Short Story vs. Novel
I know many readers prefer a novel because it allows them to enter into an author's world and vision more deeply and experience the story for a longer time. It may seem that a short story just gets started when it's over, and the reader must begin again with other characters. And generally, I share this desire for what one might describe as a completely realized experience, and understand the perception that a short story may be simply a warm-up exercise for the story-teller to try out a possible subject for a novel. However, with the guidance of , I have discovered a different perspective.
Ms. Lahiri likely needs no introduction. Her debut collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the year it was published, a rare honor. And she followed this with a beautifully sensitive and nuanced novel, The Namesake,... which last year was interpreted into a similarly accomplished film by renowned director Mira Nair, bringing still more attention to Ms. Lahiri's writing. Now on April 1st, her long-awaited second collection of short stories has arrived - .
My own bias now is quite frankly to favor her stories. Her writing style - so accessible, so descriptive and detailed - is particularly well-adapted to the distillation of mood and characters into a short, memorable moment that this medium entails. A story allows a writer to focus on - and a reader to remember - clear details that linger long after you have set down the book. As when visiting a museum, and lingering over a particularly well-realized painting, it is possible to appreciate elegantly chosen strokes and simplicity of expression, there is a similar effect to her writing, and so I was and am particularly excited to review her new collection.
There are clear differences between her first book, and this one. In Interpreter of Maladies, her characters explored their ability to integrate more or less successfully into a society that had expectations of them, and to come to terms with the expectations and contradictions they discovered in themselves. The mood was youthful and vital, slightly irreverent. In contrast, it seems that the central characters in the new collection have matured - in both concerns and personal choices. They are more weighted down by the expectations that the younger set may have tossed away more frivolously.
Initially, I missed the earlier style and resisted her more recent subject matter. She is about my age and has a personal background educationally and socially similar to me and my friends and peers. In her personal life, she has married, is raising children of her own, and now creeping irresistibly into her writing, we see the middle-aged subjects of family responsibility to both aging parents and young children and the accompanying expectations. Isn't this ground that has been covered before?
As I continued reading, it became clear that in spite of these ordinary circumstances, she retains the richness I previously associated with her writing. The characters themselves are aware of the choices they have made and of the youthfulness and impetuousness that are no longer as much a part of their lives. As they think about their past selves and reflect on where they currently are, complex palettes of emotions are revealed - loss, longing, the pressure of social obligations, and a counter-balancing determination to make the most of where they are now. Once in awhile, they are able to rest in a fleeting effortlessness of being and self-acceptance. It is this slowly developing awareness in each of them and of the reader in understanding them that makes each story and the collection as a whole so worthwhile.
I'm going to conclude by stating the obvious, that while Ms. Lahiri and many of her characters have a heritage that may be different from yours, the experiences she describes are shared by all humans maturing into the webs of responsibilities of family, friends, and intimate relationships. Once again her writing is a gift.
(Alfred A. Knopf/Random House, 0307265730, $25.00) is a Buyer's Choice selection so by buying from Olsson's you will save 20% on the cover price.
- Andrew
Ms. Lahiri likely needs no introduction. Her debut collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the year it was published, a rare honor. And she followed this with a beautifully sensitive and nuanced novel, The Namesake,... which last year was interpreted into a similarly accomplished film by renowned director Mira Nair, bringing still more attention to Ms. Lahiri's writing. Now on April 1st, her long-awaited second collection of short stories has arrived - .
My own bias now is quite frankly to favor her stories. Her writing style - so accessible, so descriptive and detailed - is particularly well-adapted to the distillation of mood and characters into a short, memorable moment that this medium entails. A story allows a writer to focus on - and a reader to remember - clear details that linger long after you have set down the book. As when visiting a museum, and lingering over a particularly well-realized painting, it is possible to appreciate elegantly chosen strokes and simplicity of expression, there is a similar effect to her writing, and so I was and am particularly excited to review her new collection.
There are clear differences between her first book, and this one. In Interpreter of Maladies, her characters explored their ability to integrate more or less successfully into a society that had expectations of them, and to come to terms with the expectations and contradictions they discovered in themselves. The mood was youthful and vital, slightly irreverent. In contrast, it seems that the central characters in the new collection have matured - in both concerns and personal choices. They are more weighted down by the expectations that the younger set may have tossed away more frivolously.
Initially, I missed the earlier style and resisted her more recent subject matter. She is about my age and has a personal background educationally and socially similar to me and my friends and peers. In her personal life, she has married, is raising children of her own, and now creeping irresistibly into her writing, we see the middle-aged subjects of family responsibility to both aging parents and young children and the accompanying expectations. Isn't this ground that has been covered before?
As I continued reading, it became clear that in spite of these ordinary circumstances, she retains the richness I previously associated with her writing. The characters themselves are aware of the choices they have made and of the youthfulness and impetuousness that are no longer as much a part of their lives. As they think about their past selves and reflect on where they currently are, complex palettes of emotions are revealed - loss, longing, the pressure of social obligations, and a counter-balancing determination to make the most of where they are now. Once in awhile, they are able to rest in a fleeting effortlessness of being and self-acceptance. It is this slowly developing awareness in each of them and of the reader in understanding them that makes each story and the collection as a whole so worthwhile.
I'm going to conclude by stating the obvious, that while Ms. Lahiri and many of her characters have a heritage that may be different from yours, the experiences she describes are shared by all humans maturing into the webs of responsibilities of family, friends, and intimate relationships. Once again her writing is a gift.
(Alfred A. Knopf/Random House, 0307265730, $25.00) is a Buyer's Choice selection so by buying from Olsson's you will save 20% on the cover price.
- Andrew
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