The mark of a truly great fiction novelist lies in the fact that he can write about a completely different entity while convincing the reader that that entity is actually him. The differentiating lines between character and author, real and imaginary, truth and falsehood- begin to fade and all that remain are the stirring images of the character’s conflicts, challenges, trials, tribulations and ultimate triumph of the spirit- whether in life or death being irrelevant.
A good writer is first and foremost an excellent story teller, who can weave a myriad emotions with his mere words, threading those words together to bring forth new meaning and purpose to a carefully etched plot. He is able to breathe life in to the pages of his book, inserting drama, pathos, brevity, pace and integrity with elan. His story will not hold any weight without the very essence of verisimilitude.
This is particularly moving in the case of a bildungsroman novel, where the individual is directly able to relate to the protagonist’s emotional and physical upheavals. A diasporic novelist is able to even physically transform his feelings of displacement and alienation simultaneously to the reader. A novel’s topographical setting of a story can go miles in the way the world perceives a particular country or its people, often in the long term this can lead to the kind of cultural amalgamation nation states may take centuries to otherwise attain.
An author is not a public figure neither is he an exhibitor or trader. He cannot peddle his work in a local book store, assuring you of its quality. The book that bears his name must speak a language that has its own universal appeal, even in translation. How else does a book on racial oppression or a saga rooted in ancient mythology gain prominence and garner public empathy, across barriers of gender, caste, creed, community, culture, colour and other parameters of human differentiation? A good book has the intrinsic ability to unite its readers towards the joint exploration of what it stands for and what it is trying to say, giving them all a sense of oneness and finding parallels to their own world through the imaginary world portrayed in the book. It binds together the minds of readers who approve of its content and who end up appreciating the nuances of how something is written or even sometimes, left unsaid.
A writer who knows his own mind is fearless in his expression of free thought. He is a magician in the sense that he can transport his own feelings to his reader, influence the latter to think like him and even reduce him to tears with his sublime text. Even the most humorous author wielding a pen must be able to infuse a degree of gravitas in his writing to maintain the volume of mirth in his plot and flow of events. The unique ability of a writer to retain this plot while engaging in subversive tactics is indeed a laudable achievement. So sometimes you may be convinced that the story is indeed veering in a predictable direction when the writing changes trajectory- undergoing transitions, high and low phases and even the seemingly odd lull only to strike back in an epiphany. Interestingly, in all of this, true literary genius lies in making the reader feel like he is clever enough to understand the intricacies through which the story moves and trust him to find his own interpretations and reasons for why a character may have behaved like he or she did in a story. It creates inquisitiveness and pushes the readers to question the plot and its characters and find answers to it themselves. Besides, it also encourages the simulation of visual imagery- what a particular character must look, sound and feel like.
Finally, in the reading of a novel, the reader not only becomes a shareholder of an intangible property, a disclosed secret and a well narrated experience but in the end, is also bound by his inherent need to make sense of what he has read. What is a book after all but a generously presented slice of life printed in ink and preserved between covers. A good book has the power to provoke a spiritual process of inner dialogue while steering the reader towards the inspirational path of self introspection. In other words, it stirs the intellectual pursuit of happiness and gives wings to an individual’s worldly understanding. It contributes to the breeding of genteel and mature human beings who believe in pooling in to their accumulated wealth of both acquired and nurtured wisdom and utilizing it in the world that they inhabit.
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