Simplicity Personified in Literature

                  Simplicity is not Stupidity

One of the side effects of rapid advancement and consumerism is the extinction of simplicity from society. The youth is sapiosexual and is aroused  by intelligence only. It is also taken for granted that all successful people are intelligent or vice versa.

The qualities like an opportunist, cunnings, street smart, hypocrite, snobbery which were once looked down upon by the society are now being appreciated. Some rich people act modestly and people take a note of it, but for too small of a man, modesty is in vain.

The word simpleton has originated from simple which means a foolish or gullible person. Homer describes a combination of socialist and simpleton as 'knowing many things, but knowing them all badly'.

The Idiot by Feodor Dostoyevsky is said to be an autobiographical novel. Prince Myshkin had spent time in mental sanatorium. He is subjected to many disasters just because he is a simple man. Author confirm the view that sanatorium is the only secure place for stoic saints who do not believe in the power of money and sex.

How bad it is to be innocent in this corrupted world? The command  'Let child be thy father' is in the praise of innocence and purity of heart. No child is born crook, we make him so. We don't want to take responsibility so we say he is born like that. The age of innocence of children is also thinning out fast. The time is not far when only a nascent child would be innocent.

Michael K in J. M. Coetzee's book "Life and Times of Michael K"  is such a person. He is a pure soul untouched by perils of the world and fails to understand why anybody would harm him when he does not want to harm anybody. Actually, this innocently simple man is a depiction of our inward journey that wants to take its dead mother (conscience) back to its rural home (purity).

Harper Lee in "To kill a mocking bird" suggests to kill a mockingbird could be a sin because mockingbirds simply provide pleasure with their songs, saying, "They don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us."

 To kill a mocking bird is to kill someone simple and harmless. What was once prohibited is now a treasured game of rich and affluent. The coming generation (not youth, but middle aged neo rich) is haunted  by the ruthless savagery of cut throat competition and has already put all values at stake to win the race. Simple people happily provide their shoulders to aid them in climbing the stairs of success.

William Barrett in his book "Irrational Man" writes about a story by Kierkegaard. The story is told of the absent minded man so abstracted from his own life that he hardly knows he exists until, one fine morning, he wakes up to find himself dead.

 The whole civilization is that absent minded man, busy in creating a weapon of its own end. Would you call it smart or simple?

Kalidas is an Indian Scholar who created literature in Sanskrit was simple to the extent that he cut the same branch of the tree he was sitting on, thus he would fall as soon as he cut the branch.

The modern society does not dare to be philosophical. 

Milan Kundera, who claims that Nietzsche's hugging of the abused horse to be a symbolic gesture against the dominance, the arrogance of the human mind over nature, against the blind worship of progress.

The cycle of comprehension goes like this. Simple to Complex to Simple. The initial Simplicity is of ignorance. When learning starts the things become complex, but with the dawn of ultimate knowledge the simplicity reoccurs. That is the Wisdom.

It is easy to be complex. In fact, everyone around us is complex. We have forgotten the taste of simplicity. A simple man is queer, incomprehensible and easily rejectable. His humble acceptance of rejection  proves our theory that he deserved to be condemned.

Authors tend to appreciate simplicity in their text. They want to save the world from the madness of so called progress.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said "In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity."

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Read more at: http://vipinbeharigoyal.blogspot.in/

Age of Wisdom in English Literature

                                    Waiting for Age of Wisdom

George Ritzer the sociologist, first time used the word McDonaldization exhibiting the Fast Food characteristics adopted by society. The four primary components identified by him have also moved in the Global Literature. The Harry Potter and 50 Shades of Grey are the McDonald of Literature.

McDonaldization is nothing but another kind of rationalization emphasizing change in traditions and cultural values. The shifting of values is not in the positive direction. Even though the nature is doing its best to teach the predicament of advancement, man is not yet ready to learn any cheap lesson. The question is who would pay the price of costly lessons? Obviously The Poorest class of the mankind would suffer the disasters created by nature, and the rich would get another chance of proving their generosity.

An eBook can be published much quicker than McDonald delivers Pizza at your doorstep. So far as writing a book is concerned, it is just like McDonald doesn't grow the potatoes to make McFries similarly authors, hunt for ideas and plot of the story in published or unpublished literature of other authors. If authors could only learn to grow their own potatoes, they would never be labeled as McDonaldised.

How many copies Sold? Is the first question when you talk about a book. The Sell has become synonymous with quality, while once it was believed that quality always suffers in the hands of quantity. Why otherwise Carlyle should say 'There are nine fools in the world for one wise man..."One should write what people want to read or one should write what he wants to write and should not bother if his work is accepted or rejected by society. Is there any responsibility to refine the taste of people on the creative artist?

Predictability is a great asset for any product to win the heart of the customer. A book having clichés like Love, Girl Friend, Boy Friend, Heart, Friendship, Break Up along with an enchanting book cover of boy and girl, holding hands, crying, the monogram of a broken heart or walking in different direction have become the success formulas  in literature. Also, you have to encash the wave of theme or genre, if live-in relationship is in thing write about it and if semi-erotica is breaking the record of Sale, you must also try your hand on that. Many Indian Publisher would conform to the view that books are sold by name of the title and attractive cover design.

                                                                               pixabay

If we look further back at the post industrial revolution and the emergence of romanticism we realize that despite the advancement of science and technology man has remained spontaneous, irrational, imaginative and emotional. In the entire cosmos there is a cycle of the Age of Barbarianism,  Age of  materialism, Age of individualism, Age of industrialization, Age of enlightenment, Age of Romanticism, Age of rationalization and Age of Wisdom. We are only few centuries far from Age of Wisdom.

Literature is now mostly being read for entertainment. A novel is like a peanut you want to munch while travelling or waiting in a queue at the dentist. What we need is the De - McDonaldization of Literature. Micro-cosmos within man is harmonious with nature only when he shed off all that is artificial and learns to respect what is Original and Natural.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Abusing Human Life~Children's Day Special

               inHuman Rights and Indian Children

What makes them happy?

Once again we are going to celebrate Children's Day with all the privileged children of the society who have access to the education system and did not become a victim of the highest child mortality rate of the world, highest  malnutrition children of the world and highest human traffic trade of the world and are not employed as child labor. Believe me they are lucky.

It's not a coincidence that those under privileged children are not far from the eyes of a common middle class/Upper class Indian who have lost their sensitivity and are happy to console themselves that they are not one of them.

These children are garbage pickers who roam in the streets since dawn and clean half of the garbage by picking up valuables (?) like plastic and  metal pieces from the heap of mixed garbage of leftovers, empty cans and bottles, used tampons, diapers, broken glasses, vegetable peels and stinking toxic wastages. Their unwashed, unclean body and faces smeared with dust and torn, dirty clothes they too appear as part of a heap of garbage from a distance. When their fingers swiftly dissect the garbage and quickly pick up anything valuable, their eyes glitter and the triumph of luck reflects on the face for a moment. Though they know that even if the valuable collected by them are sold at higher price they would not receive any kudos from their father, who would use the money to buy country liquor, and more money means more liquor and more liquor meant more thrashing of wife and children.

The inhumanity reach to its climax when one of these children finds something he wanted to eat since long after watching many advertisements on TV channels, picks up a stale piece of pizza, noodles, cake, ice-cream or chips and eats it under temptation.

Of course, our greatest concern should be for those who failed to see the light of a day, due to willful riddance by parents obsessed with gender discrimination or due to poor medical facilities, unhygienic conditions at the spot of delivery, negligent medical staff in Government hospitals,  adulterated medicines, untrained midwives and lot many more reasons. Who has missed them?, their parents, family, society or nation. A loss of life must be somebody's loss, but I don't know who? If human life is so useless and petty any effort to implement a law to ensure its sustainability is futile.

Many of these children become criminals. As a juvenile criminal they are sent to reform homes, which have become training centers to make them hardened criminals. Day by day  crime rate is increasing and police force remains inadequate in manpower and resources to curb that upward shoot of the graph. The elite would spend any amount to keep criminals away from them. They paid heavy taxes, but political parties used that amount to fulfill their own ulterior motives. The elite had to devise a new plan to gain sympathy of downtrodden who were mint of criminals. So they came out with Philanthropy Plan and made trust, foundation, charity institutions, and NGO which on the one hand saved taxes, laundered their money and on the other hand they gained the sympathy of prospective enemies.

Rich is dubious, but so are the poor. One could see through another. Philanthropist did not earn the respect from society at large. Except from peers, no poor man clapped when they tried to establish themselves as self proclaimed Hero of the society.

Every problem has an inbuilt solution, and sometimes it is so obvious that we overlook it. The time has come when we stop fighting against problem, but shake hands with it. Despite spending millions of dollars we have not solved any problem of the world, on the contrary it has increased in dimension. China could become world power only when it converted its 'Population Problem' into a 'Men Power' asset.

UNICEF and Human Right Watch report says, 12.6 million children are engaged in hazardous occupation, more than 5 Million Nepalese girls are sex workers in brothels of the world out of which 2.5 million are in Indian brothels, there are 3 million child beggars in India and so on and so forth.

Do you think that situation could be worse than this? If you can't beat them join them. What may happen if we legalize all kinds of flesh trades and state should just monitor to eliminate coercion, harassment and exploitation of the trades.

So far as 'Black Money' would be mightier than 'White Money', this would be the only solution.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

How to determine your Literary Quotient

What is your Literary Quotient?

While I.Q. ie. intelligent quotient is measure of cognitive abilities estimated by ability to answer intelligent question and E.Q. emotional quotient is ability to use both your emotions and cognitive skills and is estimated by the ability of a person to deal with tricky situation, L.Q. or Literary Quotient is your level of understanding Literature which determines your cognitive skills, emotional maturity and ability to handle tricky situation intelligently.

The formula remains the same:

 Now refer to my earlier post of Break your Glass-Ceiling. I have described various level of understanding of literature.

These are as follows:

Here are books or authors at each level:

1.Comics—

2.Enid Blyton- Famous five series

3.Alice in wonderland, Alibaba, Arabian Tales, Sindbad, Marco Polo, Panchtantra, Little Prince, Gulliver’s Travels etc.

                                       1.  GLASS-CEILING

4.Romance books and love story--Mills and Boon (Mostly Girls)

5.Sci-fi fiction, Horror for boys, though it could be vice versa or both.

                                         2. GLASS-CEILING

6. Matured romantic books—Gone with the wind, Thorn bird, Sidney Sheldon,

7. Suspense and crime thrillers—James Hadley Chase, Robert Ludlum, John Grisham, Mario Puzo

                                          3. GLASS-CEILING

8. Books based on facts- Ken Follett, Irving Wallace, Wilbur Smith, Arthur Halley, James Clavell

9. Banned books —Lady Chatterley’s lover, Lolita, Nancy Friday, Anonymous

                                     4. GLASS-CEILING

10.Fiction with philosophy—Ayn Rand, Paulo Coelho, David Brown, Khaled Hosseini, Murakami, Aldus Huxley, George, Orwell. Saul Bellow

11. Autobiographies—Benjamin Franklin,  Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi,

                                        5. GLASS-CEILING

           
12.  Classical Books—Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare,   Jane Austin, Pearl Buck, Earnest Hemmingway, Somersaught Maugham, Bertrand Russel

13. Text books of Philosophy, Psychology, and History to understand literature.   

                                       6. GLASS-CEILING

14. Philosophical or Psychological Fiction—Robert M. Pirsig, Jostein Gaarder, Mark Haddon, J.M.Coetzee, Gabriel Garcia Marquezss,

15. Self-improvement Books-- Malcolm Gladwell, Robin Sharma, Rhonda Byrne

                                     7. GLASS-CEILING

16. Philosophical Fiction- Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kafka, Hermann Hess,

 17. Supernatural and spiritual literature- Harold Kushner, Dalai Lama, Swami Rama, Swami Yogananda, Richard Bach, Elizabeth Gilbert, Mitch Albom.

The list of authors is not exhaustive but you will understand what level of books we are talking about. Now follow these steps:

1. Honestly decide your Glass-Ceiling Level. If you have any confusion, you may take help of your parents, spouse or a friend.

2. Multiply  that Glass ceiling Level with Ten(10). That would determine your Literary Age.

3. Now fill the formula for L.Q. with your Chronological Age and Literary Age and multiply with hundred (100).

4. Match your results with following table.

Marks	Literary Status
Above 200	Literary Guru
150-200	Literary Expert
120-150	Literary Worm
100-120	Literary Brilliant
80-100	Literary Curious
Below 80	Literary Dull

4. You have determined your Literary Quotient.

Example:

Suppose your Chronological Age is 40 and you have read books up to Glass Ceiling stage 5 multiply this with 10=50 divide by your chronological age which is suppose 40, then 50 divided by 40 multiplied with hundred is equal to 125. So your L.Q. is 125 and you can classify yourself as Literary Worm.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Fiction and Philosophy

Philosophy of Fiction

E. M. Forster

Fiction without Philosophy is not literature. It is only a story which may not even have any moral. You don’t learn anything but you feel entertained. It could be a good time pass or a way to kill the time. Lying on a beach, travelling in a train or bus, we see lots of people doing it. Though instead they should prefer to how the breeze is playing with the waves of the sea, people surfing, vendors selling and clouds are drifting. Instead they read a story which a thriller, suspense, romantic or 50 shades, which takes your mind to ugly imagination and you overlook the beautiful realities spread before your eyes. I would prefer to lie still, close my eyes and listen to the fine music of nature. It may happen that my inward journey takes me to some deeper realm of my existence and I may find a magical pearl that may unfold some mystery of life.

Love stories have always remained a part of literature as love has remained an integral part of life. There are no two love stories that are similar as there are no two human beings who are exactly same. Everyone has a different perception and conditioning of mind to reflect differently from others. That makes every love story unique, so if a writer can identify that uniqueness and narrate as to what makes it unique, he could write a meaningful love story.

Love is an emotion just like many other emotions that we culture. I find hate is a more powerful emotion than love. Though both of these emotions make a person irrational, and finally a philosopher.

Other related Post

Philosophy of Caves in The Passage to India By E. M.Forster

 © Vipin Behari Goyal