These two Ernest Hemingway stories should ideally be read together as they are linked by storyline (the end of a relationship) and major themes (change, friendship and moving on). The lumber town of Hortons Bay has died and its people have left because all the old-growth trees have been cut down. Like the townspeople, Nick Adams is planning a new beginning. He has decided to break up with girlfriend Marjorie, telling her “it isn’t fun anymore”. We learn the reason in the second story, which introduces additional themes of class and/or racial prejudice, selfishness, mateship and regret. More…
Good Advice is Rarer than Rubies
This story by Salman Rushdie satirises several aspects of life in post-colonial Pakistan. When an attractive woman steps off a bus outside a British Consulate for a visa interview, wily “advice expert” Muhammad Ali sees her as any easy mark. However when they meet, he is so struck by her beauty that he offers to help for free. Muhammad is confused when the woman rejects his assistance, attends the interview, and comes back into the street very happy, having failed to get her visa. Themes: power, emigration, deception, tradition (women’s subservience, arranged marriages) and change (women’s growing independence and freedom). More…
Poovan Pazham
Sometimes famous stories of the past, like this one by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, solve problems in ways that would not be acceptable today. A mismatched couple (an uneducated “town rowdy” and university-educated, “fashionable lady”) begin their marriage at odds with one another. Frustrated by trying to change her husband into her idea of a gentleman, the haughty wife is constantly nagging and ill-tempered. The man calmly puts up with this until a quest to find poovan pazham (dessert bananas) proves too much. Themes include non-traditional marriage, social expectations vs. personal freedom, marital quest, gratitude, “education”, guilt, love, nostalgia. More…
Secret Worship
In this story by Algernon Blackwood, a man makes a spur of the moment decision to visit his old boarding school in a remote German village. Although life and discipline inside the fortress-like school operated by a devout Protestant brotherhood was strict, he recalls his time there fondly. When he arrives, everything appears unchanged and he is welcomed with open arms. However, leaving is not so easy… the not-so-devout brotherhood was a cover for a satanic cult which now has eyes on his soul! Themes include nostalgia, isolation, appearances vs. reality, satanism, human sacrifice, chance, the supernatural. More…
The Ring
In this coming of age story by Isak Dinesen (aka Karen Blixen), a recently married nineteen-year-old woman from a wealthy family is confronted by violence for the first time. Having led a sheltered life, the woman has an innocent, child-like view of the world, and in particular her husband’s commitment to improving their farm. Her married bliss is shattered by a chance encounter with a man covered in blood who is on the run for theft and murder. The triggers a re-evaluation of her naïve views on life and marriage. Themes: loss of innocence, responsibility, sexuality, violence, identity/self-awareness, consciousness. More…