MALAYALAM
Author’s selection
K.K. GOPALAKRISHNAN
ENTE PRIYAPPETTA KATHAKAL — Short Stories: Anand; DC Books, DC Kizhakemuri Edam, Good Shepherd Street, Kottayam-686001. Rs. 70.
This is an anthology of 11 stories dear to the author. It comes under the series initiated in 2003 and billed as “Ente Priyapetta Kathakal” by known story- tellers in Malayalam. The selection of the stories are made by the authors themselves.
This book, which represents his stories during 1960-92, clearly unveils Anand’s vision on both language and fiction. Human existence and matters related with it appear as the core issue of all the stories.
The language more often is dragging. The reader gets the feeling whether it is a combination of several prosaic words made into sentences. Some of the paragraphs read like a travelogue composed in a tardy language, with characters appearing in between. Thus occasionally even the lead characters are often deprived of life from the reader’s mind.
Thus except “Bandhanam” (Bondage), written in 1983, which is an exception in conveying the feeling of a short story, none of the stories evoke the feeling normally expected from short stories in the reader’s mind. Instead it disturbs the reader’s conscience. Perhaps this is what Anand expects too. Not a good read for leisure.
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