Reading can often feel like hard work—especially when you don’t know when to stop. Lately, I’ve been slowing my pace deliberately, because the book I’m currently working through feels profound (as I mentioned in an earlier post) and demands more time and attention. To balance that heaviness, I keep “fillers” on hand: shorter or faster reads that give me momentum. For me, these are often Malayalam books.
A Malayalam “Filler”: Kattoor Kadavu
One such filler was Kattoor Kadavu (by Ashokan Charuvil ). For a political novel in Malayalam, it made an effort to present a contemporary setting, but ultimately remained mired in age-old Naxalite and Maoist nostalgia. Familiar figures like AKG and Susheela show up—and my reaction was simply: does this ever end? Why not let VS or PV play these roles instead? The middle-class Malayali hunger for communism in its purest form is remarkable—not because they’re foolish, but because they’re nostalgic for something that never really existed.
What finally made me abandon the book wasn’t the nostalgia, though. It was a scene where an upper-caste character questions the reservation system. The author falls back on that tired 90s Malayalam film trope: the poor upper-caste man suffering because Dalits are “stealing his job.” At that point, I wondered—what rock are these writers still living under? And the irony is hard to miss: the novelist positions himself as a leftist, yet clings to a cozy Savarna mindset.
This is the danger of mediocre books: they drag you down to their level, and then they beat you there.
Mediocrity in Mainstream Literature
Even respected literary journalists are not immune. PKR, for instance, has lately been championing mediocrity. In today’s Malayalam literary landscape—already weakened—his endorsements almost appear significant by contrast. But then I heard him, in a high-profile session, cite E. Santhosh Kumar’s last two novels as examples of quality. Really? Jnanabharam was anti-intellectual to the core, while Thapomayi was wayward and sloppy. A discerning reader has to question PKR’s judgement here.
What troubles me most is this: anti-intellectualism and mediocrity are corroding what was once a strong foundation. Worse, they are shaping not only what people read, but also how they think. At this point, I feel Malayalam cinema is far more sophisticated than its literature. That reversal is alarming.
My “Fillers” Beyond Malayalam
To escape such pitfalls, I turned to other fillers:
Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds – a sharp time-travel novella, and surprisingly the first of his works I’ve actually finished, despite dabbling in his Revelation Space series earlier.
Foundation by Isaac Asimov – a true sci-fi classic. What struck me most was how little it resembles Apple TV’s adaptation. The show feels like a caricature of the book—if even that.
The Ongoing Anchor
And yes, Proust is still with me. The Captive continues to hold me steady—captivating enough to be both challenge and savior. and Solenoid – the best re-read of any year.