Moving With The Flaw

I had a discussion, almost a debate, with a friend recently about why I read fiction. If you analyse it objectively, it is essentially a waste of precious time. I could have read a couple of McKinsey reports in the same time that I take to read a few pages of that pointless novel every night I go to sleep. Or maybe read some articles from Economist, which I only get a very selective dose of every day during lunch. And I would be a more knowledgable person if I did that. But what's the fun in that.

There was an argument that I made on my previous blog, borrowed from my one-time professor of literature from engineering college (it's quite ironic that two years after finishing off a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in engineering, what I remember most distinctly is my time spent in Humanities courses), about seeing world more clearly and understanding people better because litertaure, and films to a lesser extent, has opened me to experiences I would have never had, people I would have never met, had I chosen to just read those McKinsey reports or those Economist articles. I would not get into that again.

There is another thing that keeps pulling me back to books. It's the fact that I can see weak human beings without feeling embarrassed. It sounds voyeuristic, and it probably is. But in real life, how often does even your closest friend admit his insecurities to you, confess that he has weaknesses that he is not proud of? How often would you even want that to happen, without feeling irritated at him, without distancing yourself from a sentimental fool? Our lives are too complicated by hiding things from others and being politely uninterested in other people's secrets that the frankness, the honesty, that stripping a fictional character bare promises, is not possible in case of a real person. Unless the 'real' person is a compulsive blogger. I like the God's eye view that most books provide you.

Some of my favorite books, or even my favorite movies, are my favorites because I love their characters, and their flaws. The fact that you, the omniscient reader/viewer, knows that the character is being hurled down a path of doom, or at least a path of no-return, because of his flaws and the choices that he makes because of them, but the character himself does not, is very intriguing. And comforting.

Two characters I have thought about a lot are Ammu and Velutha from The God of Small Things. The last line - Naaley (Tomorrow) - of the book kills you. Because you know there is no tomorrow.

Humbert Humbert from Lolita is another character that I find extremely interesting. It's not right to care for a paedophile, who has ruined a young girl's life, but you still do.

I did not even intend to write all this because this, in essence, is just setting the stage for what this post was meant to be about. I was finally able to lay my hands on Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley trilogy recently, and have just got to Ripley Under Ground, the second book. Ripley's character, who could be an amazing case study in talent gone wrong or even the workings of human psychology, reminded me of another character, from a movie, that I had come across recently. That of Robert Ford, played by Casey Affleck, from the movie with that long name. There are enough dissimilarities of course for you to rebut my claim, if you have the time or the interest, but the similarities are starker. Both men, fairly competent on their own, fall in love with people, who happen to be men, better than themselves. Or at least better than them at what they want to be good at. They start off with worshipping the other person, looking at him all the time for that rare glance of understanding. Feel jealous when someone else gets to be closer to that person. Such obsession has to end badly of course. With the weaker man killing the better man. And blaming it on the dead man too all the way. Fascinating.