What to expect from a translated Corporate Billionaire Novel?

Recently I chanced upon a translated novel dealing with corporate politics, while scrolling through my social media account. The initial read was interesting and so I downloaded a ‘free’ app, which asked me to pay up if I wanted to go beyond the ‘free quota’. I found out some websites offering free content, but they were running into thousands of chapters if they completed. That’s a separate story.

         I read a few of them completely, yes, two thousand plus chapters, simply because I wanted to see what happens in the end. The authors’ names are different but there are eerie similarities. For example, the hero always looks astounding in his “clearly defined features.” If the heroine is in her early twenties, whatever she wears helps “to accentuate her curves.” (duh). In case you are unaware of it, the hero has a prominent jaw and a hard chest, hard enough to hurt the delicate heroine if she rammed into him.

         The novel is not about the marriage or re-marriage of the hero and heroine- all the side characters have to get find their love and get married. No wonder then that these novels go on endlessly like the daily serials in Telugu.

         Forget corporate intrigue, the hero has to obey the word of his grandpa, who is the Patriarch and someone like a “Great Dictator”. He weds the heroine perhaps as a ‘time pass’ till his first crush returns from abroad. And once the divorce happens, suddenly he realises that she’s “his type”, even to the extent of going green with envy when he finds her as someone else’s arm candy (that arm could be her brother’s, and our ignorant hero has no idea about her or her family).

         They are names common across novels- I had thought names were proper nouns. I would get frequently confused between a protective elder brother named Grant and his namesake, who’s the personification of guile and cruelty and out to finish off his younger brother. Contrasting, right?

         Then there is a Chloe who’s the heroine in one novel and a nasty grandma in another. In yet another novel, the heroine doesn’t like that character. Factor in Eric, the hero who desperately tries to win back his ex-wife (divorced based on one of the usual excuses) in one novel with the sidekick of the hero in another.

Think about Sasha, the daughter of an underworld don in one, and an heiress who realises the hardships of earning money in another. There’s a Steven, an ill-treating husband in one, and the heroine’s secretary, who dotes on his love, in another. One Bella is a kitten, while another is an omniscient self-confident woman! The more novels one reads, the more the same names crop up, like a possessive Jace in one, and a hardened criminal Jace in the other.

         There are two common places where the hero & heroine bump into each other- a charity auction or a bar. On meeting her there, he completely ignores the scheming woman wanting to be his wife and gets after the heroine, who, incidentally, was his ex-wife (why she chose to be plain when he was his wife is a natural question that would pop up, but that’s because she was living in cognito and wanted him to love her even if she were a pauper! No prizes for guessing that he doesn’t reciprocate it!)

         In case they meet at a bar, there is a sub-location where they are bound to meet- the restroom. The tipsy heroine is accosted by a rogue near the restroom, and though she’s trained in martial arts and could beat the latter to pulp, the hero appears out of nowhere and pours cold water on her attempted practice session.

         Talking of cold, the ‘privileged’ heroine always has someone wrap their coat over her- she doesn’t seem to be having season-sense. This act, if performed by someone other than the hero, would have serious consequences.

         Let’s understand some typical expressions- the lips “curl up” in a smile, tears “well up” in the eyes, the knees “give in” in an emotional situation, the eyes are “rolled” to denote disdain, and so on. The women “curve into balls like frightened chickens,” what with so much of intrigue happening all around!

         Coming to typical & atypical behaviours, the step mother is sometimes kind or sometimes unkind. In a normal distribution, steps sisters are generally nasty and scheming. Since all of them are after money, some of them would have caused (or tried to cause) the death of the loved one.

         Sometimes the homewrecker comes in disguise, pretending to be a “good ex,” and smartly creates rift-after-rift between the hero and heroine. In come cases, this wolf in sheep’s clothing could even hire goons to bump the heroine off!

         The geriatrics- grandpas and grandmas are loving and domineering, but one left-end outlier plans the death of her golden goose of a child- all for the sake of the money. While the men support the heroine, the women- grandma or mother-in-law prefer the homewrecker to the legitimate spouse of their scion.  

         There seems to be a three-year itch in these novels, the divorce happens after that time period- either the heroine is tired of a non-reciprocative marriage, or the hero finds someone better.

         The heroine never takes a pie from her in-laws’ place, except those she brought with her. The fake heart attack of the patriarch does not mend things, unlike in Telugu films, where old hags/patients regularly separate lovers in the name of their “last wish.”

         Regarding social mores, there’s a lot of talk of rule of law, but parallelly, we hear that the law is a plaything in the hands of the rich. We find law-enforcers joining hands with law breakers, so bringing them to book is a tall order (sounds very much like a Telugu film, right?). It seems to be easy, in these novels, to hush up crimes. Workplace romance is perfectly fine, so you can make out these novels are not translated from any Western language. The characters seem to be fond of noodles and pork, among other things, so I opine they originated in East Asia (some similarities are noticed with Crazy Rich Asians, a Hollywood film).

         There is enough justification for the heroic deeds of the protagonist who usually is an ex-commando before looking into the family business; but the heroine is like the hero in Telugu film- one is not sure of what he is capable of until the credits scene. He can fight the goons, run faster than Usain Bolt, do commando-type save operation from a chopper, operate cranes more professionally than the best in the trade and even utilize an earth-mover or JCB to ensure his kith and kin are safe.

         The heroine in these novels can beat the best in the business [by the way, they have a few common businesses to do- jewellery design, hot couture design, art, acting, traditional medicine (R & D, manufacture & distribution)]; she can also be the most sought-after jewellery and fashion designer known by different pseudonyms in different industries and also a miracle doctor, all rolled into one. I hope you get the analogy.

         Relationships are not strong enough, multiple spouses being common amongst the rich men. The home-wrecker matches them by having multiple back-ups for her “professed love.” Plastic surgery seems to be a favourite surgery of the authors (human or AI?), with a lot of women and some men go for it.

         The favourite medical condition to subject children and one youngster is Autism- it manifests just as an inability to speak. The miracle of a heroine comes and waves her magical wand of love -the afflicted kids improve so much so that they are too grown up for their age!

         These “child prodigies" hack systems of their father’s company to punish him for abandoning their mother, can figure out why their parents got separated, hatch plans behind their back to unite them, and so on. The parents keep praising them and the kids proudly accept it, much to my chagrin (since my parents taught me not to get success into my head). The parents leave the five-year-olds at home, all alone, asking them to behave, and they do it, dutifully! It was too much for me to take!

         There is an outlier of a child, who keeps chasing the heroine, addressing her as “Pretty Lady,” and even hoping to get married to her. His father, who’s also trying to date her, considers him a competitor (uff- how ridiculous can it get?) Yet another prodigy forces his mother to divorce his father. When the step-mom doesn’t care for him, his stays on his own with his nanny. When he notices his father trying to win back his mother’s love, the five-year old gives his dad a lecture that can put a philosopher to shame [in Telugu, we address such kids as mudurlu (kids too mature for their age)].

         The Malthusian Theory seems to be in full flow in these novels with multiple births in each confinement and multiple spouses. The fertility rate of the women in the novel could be higher than the global average!

         Just because they are available for free, would you want to read potboilers? Then go ahead. They feel like our very own Indian films.

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