Kaavya Vishwanathan is in trouble. The hype was not caused by the media. It was the result of a campaign by Little, Brown and co to make the magnitude of the deal public. 'Opal Mehta' was very famous due to that reason alone. We are given to correlate quality with cost and most of us naively presumed that the surprisingly large advance for her work was indicative of the quality of her writing.

Valuing an artistic output

There are any number of genuinely good writers out there. The blog world has given a spotlight to literati to broadcast their talent. Unfortunately, it takes much more than talent to be successful. V. S. Naipaul has spoken rather eloquently on this subject.

But books are not created just in the mind. Books are physical objects. To write them, you need a certain kind of sensibility; you need a language, and a certain gift of language; and you need to possess a particular literary form. To get your name on the spine of the created physical object, you need a vast apparatus outside yourself. You need publishers, editors, designers, printers, binder; booksellers, critics, newspapers and magazines and television where the critics can say what they think of the book; and, of course, buyers and readers.

I want to stress this mundane side of things, because it is easy to take it for granted; it is easy to think of writing only in its personal, romantic aspect. Writing is a private act; but the published book, when it starts to live, speaks of the cooperation of a particular kind of society. The society has a certain degree of commercial organization. It also has certain cultural or imaginative needs. It doesn't believe that all poetry has already been written. It needs new stimuli, new writing; and it has the means of judging the new things that are offered.

In other words, it is the commercial value that publishers attach to a work of art, that determines the market that it will find. Ergo, if the very same people do not attach a value to it, it may not find a market. Thus, commercial considerations alone dictate the exposure given to an individual.

Why should critics pillory Kaavya?

Is this commercialization that I spoke about, bad? Not at all. In a free world, checks and balances are provided by critics and laymen. People who evaluate published works (or films, music) and give an opinion, however biased, about that work. Purchasers evaluate such critiques and then make up their mind whether to open their wallets or not. Consequently, critics have a great responsibility on their shoulders. They must speak up.

On why it matters

For a while now, it has not been easy for talent to succeed on its own merit. Mediocrity and crassness have been rewarded far too often. Kaavya did not so much write the book, as it was packaged by a bevy of professionals. The same ones who package boy/girl bands who cannot sing/play instruments, write lyrics or compose music, and materialise them into multi-million dollar successes.

Mediocrity should not be rewarded. Mediocrity that is backed by felony should be actively punished. Mediocrity & felony that is backed by nepotism and raw money power should be sought out and shamed.

Don't the folks who express sympathy with Kaavya worry about the double standards that send small time hungry thieves to jail while not doing a thing to touch white collar criminals? A well-healed private schooled, Harvard going child of wealthy doctors cannot plead ignorance about not knowing the difference between right and wrong. One should treat her the same way as one treats a inner city kid who steals change from a soda machine.

At least the kids of the friends of Kaavya's parents will be glad. Till this scandal came to light, they must've had their parents breathing down their collective necks with "Yennadi? Why can't you be more like Vishu maama's daughter?" Now these kids must be grinning from ear to ear.