Selected Short Stories (Oxford India Paperbacks) (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
I highly recommend to anyone who has not yet read Tagore to read his short stories. I am not even sure that the one here is the same collection of short stories I read--I read the ones that he wrote in 1898 or so. They are way ahead of their time in some of the insights and ideas, and yet also so reflective of the time and place--a time and place where it's normal to marry your daughter off by 8 or 9, and she is quite old for marriage by her teenage years, a time when the British still had colonial power in India. I haven't read a lot of older fiction since I was a teen, so it is a treat to read Tagore, but he is so much more thoughtful than most of the older continental European authors I used to read.Tagore communicates culture, landscape, language to me--someone who has never been to Bengal, or India--very powerfully, and I can only presume accurately and with its complexity. Tagore writes from a man's perspective, for the most part, and lacks certain insight into women, and yet the last story in the collection, narrated by a woman, is incredibly powerful. And his stories that center around some way in which a woman is oppressed by her husband, etc. are very compelling, as are his depictions of power and subservience, money and exploitation, in-law relationships, and the land and the water. I kept wondering, as I read his stories, "Why had I not begun reading Tagore earlier?" That said, he also clearly belongs to the class (rich) and gender that he comes from, and there are, of course, limitations to the kinds of voices he can deeply convey. But he does seem to work with curiosity, insight and compassion to tell a rich variety of stories. You will be transported to Bengal in the late 19th century with little effort on your part. He wraps you in. I also really liked how short most of the stories are--good for bedtime.
"Small lives, humble distress, Tales of humdrum grief and pain", November 23, 2014This review is from: Selected Short Stories (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)Containing thirty very short stories, often only about six pages long, yet for all their brevity the author completely wraps you up in the world and the events.Set in and around the River Padma (near Calcutta) in the late 19th century, Tagore writes of the ordinary people: deaths and marriages, children, poverty, the rich, the mean, the avaricious... Plus a couple with a ghostly touch. It's an era where women are definitely second-class-citizens; especially if they fall ill, when their husbands may well seek another wife; where the Hindus live alongside a Moslem population and the English governors....and where the river is a constant backdrop with its luxory houseboats and its monsoon flooding.The collection includes a poem, 'Passing Time in the Rain' (from which I have taken title of this review) and a selection of letters written by Tagore. Also a comprehensive glossary of Hindu terms encountered, a family-tree of family and map of Padma River area.Masterly storytelling, enhanced by a superb translation.
What do You think about Selected Short Stories (Oxford India Paperbacks) (2002)?
Tagore - the father of Indian modern literature - came from a very wealthy Indian family. he is poet,short story writer, painter and essayist.let's take a look: I found a big difficulty with the names and how to pronounce it ^_^ like Cabuliwallah, Raicharan, Haralal,....etc.after you read selected short stories - like fast food -, you will feel ,I am still hungry, any way I like Tagore style. the book consists of 11 short story, but I like: the hungry stones, the Cabuliwallah, once there was a king and Subha. No more detailsI prefer you have to start your journey inside Indian literature.
—Rasha El-Ghitani
Short stories are my least favourite genre of literature. That's because so few authors get it right. My favourites include R.K. Narayan, Saki, O'Henry, and Jhumpa Lahiri.After reading this book, I have no hesitation in adding Rabindranath Tagore to the list. I had read The Kabuliwalla nearly a decade ago, and it remains one of my favourite stories of all time. Like many others, I also enjoyed reading The Postmaster, but my personal favourite find was The Return Of The Child. Tagore has a gift for sketching memorable, luminous characters using the limited medium of the short story, and this book is extremely gripping. However, the undertow of melancholy and death in this book is rather depressing.
—Meghana
SELECTED SHORT STORIES. (1991). Rabindranath Tagore. ***1/2.Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a playwright, a prose writer, a writer of songs, a poet, and a painter. He was the basis of the literary movement of Bengal. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. In 1915 he was awarded a knighthood from Great Britain, but returned the award in 1919 in protest against the Amritsar Massacre. Most of his output suffered from poor translations, but Penguin books sponsored a translation of his poetry and of these short stories by William Radice. They have since become the benchmarks of our time. Tagore’s short stories are mostly fables based on the everyday life of people from Bengal. They tend to be simply written and concerned with the basic emotions of life. They are mostly short in length, but with a powerful impact. The writing reminds me of that of Knut Hamsun in “Growth of the Soil.” In addition to all of his other works, Tagore was also a song writer, as mentioned above. It is interesting that two of his songs were later made into the national anthems for Bengal and for India. This volume is a good introduction to Tagore’s works.
—Tony
