Loud

Vikram Chandra, whose 1,000-page novel, “Sacred Games,” will be published next January, said he saw sees no point in resisting technology. “I think circling-the-wagons and defending- the-fortress metaphors are a little misplaced,” he said. “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.” “If they are in a really good mood,” he added, “they put up a pyramid of skulls.