Tastes differ, but…

By Vahe Davtian

Yerkir/arm
8 July 05

Modern youth and reading – this opposition has been so much spoken
about and has become so abstract that those who turn to it again seem
to have no other topics for discussion. Young people don’t read books;
they prefer the internet. Let’s not make such rigid statements. Nod
doubt, there are young people who do read books. The question is what
books do they read? I think this is a more interesting question.

When Paolo Coelho visited Armenia in 2004 he was treated as a writer
who dictates the literary style and trends of development of
literature in the whole world. His visit was accompanied with a big
fuss and much noise.

When one of the journalists asked him what had impressed him most in
Yerevan, Coelho answered, `I liked your night clubs’. A light and
charming answer – just like his novels. Coelho is famous and widely
popular. Large scale advertising did have the expected results while
such concepts as `peculiarities of language’, `precise depiction of
personages’ or â=80=9Cresonance of the work with modern times’ were
left aside.

Just imagine that the significance and value of a literary work is
determined by the number of languages into which the work has been
translated (67) and the number of copies sold. This is the
intervention of business into the world of art. The inability of the
public to distinguish literary industry from art is a catastrophe.

Everything started in 2003 when Coelho’s novel Eleven Minutes was
announced to be the discovery of the year. Meanwhile, the novel was
just a regular sweet tale for adults that contained erotic
details. `There lived a prostitute whose name was Maria’.

When you read the first sentence of the novel you cannot but put the
book asideâ=80¦ Nevertheless, many girls cry when reading the
novel. Guys start seeking the meaning of life. Then was the famous
Alchemist that was translated into Eastern and Western Armenian.

`You can find happiness only in your homeland’ – this is what you can
read behind the lines of this novel. But how is the author expressing
this idea? Coelho’s style of writing about the simplest things with
such a lofty air can only cause one’s smile. The same can be said
about Coelho’snovel Veronica Decides to Die. Love will save the
world. This is the idea of the novel.

The shop assistants in one of Yerevan’s most popular bookstores, the
Bookinist, assure that Coelho’s books are very popular among the young
people. The librarians at some of the universities confirm this. What
is the secret? The answer is obvious – there is no secret. The only
peculiarity of such books is their popularity.

Coelho’s books are a good example of this – his works cannot stir any
questions among the readers. They are too simple and sentimental,
pathetic and fancy. This attracts modern readers, especially young
people that are on their way of self-realization and tend to accept
without questioning whatever is presented to them.

This is spiritual terrorism. And it occurs not only in Armenia. Today
Coelho is the most widely read author in the world. Having read his
books is an indicator of one’s intellect. Two years ago I asked my
friends who Coelho was – they smiled ambiguously. But this is not
important. The thing is that too much fuss around anything can only
have negative consequences.

And this is true for literature – even before reading the book the
readers know that they will like it. And even if they don’t, they say
that they like it only because the book is popular throughout the
world. Well, let us assume that people read such kind of `literature’
because they want to keep up with fashion in this way.

This explanation might be acceptable. But let us not forget that
besides Coelho and writers like him (such as Richard Bach) there are
Gabriel Garcia Marques and Julio Cortasar (if they like Latin American
literature so much), Patrick Kundera and Umberto Eco, postmodern
Russian writers. Tastes differ but still the fact is that Coelho’s
books cannot interest people who have seriously read at least one work
of classical literature. Such books cannot live long. They are doomed
to be covered with dust on the bookshelves.