Not even done with the book yet, unfortunately... but it was good. ( )

A paired look at Rohinton Mistry Tales from Firozsha Baag and Michael Chabon Werewolves in Their Youth.

I chanced upon these back to back, both short story collections, both by writers in their working youth – Mistry’s first book and an early one for Chabon. Both as much as anything nostalgic, bittersweet recollections of childhood, the middle class childhoods of their own existences.

Chabon: laugh out loud funny – you know…so that it gets almost irritating for those who are suffering through your pleasure. They start sounding snarky when they say they must read it too. The guy’s brilliant, this collection is splendid.

Mistry: the blurb says ‘extremely funny’. But the only good thing about the shit of his world – and I mean that literally, the shit on the street, the upstairs lavatory that leaks onto your head as you sit on the toilet, the filth, the water supply turned off at 6am because the city is without again, the monsoonal water running down the inside of your house – the good thing about it is that this is all happening to middle class educated people, the same ones who, had they lived in Chabon’s childhood, would have been clean and without want. This life he writes of is the relatively privileged existence one can have in India, that’s what I mean by ‘good’. I mean, there is a worse life. I couldn’t imagine anything less hilarious. I could not imagine anything, if it comes to that, less ‘compassionate’ – another promise of the blurb. I don’t know that Mistry is ever the victim of that sentiment, but certainly not in this book.

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/chabon-and-mistry-short-s... ( )

A paired look at Rohinton Mistry Tales from Firozsha Baag and Michael Chabon Werewolves in Their Youth.

I chanced upon these back to back, both short story collections, both by writers in their working youth – Mistry’s first book and an early one for Chabon. Both as much as anything nostalgic, bittersweet recollections of childhood, the middle class childhoods of their own existences.

Chabon: laugh out loud funny – you know…so that it gets almost irritating for those who are suffering through your pleasure. They start sounding snarky when they say they must read it too. The guy’s brilliant, this collection is splendid.

Mistry: the blurb says ‘extremely funny’. But the only good thing about the shit of his world – and I mean that literally, the shit on the street, the upstairs lavatory that leaks onto your head as you sit on the toilet, the filth, the water supply turned off at 6am because the city is without again, the monsoonal water running down the inside of your house – the good thing about it is that this is all happening to middle class educated people, the same ones who, had they lived in Chabon’s childhood, would have been clean and without want. This life he writes of is the relatively privileged existence one can have in India, that’s what I mean by ‘good’. I mean, there is a worse life. I couldn’t imagine anything less hilarious. I could not imagine anything, if it comes to that, less ‘compassionate’ – another promise of the blurb. I don’t know that Mistry is ever the victim of that sentiment, but certainly not in this book.

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/chabon-and-mistry-short-s... ( )

Mooi gecomponeerde verhalen over de bewoners van een flat in Bombay. De eerste twee verhalen lijken nog wat vlak maar naarmate je verder kennismaakt met de inwoners worden de verhalen steeds beter. The Collectors is een juweeltje, Exercisers een complex verhaal over de ontluikende seksualiteit van een jongen uit de flat. Een belangrijk thema is dat van de emigratie (naar Amerika en Canada) en de vervreemding in het nieuwe land maar vooral ook (bij terugkeer) van het moederland die dat met zich meebrengt. Andere thema's zijn armoede, geloof (de meeste bewoners zijn Parsi), standsverschillen, seksualiteit, ouderdom: allemaal prachtig, onnadrukkelijk verweven in dit mooie mozaïek. ( )

Short stories of Bombay by ex-resident now living in Toronto. This guy can write!
Read in Samoa Sept 2002 ( )