Cowboys And Indian Writers

John Updike may have decried digital publishing, but Vikram Chandra (around whose Sacred Games the buzz continues to grow) is a tad more, well, dialectical. He says: "I think circling-the-wagons and defending- the-fortress metaphors are a little misplaced. The barbarians at the gate are usually willing to negotiate a little, and the guys in the fort usually end up yelling that 'we are the only good things in the world, and you guys don't understand it,' at which point the barbarians shrug, knock down your walls with their amazingly powerful weapons and put a parking lot over your sacred grounds."