Hackneyed
Hackneyed means overused; repeated so much as to become stale; threadbare; time-worn. My interpretation of this quirky word is to list out 5 authors who failed to impress me with their writings, despite all the hype and the recommendation around their books.
People who know what I love to read also know that I abhor reading Indian authors. Please don’t get me wrong here. I m not being a snob and saying that I will only read books written by foreigners. I have read plenty of books from Indian Literature and am a huge fan of writers like:
- Premchand
- Satyajit Ray
- Ismat Chughtai
And a few from the modern day writers too like:
- Jhumpa Lahiri
- Nilanjana S Roy
- Kiran Millwodd Hargrave
- Balli Kaur Jaswal
- Chitra Divakaruni
- Amitav Ghosh
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But these are a few rare exceptions. I have found Indian writings to fall short in expectations several times over. Its as if the writers are too scared to let their imagination take proper flight. The expressions seem restrained and ideas don’t seem to be properly fleshed out. There is always something lacking and leaves me dissatisfied.
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is one celebrated cerebral author, awarded with the Booker Prize for her books too. But I just couldn’t make head or tails out of A God of Small Things and just kept wondering what all the fuss is about. Same with her next book The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. While I did finish the first one, the latter was abandoned after 50 pages.
Chetan Bhagat
Chetan Bhagat is one Indian writer whom I would love to strangle for the lackadaisical use of English language. His plots and characters have been much revered and turned into successful screen adaptations. Overall his writing is poor and gets on my nerves. His storytelling is very lame and doesn’t enchant as it should. More power to him for being so widely read 😉
Anuja Chauhan
Anuja Chauhan is an advertising genius who made her writing debut with the hugely popular book The Zoya Factor. The movie rights were bought and its been made into a commercial film too. I had picked up this book with a lot of expectation. But it all flopped as I found the writing to be extremely mediocre. The flow of the story and character building is very teenager-ish and I think I expected more from her writing.
Amish Tripathi
Amish Tripathi made a huge splash with his take on Lord Shiva and the mythologies surrounding him. His modern day approach to the legends is quite refreshing but the writing is disappointingly amateurish. He writes like a corporate professional approaching a trouble shooting exercise. So the narration is devoid of a storyteller’s soul. I finished reading his first trilogy out of curiosity for the tale. But all three books were pretty hackneyed for me.
Kavita Kane
Kavita Kane has explored Indian mythology from the viewpoint of some its oft overlooked characters. Be it Karna’s wife or Sita’s sister; she has set her books from their viewpoints. At first glance the premise is amazing but when I tried to read one of these books, I was disappointed. The writing overlapped with similarities at every juncture and seemed repetitive in expression too. So the narration doesn’t flow well and didn’t quite work for me on the whole.
Who are your favorite Indian authors? Any from my list of rejects? I look forward to reading your reaction to my post in the comments below.
Coming up next is I for Irony!!
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I actually liked reading Karna’s wife, The FIsher Queen’s dynasty and Lanka’s Princess. Maybe coz I read each after an interval of several months, I didn’t find the writing hackneyed.
Chetan Bhagat, well I did like the first book I read of his. That’s it.
I haven’t read Anuja Chauhan, nor seen the film based on her book. It just didn’t entice me with its title. Last year, I read quite a few of Andaleeb Wajid, Kanchana Banerjee, and one by Shashi Deshpande, and I liked their work. None of those were romance, though. Maybe that’s why I found them refreshing. 🙂
Yes a lot of people love to read her and that’s why I picked one of her books too but it just didnt do it for me. I loved the premises of her books and was very curious. You win some and you lose some.
I will pick up A Wajib for sure this year. I am not very big on Indian authors but take reccos from my book circle and will check some of them you mentioned.
You and I have the same thoughts when it comes to Indian authors. None of those mentioned above have worked for me either. If you could exclude Indian authors from the list, who else would it be?
For me it would be Jane Austen, Twinkle Khanna’s fiction works, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Atwood, Holly Jackson.
Margaret Atwood for sure from your list and Twinkle Khanna is Indian only babes 🙂
Aah! Dont get me started on this. There are sooo many books that did not live upto the hype…. Off hand I remember Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee….
Books by Amish and Arundhati did not work for me. And a LOT of Indian authors would feature in this list.
Ah yes the Tattooist of Auschwitz didnt go down well with me at all and was such a super hyped book. So many of these popped up based on the Nazi era and tried to capitalize on it. Us poor readers fell for it. I actually enjoyed reading The Bell Jar – it would be in my top 20 list.