Book reviews by Manohar Shetty

‘Five Point Someone—What Not to do at IIT' by Chetan Bhagat; Rupa & Company, N. Delhi; Rs 95; Pp 270.

This book starts off on the wrong foot with the cover conveying the distinct impression that the content is all about business management. It is in fact a first novel by a young author, an IIT graduate who works in a bank in Hong Kong. The setting is an IIT campus in Delhi and the novel chronicles the on-off friendship between three students, their tribulations and their triumphs. While the book provides authentic insights into the functioning of India's high profile institution, the plot line and general narration is thin and amateurish.

The author should have shown some generosity to the tree population and put this book behind him in its manuscript form. He should then have worked on a genuine, mature novel after learning from the mistakes in this one. Young writers often assume that their campus experiences are unique and will be of great interest to the world at large. In reality, they are not as momentous as the author assumes, however ‘elite' the institution. (And as we all know, IIT alumni can also end up as a tree-felling brute).

Through some clever marketing and pricing, the publishers have apparently sold more than 50,000 copies of this book. Testimony more to street-smart selling to a susceptible student audience than to any merit in content which refuses to rise beyond juvenilia.

The book could also have done with more rigorous editing. There are too many lines like ‘Ryan denounced soundly, sounding like a local politician', or ‘she greeted' (greeted whom?). And some tame metaphors such as ‘she said in a pathetic voice that would make even Hitler cry'. The book leaves the reader in tears too, but for the wrong reasons.

FALLING SHORT

‘The Old Devils' by Kingsley Amis; Vintage Classics; 4.55 Pounds, Pp 384

INGSLEY Amis, along with other writers like John Osborne and John Wain, emerged as a breed of ‘angry young men' in the 1950s in the UK, railing against the conservative establishment. His first novel, ‘Lucky Jim', about the travails of a young working-class ‘antihero' set in an academic background was both a critical and popular success. This was followed by several other novels including ‘That Uncertain Feeling, ‘Take a Girl Like You' and the James Bond thriller ‘Colonel Sun', besides a study on the fictional spy himself called ‘The James Bond Dossier'. Amis' radical outlook, however, soon gave way to a more conservative standpoint, exemplified in his poetry and essays. By the end of a long literary career Amis had published over twenty novels, several collections of poetry, essays and criticism, a book on Rudyard Kipling, besides columns on food and drink and the Spectrum science fiction series which he edited with Robert Conquest. He was, in the best sense of the term, a litterateur, the scope of his diverse work embracing virtually every branch of the written word.

‘The Old Devils' is a later book, published in 1986 and a winner of the Booker prize.  Reissued as a Vintage Classic, it tells the story of a group of old fogies and their spouses drinking their way to a kind of enlightened oblivion in small-town Wales. Their pub-crawling is enhanced and intensified by the return from distant London of an old friend, Alun Weaver, a famous TV personality and poet and his glamorous wife Rhiannon.

A faintly ridiculous but rakish figure, Weaver is back in South Wales to rediscover his ‘Celtic roots'. Instead, his presence rekindles old animosities and rivalries amongst ‘the old devils'. As in other Amis novels, comic situations and  dalliances with never quite forgotten lovers spice up the narrative. His characteristic witticisms and unerring ear for dialogue are much in evidence, as are the elegant throw-away lines like ‘Rhiannon left in a flurry of self-assurance'.

Amis guides us through the provincial spirit of Wales, the mixed feelings towards ‘big brother' England and their obsession with their national poet Dylan Thomas, appearing here in a barely disguised fictional version as ‘Brydan'. Whether the subject arouses  the interest of the global public at large is open to conjecture. In the end the book doesn't wear well, its preoccupations fleetingly fashionable rather than of universal concern. Amis' essential conservative spirit undermined his early radicalism and his poetry never progressed to risk-taking intensity.  Neither did his novels. Like most other English novels of the time, the book though pleasant enough, lacks the scope and cutting edge to elevate it to 'Classic' status.

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