T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan: A series question

Why do authors who write fiction in English feel the need to write series, book after book with the same characters?

For example, Jeffery Archer who wrote such terrific novels with different characters has also succumbed to this need with his tedious five-part series called the Clifton Chronicles.  And not content with Harry Potter, J K Rowling has started a detective series under the pen name of Robert Galbraith.

My encounter with this trend started late. Worried that I could not read, write or speak English till I was 12 years old, at the start of one summer vacation, my father decided enough was enough.

So along came Noddy from the Central Secretariat Library, which in those days was very well stocked with children’s books. I must have looked ridiculous as a 12-year-old reading Noddy.

Soon Noddy gave way to the Secret Seven, the Famous Five and all the rest of Enid Blyton’s wonderful books. In parallel, there were William, Bunter, Jennings, Biggles and, wonder of wonders, an American series called the Hardy Boys, which I didn’t take to.

A few years later came Lord Emsworth, Bertie Wooster, Psmith, Mulliner, Ukridge et al from the Wodehouse stable. Alongside were Hercule Poirot and Georges Simenon, Sudden, and a bit later, George Smiley, Wexford, Morse, etc. For some reason I never read the Perry Mason books. There were 103 of them, I think.

Anyway, having read the same books I am sure you get the point. Scores of writers have created characters that appear in sometimes as many as a dozen novels, if not more.

The serial question
For the life of me I can’t imagine what drives these writers to such extremes. Why write a series when you can as well create different characters that are just as successful? Indeed, all of the above writers have written superb novels with one-off characters.

One or more scholars must or may have conducted research on this question. Some may even have obtained PhDs. If so, someone please direct me to them. Meanwhile, it is necessary to ask: is it a literary, commercial or a psychological need?

Some authors carry on the same story in book after book. Mr Archer above is a case in point. But most others simply write the same story in different ways.

I realised this when during one long summer break I read 23 Wodehouse novels in a row. The same thing happened recently when I took up a sale offer from one of the online sellers and ordered 12 Ruth Rendell mysteries and eight Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon thrillers.

This is not to say these books are not good. They are. But it is only when you read them in succession you realise there’s something of a sleight of hand going on, not unlike journalists who write the same story or editorial every six months with the numbers changed.

This does not mean that authors who have different characters in each novel don’t put old wine in new bottles. They do. But whether they like it or not, they have to make the main characters different and that makes a difference.

Indian revival
Now, thanks to the multinational publishers who treat readers as consumers, the cookie cutter model has come to India. You can see it in detective fiction written by Indians about Indians: Shamini Flint and her Inspector Singh and Tarquin Hall with his Inspector Vish Puri. Zac O’Yeah (O’Yeah?) with his Mr Majestic and Vaseem Khan who has written the first of his Baby Ganesh Detective Agency novels are also promising a series each. That Baby Ganesh name reminds me of Alexander McCall Smith’s No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. The book is excellent in its measured story telling.

These writers are reviving the glorious but broken tradition of H R F Keating who wrote those highly entertaining Inspector Ghote mysteries. Their writing is an outsider looking in — politely puzzled. This is a good thing because it is almost a given that an Indian-Indian would make very heavy weather of it all.

These writers bring a lightness of touch and sardonic sense of humour that doesn’t leave you dejected about your country, society, people, police, courts and what have you. They are fun.

How long can these new writers sustain these series? Keating had managed 25 Ghote novels till 2009. He died in 2011. Ms Flint, however, has stopped at six. The last one came out a couple of years ago. Mr Hall’s third Vish Puri novel came out in 2012 and there don’t seem to have been any more.

Having announced their series we will have to wait and see how far Messrs O’Yeah and Khan long can go on. At least a dozen each, I hope.