Video
Stories
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A tinted review in adult Forecasts indicates a book that's of exceptional importance to our readers, but that hasn't received a starred or boxed review.VIDEO: StoriesMeera Nair. Pantheon, (224p) In her witty, imaginative debut story collection, Nair dramatizes short, intense episodes in the lives of Indians at home and in America, baring their ambitions and frustrations in vivid prose, with a simplicity informed by psychological wisdom. In "The Curry Leaf Tree," a young man gifted with a sense of smell that enables him to discern the ingredients of any dish loses his gift in his teens and regains it years later, shortly after his arranged marriage takes place. He is thrilled by this new development, but his ill-tempered new wife finds his obsession with food irritating and resists his attempts to instruct her in the fine art of cooking. In "The Sculptor of Sands," a young sculptor makes artistic strides after finding the body of a woman buried in the sand on a beach near his home; his final project in a daring series transforms violent death into breathtaking beauty. Violence is closer to the surface in "Summer," in which a young girl acting the part of a princess in a family play can no longer act her part after the boy-cousin who plays the prince sexually molests her. The title story describes the marital havoc following a previously sexually repressed man's thrilling introduction to porn. Tragic irony is brought home with unassuming seriousness in such stories as "A Warm Welcome to the President, Insh'Allah!" in which a small Indian town prepares (unnecessarily, as it happens) for a visit from its hero, President Clinton. Throughout, Nair's ear for dialogue is spot-on, and varying degrees of rage, exhilaration or confusion are crisply expressed. Her characters' cries of angst can sometimes seem familiar, but all 10 of these stories are winningly and smartly executed.
