^ NOTE 57 ^Have you read this book?55 "Who is the author?5' "It is......" "Oh, no, He writes about only...aspects which I don't like". "No, this is a good novel, I have read it.-" "Is it? I haven't read any of his novels, I don't like him. I heard once Prof.... ••mention that this novelist is not worth reading.''' I remembered what a celebrated novelist (again anonymous) had told me years ago while he was discussing some of the problems the Indo-Anglian novelists had to face. He had said, Yes, yes, we have critics and critics, very learned critics but my only complaint is that many of them don't read the books with sympathy, understanding and instead of assessing them on their intrinsic merits, they identify the books with this trend or that trend and would pass the judgement that they suffer in comparison with Kafka or Camus, or some other European writers. It appears as though we have to write to satisfy the critic not the reading public. This view of the novelist may not be fully correct. But there is an impression that many critics are very rash in their pronouncement and some of the acrimonious discussions going on in the literary journals of our country (I have in mind the debate now going on between a critic and poet in Malayalam, each in turn telling the public that the other does not deserve to be recognised and so on) lends credence to their impression. This appears to be one of the major reasons why many of the writers who associated themselves with the progressive movement inspired by Marxism-Leninism in the thirties and forties, have moved away from their revolutionary fervour and stance, if not dissociated themselves with it. This is equally true of both the writers of regional literatures and Indo-Anglian literature and one cannot but agree with Dr Sreenivasa lyengar who ex-plains this shift of emphasis thus : Although the progressive movement and Marxist influence had helped to give a social orientation to Indian literature (especially prose fiction), Marxism became more and more a cerebral exercise or a matter of mere intellectual acceptance. Not being first experienced in the rough and tumble of actual life, Marxist writing too tended to become a new kind of hot-house concoction. It has thus become possible in post-Independent India, in politics, in economics, in literature to swear by Marxism, socialism, and egalitarianism, yet perpetrate in actual life all the odd obliquities and iniquities. Only when creative fiction is based upon the writers3 own social experience is it likely to be touched with life; only then will it be beyond pose and propaganda and become literature. Technology, Capitalism, and Commercialism are without question among the causes of the writers' sense of alienation from the people and their every day life.30 N RADHAKRISHNAN