/I remember my first stint at being a part of a book- club was back when I had freshly stepped into college and I had never been a part of one when in school. It was also because I was extremely quiet with a stammer and a thousand thoughts going on in my mind that curtailed my ability to vocalise what I truly wanted to say or convey. I wanted to major in English Literature simply because I was brilliant at interpreting what authors wrote and with what context owing to my need to know more than what was put on paper (I researched everything about them-- how many flings they had, how many children they birthed and if there were controversies surrounding them when they were in their prime) sometimes even going to the extent of pretending to have a conversation with them as if I were interviewing them.
My dreams of pursuing the aforementioned course were crushed by extremely high cut- offs in the admission lists and when I had the chance of opting for an English paper as a part of my elective curriculum, I wasted no time. I owe the enthusiasm for screenwriting to my English Elective course in college (Delhi University syllabus worsened with time by the way) and it became a matter of public record that the History topper is incredibly stupendous with the prose and nitty- gritty of what people called, "Victorian Syndrome", because the language was too hard for many--- it was a cakewalk for me, I say that with a tad bit of airiness as I was well versed with the English classics, thanks to my convent education and an English teacher who favoured me because I genuinely wanted to ace the classics.
My inclination towards the classics stemmed from a variety of other reasons over the years. I had a speech impediment and that stopped me from participating in debates and the like. Back in the day, if you had to be known as an intellectual (I am sure in some parts of the world, it is still the same in educational institutions) you needed to partake in all activities that made you stand out in the crowd. Like, you had to have an opinion, loud and clear, upfront with your queries and be ferociously active in classrooms to be classified as 'student who has potential to reach a different galaxy'. I leaned towards the classics to educate myself and build a vocabulary that could allow me to work on my writing. Writing was my medium to rebel and as funny as it may sound, I did try to write complicated stuff as an act of resentment for all those years of being sidelined and tagged as a 'dumb student' because I was exceptionally quiet during class discussions. Later, years and years later, I realised my inability to speak was because nobody was interested in my opinions at home or otherwise which led me to develop this idea that whatever I spoke was fit to be tossed into a trash bin.
When I go on Instagram and find critical views of reader communities mocking the booktok community (it is a tag for the bibliophiles making edits on the TikTok app of their favourite book characters and there is back and forth exchange of ideas with similar minded people) I go back to the times when I was 'not- so- good' with discussing what kind of books I liked. Now that I am 18 books old, I realise why the booktok community becomes a punchbag of jokes and the conventional readers never take them seriously for a major reason and that has got nothing to do with the language or the tone of the books that are hugely popular in the platform.
The classics do not find much representation unless Netflix adapts one of them. If not Netflix, some movie adaptations find critics online and then the word is spread. The problem with the booktok community's involvement in discussing books is that they ruin imagination for you. So, reading a book now is not because you randomly picked a book up but the hype is created in such a manner that if you don't read it, you are considered an outcaste. As much as I am in favour of the idea that people should read more and develop their imagination, oratory skills and the like, I also believe reading the right kind of books allows you to think better and become empathetic. The books popularised by the booktok community are mostly conversational in their approach, something like parked car conversations, that later do not leave any mark on you. Every story is somehow the same and the ones that do have edge ruin themselves by bringing out third, fourth, tenth parts of themselves. Finite storytelling has no place in the booktok arena.
Conventional reader communities are not known just for their readership. They are religious with the books they have at hand, the books they would want to buy and the publications they would look forward to. For me, I look forward to Wordsworth Classics, Penguin, Macmillan, Vintage and a few others who especially bring out versions of the classics I have loved as a child. I might even have three to four copies of the same book because the reprint versions always seem to have added notes and annotations. I can say with conviction that the books popularised by the booktok community are good enough for a one- time read because of their inability to evoke myriad emotions. I mean, there are no subtle descriptions of intimacy and too direct of a discourse when it comes to building chemistry between the male and female leads. In the classics or novels written by seasoned writers, you find every character has an agency. And that is what sets them apart. You are invested in the main characters but also the peripheral ones because the story is mostly carried by the latter.
The actual blow to the conventional reader community came swooping in when popular OTT platforms released half- baked adaptations that did no justice to the books. The booktok community romanticised some great literature written in the fag end of the previous century, constantly posting edits of characters that left nothing to imagination thereby ruining the experience for many. Some books were advertised as romance when it wasn't really the case and some books were popular because the male lead did not have boundaries thereby leading to a whirlwind of bookish romance teenagers swore by.
Booktok ruined a lot of the reading experiences, A, and B, they are no more centered around just book reading because someone loves to read books. It is now more of a fashion- statement that "so and so books are read and now we get to pose as brilliant people". It is a frivolous activity, like flipping through magazine pages.
I have been a voracious reader all my life and nothing makes me happier than knowing that someone reads a book based on my recommendation or someone recommends a book to me thinking I would love ABC character because they bear certain resemblances to myself. But I understand why the booktok community would never be considered at par with the conventional reader communities because it is not just about books here. The tradition is at stake, hence the outrage.
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