My steady travelling companions are laptop and, of course, a book of my choice, particularly when I travel long distances. My favourite reading stuffs are hardcore IT publications, inspirational books and at times some fast novels, when you get bored of reading high funda stuffs. I like Fredrick Forsyth’s novels, though I am not a great fan of him or anyone in that great league. What fascinates me is his style of presentation, capacity to simulate a situation and to revel the readers in that ambience and use of appropriate words and phrases to drive home a situation. Also, I vaguely feel that like Thomas Hardy of classical mode, Forsyth’s characters are destined – not in the emotional sense – to undergo
the traumas and tribulations of their life, be they spies, small-time blackmailers, people who are prone to promiscuity, etc. That is why I like him. I have read most of his novels – be they The Day of The Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The Devil’s Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver and The First of God. Now, I just finished reading Icon.
If I remember correctly, the first novel that I read of the author is The Day of The Jackal. It is the story of an unknown hired assassin trying to kill the famous French President De Gaule and how that unknown spy was annihilated by a low-profile hen-pecked intelligence officer. Let us have a look at the tools that the author had used to give the gripping details. The police officers and counterintelligence tracking the spy are scouring through voluminous records and documents to find the antecedents of the wily spy. They are spending days together to find out the identity of the spy, who was masquerading using names and passports of persons who have died long back. Finally, they unravel the mystery and when they do it, the readers are flabbergasted as if they had unravelled the Gordian knot.
But in “Icon”, though the float is the same – cross-country espionage and ruthless one-upmanship, Forsyth cleverly avoids dramatizing the investigative process of yester years. In a computer-driven society, where even the kids play with sophisticated gadgets and gizmos, if one gets into the task of explaining how difficult and cumbersome it is to unravel impersonation, the reader will get bored. He is accustomed to analyzing mind- boggling data and still come out with matching fingerprints, DNA composition, exterior features, dates of births, etc. Fredrick Forsyth knows the pulse of the reader and has the uncanny knack of absorbing his attention. That is the USP of an author of a best-seller. He or she cannot traverse spheres where the readers get put off by lengthy descriptions. He has to absorb the intellectual make-up and emotional quotient of the reader. That is why the thematic sequences of the new novels, particularly investigative ones, are different. That is why in Icon, Forsyth uses more invectives connected with computers. The investigative agents are not travelling continents to investigate in person the records. They use PCs or laptops. Who said that literature and digital revolution are standalone ones? They indeed influence each other. In India, there are several authors – known and budding ones – who write novels in technical language. They use the slang and phrases of call center boys and girls. I understand that they rake in a lot of money since they have a growing band of readership.
Being a Bengali, I have a natural interest in reading some of the known writers. Tara Shankar Banerjee’s “Ganadevata” and Shankar’s “Seemabuddha” are some of my favourites. Let me take the second novel – Seemabudhha. It is the story of a young, handsome and suave man from a humble background becoming the chief executive of a FERA company (the adjective for a company owned by a foreign firm). The young man cycles his way to the college, his merit takes him to greater heights, marries a girl higher in financial and social status than him, driven by ambition and greed does master the skill of manipulations and outmanoeuvering, becomes the blue-eyed boy of the management and finally becomes the Chief Executive of the Company. Nowhere in the long novel – which was made into a film by no less than a person called, Satyajit Ray, there is a mention about TV or computer. Perhaps, there could be some mention about radio, which I do not recollect. Understandably, that time computer was unknown and TV would not have been introduced in India. Shankar perhaps must have written his novels using a typewriter. Assume that Shankar has to write a novel now; will his characters be the same? The bright hero, whom he personifies, will be computer literate, net-savvy and possibly the CEO of an IT company and not that of a consumer goods manufacturing company.
Let us compare Seemabuddha with another novel written by again a Bengali – Jhumpa Lahiri – The Namesake. Jhumpa has a cross-country upbringing and is an author who has considerable international exposure. Look at her characters. They speak a different language. Their emotional composition is different. Their value systems are different. The way in which they express their ambition, sexual urge or greed is dissimilar to the characters of Shankar. What made that difference? Is it the technology or natural process of change? One may differ. But I always bet on technology. And still, I forecast that these changes are in continuum, for technology is ever-changing. Does it mean that technology influences literature or the other way round? Frankly, I do not know. I fashion myself as a technocrat.
