. And entertainment obviously is in great demand in this society, and also across the world, which is why Humayun has been a bestseller for quite a long time now. He knows exactly what sort of stories the masses like to eat and he serves them well.
Jalmanob
By Muhammed Zafar Iqbal
Somoy Prakashan
Ekushey Book Fair 2007
ISBN: 9844585724
Price: Tk 125
Jalmanob is a science fiction. There is no debate about the fact that Muhammed Zafar Iqbal is the author who contributed the most in carving out a prestigious niche for this genre of literature. With this one he has added yet another stone to the temple of Bangladeshi science fiction.
Five books of Zafar have hit this year’s February book fair. The number is less than half of what his brother has produced but Zafar’s excellence lies not in quantity but the quality and the variety of his books, and in that his imagination and intellect are free of monotony and captivity of fixations, always treading on new ground in every new work.
Jalmanob, or water-man, takes the reader to an imaginary future, where most of the land on Earth has become submerged in water as the sea level rose drastically due to severe greenhouse effect or other abuse of nature. The people who lived on higher grounds survived the calamity and most of the rest perished, with a few colonies managing to continue living on artificial islands or floats. The people living on the land continue to progress in technology and have reached a stage where they no longer need to work; computers and robots do that for them. They need not to think; a super computer does that for them. Their society in fact has come under the total control of that super computer. They know not what to do with their time and so pass it in trances produced by intoxicating substances, immerged in virtual reality, or hunting one or two water-men whom they have come to treat and hate as an alien species. And when they lose interest in everything, driven by black depression, they commit suicide, particularly the young people.
The Jalmanobs, on the other hand, are technologically poorer but closer to nature, more living. They have learned to communicate with dolphins, who have become their friends. The most important difference between the two branches of this post-deluge humanity is that the people living in water love one-another and cherish all life forms while their counterparts on land are full of negative psychological traits like hatred, cynicism, lethargy, and lack of purpose.
The book actually presents two hypothetical projected futures of humanity—one alienated from nature and dependent on machines and the other returned to the fold of nature and at peace with it. Of course, events happen in the book like any other fiction, which ends in one of the policymakers of the land-man realising their pitiful situation and trying to reverse the destructive trend, and his daughter falling in love with a young water-man and finally deserting her people to go and live with her lover and his people whom she once thought to be inferior like apes but later came to realise as far superior than her own ghostlike, perverted folks.
The language is smooth, free of cliché and scientific jargons. In reality, the book is as much a science fiction as a depiction of what will happen if humanity continues to travel away from its earthly roots, becomes slave of the machines and systems of its own creation, and carries on the rat race for material gratification and seeking psychic high from drugs, delusions and fantasy.
The catch line: Jalmanob is a science fiction and also a warning for those who have the ear to heed about the danger of damaging the nature.
Prologue
When my editor asked me to review two bestsellers, preferably novels, at this year’s Ekushey Book Fair, I was at a loss, for by no means am I a devoted reader of contemporary Bangladeshi fiction. In fact, after Akhtaruzzaman Iliyas, I have read only a few novels of Bangladeshi writers published in the recent years and that, too, by chance or at some people’s requests.
Anyway, a command is a command and so one day I marched to the fair and asked around about which titles were selling the most. The unanimous answer was the books by Humayun Ahmed were at the very top, followed by those of his younger brother Mohammed Zafar Iqbal and next were those of Anisul Haque. So, I bought a copy of Humayun’s Kichhu Shoishob and one of Zafar’s Jalmanob. Reading them was as entertaining as watching a well-made Hollywood film. But if you ask me about their impressions on me, I must say there were not many and the few that I had had little intensity. A major one of them is, like the movies made as commercial products and those made as works of art, literature, too, is of two basic categories —the popular and mass-consumed that has recreational merits and the literary art that demands some erudition and acquirements to enjoy and understand, reading which usually is an experience that is obsessive and invariably influences the mind in various ways and to various degrees. For example, in the first category fall writers like Harold Robins and Sydney Sheldon and in the second Garcia Marquez and Gunter Grass.
Here, I also must say, while I found Humayun a fully commercial, professional, and expert producer of literary entertainment, Zafar appeared less of a pro and to be endeavouring to achieve some sort of aesthetic quality in his work, which leaves him standing in a kind of no man’s land.
The rest of my impressions about the books include the following.
Kichhu Shoishob
By Humayun Ahmed
Anyaprokash
Ekushey Book Fair 2007
ISBN: 9848684166
Price: Tk 120
I remember the time more than 30 years ago when after reading Humayun’s Shangkhanil Karagar and Nandito Narakey we thought they heralded a new genius in Bangla literature. But, over the years, that impression became more and more corroded by the acid of disillusionment and at one point we realised that promising writer had turned into a mere expert and successful storyteller.
At this year’s book fair, he came up with 12 books, which is a real feat for any novelist in the world. There is nothing wrong with writing a great many books only if the books are distinct in content and colour. I have sampled quite a few novels of Humayun, most of which seemed just variations of a single theme, not unlike a series of cartoon films where a fixed set of characters plays out some new acts to make a new episode. In Sartre’s terms, setting out as a potential intellectual Humayun has gradually degraded himself to a mere writer, a mass-entertainer.
But that does not mean he does not have any skills or talents or merits. I fact, he has a lot of them; otherwise he would not have become the most-read and of a very few professional fiction writers of the country. His language is lucid and very readable. He never delves into any complex issue of any sort, which is ideal for the purpose of entertainment, although not for any involvement of the intellect. He is a grandmaster of the storey tellers, who tells the tale impassively for a while and then makes a sudden twist in the narrative that thrills or charms or invokes some other emotion in the reader and thus retains his or her attention in the story. He never judges his characters but simply and merely accepts everyone as he or she is — another of his excellent techniques.
For example, Kicchu Shoishob, in which he reminisces about his early childhood in Sylhet, can be compared with a photographic landscape, with some figures producing mirth, some sympathy, some nostalgia and so on, and that is all. It does not give rise to any question or goes deep into any event, psyche, trend, idea—nothing. Everything is superficial and there is nothing to bother or worry the reader about. It tells about some events of a man’s childhood, makes a pleasant reading, and after finishing it one simply forgets and with a satisfied yawn can go to sleep, like after having any other refreshing recreation.
In a nutshell, this book, like most of his other works, has very good entertainment value for the simple minds. And entertainment obviously is in great demand in this society, and also across the world, which is why Humayun has been a bestseller for quite a long time now. He knows exactly what sort of stories the masses like to eat and he serves them well.
Jalmanob
By Muhammed Zafar Iqbal
Somoy Prakashan
Ekushey Book Fair 2007
ISBN: 9844585724
Price: Tk 125
Jalmanob is a science fiction. There is no debate about the fact that Muhammed Zafar Iqbal is the author who contributed the most in carving out a prestigious niche for this genre of literature. With this one he has added yet another stone to the temple of Bangladeshi science fiction.
Five books of Zafar have hit this year’s February book fair. The number is less than half of what his brother has produced but Zafar’s excellence lies not in quantity but the quality and the variety of his books, and in that his imagination and intellect are free of monotony and captivity of fixations, always treading on new ground in every new work.
Jalmanob, or water-man, takes the reader to an imaginary future, where most of the land on Earth has become submerged in water as the sea level rose drastically due to severe greenhouse effect or other abuse of nature. The people who lived on higher grounds survived the calamity and most of the rest perished, with a few colonies managing to continue living on artificial islands or floats. The people living on the land continue to progress in technology and have reached a stage where they no longer need to work; computers and robots do that for them. They need not to think; a super computer does that for them. Their society in fact has come under the total control of that super computer. They know not what to do with their time and so pass it in trances produced by intoxicating substances, immerged in virtual reality, or hunting one or two water-men whom they have come to treat and hate as an alien species. And when they lose interest in everything, driven by black depression, they commit suicide, particularly the young people.
The Jalmanobs, on the other hand, are technologically poorer but closer to nature, more living. They have learned to communicate with dolphins, who have become their friends. The most important difference between the two branches of this post-deluge humanity is that the people living in water love one-another and cherish all life forms while their counterparts on land are full of negative psychological traits like hatred, cynicism, lethargy, and lack of purpose.
The book actually presents two hypothetical projected futures of humanity—one alienated from nature and dependent on machines and the other returned to the fold of nature and at peace with it. Of course, events happen in the book like any other fiction, which ends in one of the policymakers of the land-man realising their pitiful situation and trying to reverse the destructive trend, and his daughter falling in love with a young water-man and finally deserting her people to go and live with her lover and his people whom she once thought to be inferior like apes but later came to realise as far superior than her own ghostlike, perverted folks.
The language is smooth, free of cliché and scientific jargons. In reality, the book is as much a science fiction as a depiction of what will happen if humanity continues to travel away from its earthly roots, becomes slave of the machines and systems of its own creation, and carries on the rat race for material gratification and seeking psychic high from drugs, delusions and fantasy.
The catch line: Jalmanob is a science fiction and also a warning for those who have the ear to heed about the danger of damaging the nature.
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