T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan: To old flames, with little regret

When do you actually outgrow an author?

About 40 or so years ago, when I still read P G Wodehouse with great pleasure, I was shocked to hear a friend of mine in the Foreign Service, older by 10 or 12 years, declare altogether too vehemently that "I hate that fellow Wodehouse."

Hate?

My sense of self-worth was a bit dented because like all slightly vain people, I pride myself on my taste in books and people. Nevertheless, even though I am prone to taking contrarian views, I dislike confrontation intensely and tend to agree with all the foolish remarks that intellectual boors make.

So I let it pass without telling him - as indeed Roderick Spode might have done - "Explain yourself, Sir." But that not-very-casual remark about hating Wodehouse has bothered me from time to time because all said and done I still have a lot of respect for the opinions of that Wodehouse-hating friend.

Over the years, I have become accustomed to people extolling Wodehouse. Recently, one such article said Indian advertising copy was hugely influenced by him.

That reminded me: about three years ago a more recent friend presented me with a collection of Wodehouse stories. I took it along on a flight with what the Germans call vorfreude or pleasant anticipation. But it turned out to be what the Americans call a bummer.

I simply could not get through it and ended up wondering about outgrowing authors. When did it happen and why?

Waning lights

I realised then that it was not only Wodehouse I had outgrown but also, along the way, Enid Blyton and, within that, in that order, Noddy, Secret Seven, Famous Five, etc. Likewise with so many others.

Richmal Crompton of William, Frank Richards of Billy Bunter and Hurree Jamset Ram Singh, Anthony Buckeridge of Jennings, to begin with and going on to Agatha Christie, Somerset Maugham, Sartre, Anthony Burgess, Kingsley Amis, Tom Sharpe, and a whole lot others whose writings one used to enjoy so much no longer appealed.

One immediate reason, of course, is that a book must be of contemporary relevance, even if it is in a setting that is 5,000 miles away on what Napoleon had so contemptuously called a "wind-swept little island off the coast of France." (Nearly 200 years later, Mao Zedong would unconsciously and, somewhat more vulgarly, echo that sentiment about Hong Kong, calling it a "pimple on China's a**e").

But what contemporary relevance did Wodehouse and Enid Blyton have in the 1960s? Or Bunter and Jennings? Both were about an England that vanished between the two world wars. So why were we all so taken up by them?

Much the same might be said about the writers of adult fiction. When Ruth Rendell died a few weeks ago, I ordered 14 of her books. But loyal as I try to be, I am finding it slow going.

The same thing had happened a few years ago with Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse novels, which I had read one at a time over the years. I just could not get going with them when they arrived in a bunch.

A couple of years ago, I packed away all my Dick Francis novels, about 40 of them, collected slowly and laboriously from second-hand and pavement shops over two decades.

Old, stupid or both?

"You are old, Shorty," said my younger son who, at six feet, is only about an inch-and-half taller. My wife was more perceptive with her broad-spectrum catch-all explanation. "You are stupid," she said. "Aren't you the one who insists that genuine art has inter-temporal and spatial appeal?"

I still believe that: a good and arresting piece of art or music will cut across cultures and through time. It doesn't matter whether it is Sibelius or Seurat, Mullick or Mendelsohn. Unprejudiced human beings don't dislike a good piece of art merely because it comes from a different culture.

But what happens to books? I mean, how many people read pre-war novels now or, for that matter, even pre-1980 ones? Who remembers the likes of John Mortimer and Henry Cecil?

More generally, why do tastes in many forms of art remain unchanged over long periods but change with every generation in the case of books? Why do best-selling books and authors just fade away?

I suspect it has something to do with human psychology, and Google will offer some deep explanation. I will get around to searching it one of these days.