The Man-Eater of Malgudi

Abstract

The word ‘literature’, today, is recklessly used. An instruction-sheet enclosed with a bottle of antibiotics or vitamins is called literature, as well as an immortal work on a library shelf. In between come a range of books-of-the-moment, produced in white heat, almost computer-written, rewritten by the publisher’s editor, and promoted by the publisher by every technique of publicity at his command. This type of successful book may possess a little worth or none, but quality is of no account here. Literary agents have candidly labelled them as mere ‘property’. Such books, generally, are woven around the topic of the moment — it may be the sexual behaviour of freaks, or an exposé of political or business scandals. Apart from the physical comparison, in binding, in paper and size, this book can have no relation to literature — it is more a topical compendium in the clothing of literature.