‘Five Point Someone’
Chetan Bhagat’s debut novel Five Point Someone is a much better read than One Night @ the Call Center, the sophomoric book with which I had the misfortune to begin. It’s still the kind of book with only a solitary spark of literary wit, and the author was so taken by this meager glimmer of insight that he made it the title (an IIT GPA on a 10-point scale). As a strictly functional coming-of-age story, it works about as well as The Perfect Score.
That’s The Perfect Score without Scarlett Jo. Like its sequel, this book lives and breathes male sexual repression. Bhagat figured the horny geek schtick worked so well, why not crank it up for part deux. But it’s played straight, without the comic charm of Revenge of the Nerds, and it’s thoroughly irritating.
Still, this is a light, engaging tale. The basic problem with geek romance tales is how to sex up the technical core. Almost every work glosses over this part in favor of personal drama, and this one is no exception.
How to make a book a hit: price it at one third the cost of the average novel. Mass-market publisher Rupa & Co. lives to fight another day.
on Thursday, November 30th, 2006, 11:18 pm in Literature › 
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Though 5-point someone is set in IIT-Delhi campus, it has a sort of ‘universal appeal’ for all the ‘hostelites’ in Indian colleges. Having lived in a similar environment (at IIT-Bombay), I could relate to most of the incidents/anecdotes presented in this book. The writing is not too great..but I guess that’s the way it was meant to be (giving him the benefit of doubt). And it’s a quick read :)
Priceless, Manish. That made me chuckle. The big problem with FPS is that it does not provide for any true insights into the lives that kids in college lead. The characters are so uni-dimensional that merely describing them almost gives away the entire plot. Who did not expect the shy guy to make out with the hot chick? Or the too-cool-for-school kid to get an awesome break? Chetan Bhagat should hope his powerpoint presentations at work offer more insight that this novel.
Hi Manish,
I was in India last month and bought this book from a Street Vendor in Cochin for the princely sum of Rs. 90/-; haven’t read it yet though. Does this sort of thing happen in Bombay as well? He even sold me The Inheritance of Loss!
“oh darling..yeh hai India”
Yes, this happens in every Indian city. There are special markets for book (book-bazaars) where you can lay your hands on every latest book (mostly illegal paperback copies). Once I bought Godfather from a street vendor in Bombay, read it on my train journey from Bombay to Delhi and then dropped it to another vendor on the Delhi railway station (exchanged it for a weekly “India Today” magazine) :)
And you thought that only gujjus are cheap :)
That is the truth, but not the entire truth. The book has certainly hit a nerve. The working-at-BPOs crowd loved the book: there are Chetan Bhagat fan clubs out there.
Personally I think it is trash, and the debut was no better. But there certainly is a market for frustrated-nerd-lit in India, so long as you don’t have any literary pretensions.
My cousin in college recommended it to my mom, and she brought it to the US on her latest India trip. It had an enticing cover, and that was it. Absolute garbage. Gave it to my IIT uncle, maybe he’ll like it more.