My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility
Author's Profile + Interview / by BS Murthy / 32 views / Sold
But who would have thought that life held such literary possibilities in the English language for a rustic Telugu lad reared in the rural Andhra, even in the post-colonial India? So, the possibilities of life are indeed novel and seemingly my life has crystallized itself in my body of work before death could dissipate it.
- Listing ID: 13140
- Author's Name: BS Murthy
- Your Email Address: bulususmurthy@gmail.com
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About the Author:
BS Murthy is an Indian novelist, playwright, short story, non-fiction 'n articles writer, translator, a 'little' thinker and a budding philosopher in ‘Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World by Eastern Speculative Philosophy’ that was originally published in The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal, Vol. 05 Issue 18, Summer 2004.
Born on 27 Aug 1948 and schooled in letter-writing, he happened to articulate his managerial ideas in thirty-odd published articles, and later came to pen Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of Wedlock, a novella, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories and Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays.
Moreover, besides Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More), a ‘novel’ narrative, possibly in a new genre, and the critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) in the arena of non-fiction, his literary endeavors in the translation zone had been the versification of the Sanskrit epics, Vyasa’s Bhagvad-Gita as Treatise of self-help and Valmiki’s Sundara Kãnda as Hanuman’s Odyssey in contemporary English idiom.
Later, as a prodigal son, he took to his mother tongue, Telugu, to craft the short story తప్పటడుగులు (Missteps).
While his fiction had emanated from his conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all his body of work was borne out of his passion for writing, matched only by his love for language.
His body of work as above is in the public domain as free ebooks https://g.co/kgs/hzavoV
Also, some of his articles on management issues, general insurance topics, literary matters, and political affairs published in The Hindu, The Economic Times, The Financial Express. The Purchase, The Insurance Times, Triveni , Boloji.com are reproduced in Academia.edu
https://independent.academia.edu/BulusuSMurthy
He, a graduate mechanical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India, had been a Hyderabad-based Insurance Surveyor and Loss Assessor from 1986 - 2021 -
Titles of All Books:
BS Murthy's free ebooks
Fiction
Benign Flame: Saga of Love
Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life,
Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels),
Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel,
Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of Wedlock, a novella,
Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories
Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays.
Non-fiction
Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More),
Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation)
Translations in verse
Bhagvad-Gita as Treatise of self-help
Sundara Kãnda as Hanuman’s Odyssey - 1. Did you love reading books when you were little? Why or why not?: When I was little, I used to read stories in the Telugu periodical 'Chandamama' that tend to excite children's imagination.
- 2. At what age did you start reading books? What were your best memories of that time?: On the advice of my maternal uncle, I started reading English classics but it's the continental fiction, in Englsih translation, that fascinated me no end.
- 3. What was the first book you loved reading? Why?: The first book I loved reading was Panchatantra in Telugu for its unique stories that are within a child's grasp.
- 4. When did you first think about writing your first book? Why?: Content being a reader, I never ever thought about writing till it happened in my mid-forties when 'Benign-Flame: Saga of Love' came into being. As to the 'why' of writing, I've dealt with it in My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility that I think is illustrative as well as illuminative https://g.co/kgs/vNb2Tt
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5. What was the greatest obstacle you've encountered when you were writing your book? What made you overcome it?:
Though I wrote a score of articles on managerial matters, when it came to my maiden novel Pardonables nay Benign Flame: Saga of Love, I've struggled unceasingly for a fortnight for its start - "That winter night in the mid-seventies, the Janata Express was racing rhythmically on its tracks towards the coast of Andhra Pradesh. As its headlight pierced the darkness of the fertile plains, the driver honked the horn as though to awake the sleepy environs to the spectacle of the speeding train."
However, from then on, it was as though a ‘novel’ chemistry had developed between my muse and the mood of its characters that shaped its fictional course, and soon I came to believe that I had something exceptional to offer to the world of letters, nay the world itself. So, not wanting to die till I gave it to it, I tended to go to lengths to preserve my life that was till I delivered it in nine months with a ‘top of the world’ feeling at that. Then, when one Spencer Critchley, an American critic, thought that – “It’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs” – I felt vindicated about my unique contribution. - 6. What pieces of advice can you give aspiring authors? What worked for you?: For one, the old adage that one need to be a good reader to become a good writer and for the other to bear Leo Tolstoy's words that to be categorized as art it should be original and not an imitation.
- 7. Who are the authors or what are the books that had the greatest influence in your own writing? Why?: Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert, Theodor Fontane, Marcel Proust Robert Musil et al are, my literary deities.
- 8. What are your current or future writing plans? What can readers further expect from you?: Having enabled my body of work of twelve books in varied genres that I placed in the public domain as free ebooks, maybe my muse could have done with me, so it seems as I am running seventy-five.
- Awards, reviews, press releases, and other relevant information: Though some of my books have received mixed reviews at goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3241254.B_S_Murthy and Amazon Kindle https://g.co/kgs/hzavoV, I may say that in the world of letters I'm an unheralded writer.
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