| "Buy me before good sense insists/ You'll strain your purse and sprain your wrists," Seth wrote in the Epigraph to A Suitable Boy, whose 1,349 pages make Vikram Chandra's 900-page Sacred Games look like a modest little novella. So we do, and then we're eyeing these baggy monsters, wondering where we go from here. Here's how to alleviate the loneliness of the long-distance reader. |
| No pain, no gain: You wouldn't run a marathon if all you'd been exercising was your thumbs on the TV remote. When the slab of dead tree matter that is Sacred Games arrived, I was prepared. For a practice routine of your own, warm up with Donna Tartt's The Little Friend (a mere bagatelle at 555 pages); advanced readers can move straight to Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Don't overstrain. Many years ago, in a fit of crazed over-confidence, I emerged triumphant from War and Peace and attempted to read all thirteen volumes of Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage. Bad things happened. Terrible things. There's only so far ordinary mortals can or should go, and I shuddered away from Pilgrimage, thinking, never again. |
| With a little help from your friends: Sacred Games is thoroughly enjoyable, and Chandra's protagonists are gripping. Detective Sartaj Singh is still sharp, but he's older and more cynical than when we met him first. Ganesh Gaitonde's story starts out being the stereotypical rags-to-tax-free-riches gangster saga, but Gaitonde evolves, suffering depression, inflicting betrayal, reaching for philosophy or the fresh new virgin of day, according to need. But this is still a 900-page-long book, and your stamina might flag around the 400-page mark. |
| Spread the pain around. Reviewers often sadistically taunt fellow reviewers by speaking of the great anecdote on page 527 when you know that they're stuck on the primer on Islamic Fundamentalism on page 340. Other readers might make this a Book Club selection. Chandra's book is a slick read, but if you were reading David Foster Wallace's dense, self-referential Infinite Jest, it would feel good to know that other people had to suffer the chapter-sized footnotes too. |
| Why Size Matters: When the typical bestseller is a slim, PowerPoint-assisted document with chapter synopses and highlighted key points, the gargantuan novel signals serious literary intent. "It's 800 pages, so it's got to be worth it," the reader thinks. "It's 800 pages, I've got to read the whole thing before I slam it-na, too much effort," the reviewer thinks. "It's 800 pages, so we're putting it on the shortlist in case someone asks us to prove we've read it," the Booker judge thinks. |
| Paisa vasool? Strange as it may seem, the big book delivers on this count""regardless of literary quality. Sacred Games is a dark, edgy thriller that keeps the pace going, and that would have been just as good if it had lost 200-odd pages; A Suitable Boy could have lost 400 pages without losing the rhythm of the story. But at half the size, there would have been no halo effect for the reader, none of the virtuous glow that comes from making an effort. To finish is its own reward, and allows you automatic bragging, or complaining, rights. |
| The arguments against big books are many""for me, the most compelling was made by the tendons in my left wrist, which may never be the same again. But few make the argument for big books. |
| That in an age when we're used to consuming everything, even literature, at high speed, the oversized novel forces you to slow down, to pay attention, to read painstakingly. That staying with one book for weeks, even months, means that whether you liked it or not, you will remember the experience. |
| That, and I'd urge you to try this in our times, when reading slots in somewhere between time-pass and selfish solitary indulgence, the big book offers you the chance to go back to an older method of reading. Call your friends over once a week, take turns reading a chapter aloud, and see if some of your fixed ideas about storytelling don't change. It worked for Dickens and the 19th century institution of the three-decker novel. It could work for this 21st century morality tale of good and evil in the twisted, compelling Bombay underworld. |
Top Section
Explore Business Standard