Sunday, February 01, 2009

Strange worlds

I’ve earlier mentioned about my liking for fiction. But, in fiction too, I have a particular liking for short stories, which I probably haven’t mentioned earlier. Anyway, what I’m getting at is: these days my readings are usually so novel-centric that short stories do not get as much attention, although it was short stories that attracted me to books in the first place. In fact, not just stories in books, I also grew up listening to stories narrated by my grandmother. So, the taste of stories actually built up even before I picked up a book.

My earlier reading of short stories revolved around simple narratives, where something always happened, someone died or lived happily ever after, someone got punished or rewarded. They were linear, straightforward, and easy to read. I devoured them. Those were days of simple unbridled joys.

Then came the discoveries of other short stories – more experimental – not necessarily concerned with time span, more with the inner workings of the characters. And sometimes, the characters behaved in a manner so uncouth and unbecoming (so I thought back then) that I was startled to no end. In these stories, people behaved in manners not deemed proper, there were no happy endings; well, sometimes no endings at all. And not to mention, sometimes, the stories touched on themes that were probably not meant for young readers like me. But, I read them anyway, with palpitating heart and a strange awakening of something inside that was all hazy yet attractive. I was lucky in a way that nobody monitored what I read. Those were the days of strange discoveries, unknown fears and joys. And, probably, those days are still not over, never will. I'm still discovering stranger worlds.

Anyway, the reason I blabbered all these is because I had been reading Haruki Murakami’s excellent collection of short stories Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (link to a review of the book), which is full of strange, elliptical, and yet delightful stories. Many a times, after reading a story from the book, I throw the book aside, come out to the balcony, stare outside and wonder who these people in the stories may be.

Well, I guess I shouldn't wonder. I would probably appear as strange if someone writes a story about me. Or, about anyone else for that matter.

4 comments:

Trinath Gaduparthi said...

With age I think we become more and more non-linear and hence the stories we read are also non-linear.
Are you missing the simple tales with happy endings? Or it is only a melancholic setting interest you just like a dark chocolate?

Unknown said...

Well, I guess, I might also be one of them, something like 'God's lonely man' :-)
Anyway, I am kidding, but you carry on, this one was wonderful

Anonymous said...

Reading short stories with happy ending is a real pleasure. But the pleasure that grandmother's stories gave was divine, unmatchable. May be because that used to be our life's first exposure to fantasies. I still remember me and all my cousins being sitting around her, listening to her stories and she making us all eat our food.
Parul

G Shrivastava said...

But don't you think it's the strangeness of the characters and stories that draws us to them? Why would you want to read the banal? It's our strangeness that makes us interesting after all and I'm sure you'd make a very interesting central characters in a short story (or novel for that matter!)...