Contemporary Pastoral English Literature

                      The glamour in rural life

The various aspects of rural life, its subjects, descriptions of countryside shepherds and cowherds and their vagabond lifestyle has always fascinated the readers.

Who can forget the famous character, Konstantin Dmitrich Levin from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. He demystified technology and used it in Agriculture. Of all the male characters in the book any urban girl would easily fall in love with Levin rather than rich, flamboyant  Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky or a powerful cultivated man like Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin.

The dehumanizing factor of technology and if it is possible to make use of technology for inner peace of mind is well explained by Robert M. Pirsig in his book "Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance". The combination of two diagonally opposite virtues "rationality" and "romanticism" could be devastating for future human civilization. The beautiful part of the story is protagonist opts for less traveled side roads rather than Highways to explore and appreciate the slow pace of life, that explains a lot of philosophy in itself.

In Wuthering Heights the conflict of its occupant who are wild and passionate with calm and refined, and setup of the story in the bleak hilltop is symbolic of the unbridgeable gap in the rationales and romantics.

Encyclopedia Britannica defines pastoral literature as a  class of literature that presents the society of shepherds as free from the complexity and corruption of city life.

The rural life is romanticized but the harsh reality of discomforts and malaise are overlooked. Exaggeration is allowed in the literature to make a point. The plantation literature romanticizes Old South in "Gone with the wind" by Margret Mitchell  but does not try to escape the harsh realities of life evident in childbirth and miscarriages.  Scarlett's love for Ashley, who represent Old South is like chasing an impossible dream that one knows in his heart would never be fulfilled, is romantic and she overlooks Rhett's love who represents New South that is opportunistic and strong willed to succeed is realistic.

This dilemma of realism versus romanticism has baffled the society for long. Though a champion of realism the human mind finds its solace in romanticizing.

Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez has undoubtedly been one of the best authors of our time. In his novel "One hundred years of Solitude" he has given vivid descriptions of banana plantation age and calamities in the imaginary town of Macondo. He weaves a dream that entangles readers who not only when novel is read, but even much after that has a hangover of the town and the characters who lived there refuses him solitude. That is called magical realism.

In his other novel "Love in the time of Cholera" the old age and death has same suffering as that of youth. Could death be romanticized in a better way?

Another best author is J. M. Coetzee. His widely acclaimed novel Disgrace draws a clear line of demarcation in the treachery of urban life and rustic yet peaceful ambience of rural life. David the professor is  humiliated and sacked from the University after complaints from his student (Melanie), though the act was consensual and on the other hand, in the rural farm his own daughter is raped, but she refuses to act humiliated shows that technically advance urban can lead to a disgrace which even a dog would not face in real and pure rural life.

One can read my book "Empty Cocoon" about conflicts in rural-urban life.

Overburdened, the super human would find the true values of life under the shadow of an old tree in the tranquility of a village pond where the dust of the  cattle and trailing herd man returning home would obliterate the view of sunset.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

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

The World is Conical

                                                        The world is Conical

                                                          

After acknowledging that the World is Flat it would be a greater task to make us appreciate how and why the World is Conical? We need not to search for new parameter (except a few unavoidable, overlooked due to prejudice), but a paradigm shift towards a horizon which remains unseen when our World is flat or round.

The first Economist of the world was the one who designed the coin as round and flat. Since that day whole thinking of mankind has started revolving round the money. Sigmund Freud's theory of symbolism  would have easily found connotation of the formulation of these structures with genitals since people have many different conception of the same object. A round object has a different conception than conical.

Some arguments in favor of Conical World are-

1. Narrow Vision- People have a better vision at a flat surface. It seems many things that are obvious are being ignored by mankind due to narrow vision. (No, I am not talking about Ozone layer or any other environmental issue). Rich thinks that they will remain rich forever, and poor thinks they will not remain poor forever. This difference in thinking process is dragging the world towards a chaos unimaginable for mankind. The elite who occupies the top niche of the pyramid or cone are justified in being myopic since for a vision you have to look horizontally and not downwards.

2. Earth is Multidimensional- A cone has many dimensions, we explore and find a new dimension every time. Even that dimension also has many dimensions and we are caught in the web. With the advance technology of navigation we surely have succeeded in measuring few dimensions, but much is still in the dark. A flat or round surface can not have many dimensions, but Earth as a conical structure is multidimensional and unexplored.

3. Top-Notch-Triangle- The top notch people have the facility to make their own triangle. They make every possible effort to make the angle acute, so they have to deal with very few people of the same feathers. As a reaction bottom notch person also forms two triangles at the extremes of the larger triangle, but they are diagonally opposite to each other in their point of view about balance of power with top-notch-people. Rightist think that suffering is their fate and live contentedly and Leftist are rebels who fight against a system without any means. When  these two extreme groups would join hands, they would have inverted the triangle to make the world conical in real sense.

4. Oil and Weapons- To think and act like owner of all the oil fields of the world, you don't need to be an economist. You already have a faith in "I am the Monarch of all I survey, my right there is none to dispute" (William Cowper), and reach to the lands of treasure as plunderers. Oil is the only wealth of the world, which flat world ignores to mention. Moreover, they can sell arms to middle notch people to drop on bottom notch people, this keeps both of these hateful communities away from top-notch-people.

5. Fighting against insecurities- It is always easy to retreat when the world is flat. Wealthy people are paranoid and the compunction attached with wealth makes them insecure. They have a subconscious defense mechanism to survive in worst condition, even when everybody else would perish. ( Don't forget cryonics). Since the world is conical there is no retreat for top notch people. They can only stumble and die.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Excerpts from his unpublished book "World is Conical"

The facts about Self-Publishing a novel

      Hoax of Self Publishing

An author is born of suffering. How someone can become an author unless society has grilled him in all possible ways, sucked off all the marrow and threw wastage to be chewed by dogs. If something less than this has happened be bold, invite troubles and then wait patiently. There is no room for timid and cowards, who looks around twice before calling a spade a spade.

 If destiny has put a mouse in his hand and fingers have enjoyed playing on the keyboard to jot down words in the sequence in which they have never been written before, an author should be  prepared for next most hateful, torturous part of journey of accepting rejections from famous publishers till one fine morning he would decide to self publish his work.

Almost all self publishing houses use the same format of the agreement which traditional publishing houses use. Most of them have never heard about "Berne Convention'. They don't know the procedures of sending a copy of the published book to national libraries which is mandatory by law. All they know is they can hire a printer, a friend to copy edit, cover design and typeset for paltry amount and rob the author for all this heavily.

Moreover, they would boast to get you an ISBN...wtf. I mean, how mean someone could be.

When an author is paying money to publish a book, how could publisher give credits to cover design, copy editors who are paid for doing it. The publisher is charging authors for paying them and still author does not hold copyright on these works. Can a printer put his own ad and other important cards that he has printed on your marriage card. It is ridiculous to that extent, if you give it a serious thought. Every published document should bear the name of the printer, is required by law, but just a name or one phone number at the most and that too at some inconspicuous place, where the customer desire.

Self published books are seldom picked up by good distributors. At the most they are made available through online stores to the friends and relatives of the author. Even the so called big and traditional publishing house puts a condition that you would have to buy 300 copies at the rate of 150/- Rs per copy suppose, they have indirectly robbed the author.

Most of them print on demand. Initially they print hardly one hundred copies to give to authors and keep reserves in the online store, which cost publisher few thousand bucks and a major chunk of author's money goes to the pocket of the publisher.

As if that is not enough, if the published author (?), wants a ceremony to launch of his book, that gives another opportunity to the publisher to extract more money from the pocket of the author.

So what is the remedy?

The remedy is
1.Kindle Direct Publishing,

https://kdp.amazon.com/dashboard?prefLanguage=true

2.Createspace

https://www.createspace.com/pub/member.dashboard.do

3.Smashwords

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/vipingoyal

The beauty of these publishers is:

1. Transparency in all dealings

2. No expenditure at all

3. Very helpful and cooperative

4. Understand international laws on copyright and publishing

All you have to do is understand certain technicalities in submission of your book, for which they provide you a user friendly guide.

Encourage eBook reading in youngsters and readers of all age groups.

Believe me, this is definitely going to work.

Take my advice and begin now.....Contact me if you still have any doubt.

Also read "An author, Salesman and artisanal publisher"

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Cover Page of Novels By Vipin Behari Goyal

                                                What is in the Cover Page

The art of cover design of a book has become very important these days. Authors and publishers spend a lot of time and money on that. The buyers who are sincere readers have started taking the decision to buy a book on the basis of cover design. Though they also might read the blurb of the book to decide if the contents of the book suits to their taste. They also cast a cursory glance at the bio of the author, if they have not already heard about him. Does bio help them to decide whether to go for the book or not in any way? Or the cover design is the most important thing when a book is in hand. What makes the first impression on the mind of the reader title of the book or blurb, name of the author or his bio? If a reader has already heard about a book or author and he has already made up his mind to go for it, then of course there is no stopping for him.

Many publishers put the title of the book and the name of the author on cover page without any artwork. Still, those books are sold in volumes. But those authors belong to classical series for whom one can say "even name is enough". Those books are like jewels in the bookshelves which the owner proudly displays. Nothing distracts your mind from the contents of the book.

What could enhance the beauty of a good book? Amrita Pritam's books use to have paintings of Imroz as cover design. It was a unique combination to show how two different artists perceive a phenomenon with same intensity, except that a writer depends more on the imagination of reader while painting the picture of a scene with a keyboard on the screen.  

Sometimes an author would be puzzled if the cover page is more important than the content he has written. Many times publishers ask the author if he has any cover design in his mind. If he is suggesting one, the publisher would distort it with so called artistic improvisations that the author would even feel ashamed to condemn it.

Who is to be blamed if the cover page is totally irrelevant to the crux of the story? It is made on the basis of the title of the book and has nothing to do about the contents of the story. The cover designer is not a reader mostly. He is someone who more or less is, technically adept to tackle a cover design software. Cover designing a book is not lucrative profession, or rather it should not be. There is ample scope in other commercial fields for them like advertising. Publishers are commercial people, they are in the trade to make money. They are not a philanthropist or social activist. They are only happy when they earn profit by selling books. So they adopt gimmicks of attractive, sensational cover design. The reader might be misguided but the purpose of publisher has been served.

Author at a point of time is made to think that he has done some mistake by writing a book and having desired to see it published. So he suffers the punishment of harassment and pecuniary losses with determination to succeed.

Because he has faith in genuine readers.

Howsoever complicated this business of publishing and nexus of publisher, copy editor, cover designer, distributor, typesetter, professional reviewers, advertisers may become obnoxious, but the whole trade is merely a link between author and reader.

In India the youth has become mature as readers and his craving for serious reading is apparent. The days of Indian M&B and that type of cover designs are counted. May be they would target preteens instead of Young Adults in the future.

Kudos to generation x...y....z...

©Vipin Behari Goyal