Video: Stories - Hardcover
The ten exquisitely crafted stories in Video introduce a gifted new writer whose straight-forward, elegant prose and bewitching storytelling talent combine in brilliant miniatures of contemporary Indian life.
In the title story, an Indian man’s chance exposure to a Western-style porn film affects not only his marriage—his wife hides for hours, then days, then weeks at a time from his renewed desire—but also his neighborhood, as traditional notions of marriage, intimacy, and propriety confront the unspeakable, and the tacitly alluring. In “The Sculptor of Sands,” a superbly imagined mystical tale with the depth and resonance of legend, a slight young man’s sensuous sand sculptures transfix a seaside community and, despite their evanescence, leave an indelible impression on the women of the town. In “My Grandfather Dreams of Fences,” an aging landlord, convinced that his worker is stealing his land, desperately clings to the vestiges of a rigid class system, erecting fences with fervor while his dignity falls into disrepair. And in “The Lodger in Room 726,” a boy who daily brings breakfast to the new tenant in a rooming house unleashes a cascade of emotions previously unknown to him when he pursues his fantasy that the man is a well-known murderer on the lam.
An astonishing debut, written with a wry intelligence and an irresistible blend of humor, wit, and pathos, Video masterfully evokes traditional Indian culture as it confronts the onrush of change. In subtle gestures and keenly ob-served details, Meera Nair reveals an entire world of gleaming particularity and transcendent emotional power.
In the title story, an Indian man’s chance exposure to a Western-style porn film affects not only his marriage—his wife hides for hours, then days, then weeks at a time from his renewed desire—but also his neighborhood, as traditional notions of marriage, intimacy, and propriety confront the unspeakable, and the tacitly alluring. In “The Sculptor of Sands,” a superbly imagined mystical tale with the depth and resonance of legend, a slight young man’s sensuous sand sculptures transfix a seaside community and, despite their evanescence, leave an indelible impression on the women of the town. In “My Grandfather Dreams of Fences,” an aging landlord, convinced that his worker is stealing his land, desperately clings to the vestiges of a rigid class system, erecting fences with fervor while his dignity falls into disrepair. And in “The Lodger in Room 726,” a boy who daily brings breakfast to the new tenant in a rooming house unleashes a cascade of emotions previously unknown to him when he pursues his fantasy that the man is a well-known murderer on the lam.
An astonishing debut, written with a wry intelligence and an irresistible blend of humor, wit, and pathos, Video masterfully evokes traditional Indian culture as it confronts the onrush of change. In subtle gestures and keenly ob-served details, Meera Nair reveals an entire world of gleaming particularity and transcendent emotional power.
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Review:
Although 9 of the 10 stories in this debut collection are set in the author's native India, it is Meera Nair's great achievement that all the characters in Video are as recognizable as next-door neighbors. From the hilariously impatient villagers in Bangladesh waiting for a visit from Bill Clinton in "A Warm Welcome to the President, Insh'Allah!" to the nasally gifted computer programmer who hails from Mangalore in "The Curry Leaf Tree," we feel we know these people. Even the ambiguous ménage at a colonial resort in "A Certain Sense of Place" and the obnoxious yet bewildered husband from "Vishnukumar's Valentine's Day" are so finely drawn that we understand them. Family life with this extended cast of characters from Video is lovingly and humorously depicted, from the children's squabbles (one brother "hoarded complaints like sweets") to the family's favorite TV programs (the kids like Baywatch; the aged grandmother watches Understanding the Koran). The title story, in which a married man asks his wife to duplicate a sexual act he glimpsed in a pornographic video (and thus sets off a domestic uproar), is the collection's real standout. With this debut collection of short stories, a wonderful new writer is born. --Susan Biskeborn
From the Back Cover:
"These stories are stunning: sensuous and touching and beautifully crafted. Deeply varied, and full of human understanding, they not only give us the sound and feel of South Asia today (without ever resorting to exoticism); they also suggest, subtly and movingly, how easily longing can be awakened, as the world begins to shift around us. I've never met Meera Nair, but I feel I'll be listening to her for a very long time to come."
–Pico Iyer
“An ambitious collection of stories, diverse in style and broad in scope. With glimmering prose and telling details, Meera Nair reveals the dynamics and intricacy of human relationships affected by deep-rooted customs and overriding forces. These stories present a singular world whose terrain is close to our existence.”
—Ha Jin, author of Waiting
“These subtly imagined stories convey some of the hopes, excitement, vulgarity, and sadness of a fast-changing world. With their empathetic understanding of individual dilemmas, they are part of a new kind of literary reckoning with contemporary India.”
—Pankaj Mishra, author of The Romantics
–Pico Iyer
“An ambitious collection of stories, diverse in style and broad in scope. With glimmering prose and telling details, Meera Nair reveals the dynamics and intricacy of human relationships affected by deep-rooted customs and overriding forces. These stories present a singular world whose terrain is close to our existence.”
—Ha Jin, author of Waiting
“These subtly imagined stories convey some of the hopes, excitement, vulgarity, and sadness of a fast-changing world. With their empathetic understanding of individual dilemmas, they are part of a new kind of literary reckoning with contemporary India.”
—Pankaj Mishra, author of The Romantics
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- PublisherPantheon
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 0375421114
- ISBN 13 9780375421112
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages208
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