Dear J,
I have been continuously watching your videos. I have a personal question.
Individual lines from your novels such as *Kadal* are quoted. Binaries such as “Satan–God” are highlighted. But the novel itself is not stating that binary; rather, it is trying to move beyond that binary.
Is it appropriate to quote such isolated fragments from a literary work? Wouldn’t that create a mistaken impression about both the work and its author?
Why don’t you conduct a regular series of classes on how literary works should be read and how they should be understood as a whole?
Senthilkumar Aravind
Dear Senthil,
Every line of a literary work is indeed a part of that literary work. Just as the whole somehow exists within a drop, the entirety is present in each part. When a fragment of language from a literary work reaches you and stimulates your mind, it creates in you the desire to know the work in its entirety. It is merely a hook.
You do not simply accept an idea as it is. If, immediately after reading it, the next question—“If so, then what?”—arises in your mind, you are moving toward the work itself. On the other hand, someone who thinks the fragment alone is enough is not a literary reader. What does it matter what such a person thinks? Throughout the world, isolated lines from great literary works are used in exactly this way.
We have been continuously conducting classes on how to read and understand literary works. In fact, there was such a class as recently as June.
However, most literary readers do not read literary works in order to understand them. They read them only for entertainment or to gather information. Only those who wish to gain a deeper understanding take part in such classes.
J.
