madelyn91's review against another edition
3.0
Bizarre and haunting collection of short stories. I enjoy what I read but I feel it wasn’t a memorable read. I loved The Infamous Bengal Ming story, it was sad and heartbreaking. It made me really think how the animals in captivity see the world around them. It also reminded me of an Aimee Bender short story.
I would recommend this book to someone who enjoys speculative fiction that is thought-provoking and a little nonsensical. Rajesh Parameswaran is now on my radar.
I would recommend this book to someone who enjoys speculative fiction that is thought-provoking and a little nonsensical. Rajesh Parameswaran is now on my radar.
ronanmcd's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I loved the inventiveness, humour and tension of the first 2/3 of the book. Then I ran into a wall with a story told in footnotes, and a sci-fi kind of thing. Both of those left me cold. But up until then the stories were razor sharp and brilliant.
mayormccheese's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
btmarino84's review against another edition
4.0
Excellent debut. The author is clearly drunk on the power of words. I really enjoyed the variety of style of short story in the book. They are all clearly of the same author but they all felt wonderfully different (though, as you can tell from the title, they all involve various types of love). One story was basically a standard drama, a slightly oddly written one but one nonetheless. Others were narrated by Elephants, tigers, had insane footnotes, took place on an insect planet in the future or involved some Borgesian playing with narrative. Very funny and sad.
luckydayyy's review against another edition
4.0
I am not generally a fan of short-stories but I did enjoy this collection (the title and cover of this one lured me in and good thing, too!). I really enjoyed most of these dark and tragic tales, although some in the middle lagged at times. A youthful Indian voice resembling Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl; gruesome, yet satisfying.
rebeccafromflorida's review against another edition
3.0
I don’t usually pick up books of short stories, but since I like to be a somewhat well-rounded reader, this Barnes and Nobles Discover New Writers summer 2012 pick appealed to me. “I am an Executioner: Love Stories” by Rajesh Parameswaran (say that name 3 times fast!) had a title that was intriguing, considering executioners kill people.
I started to summarize each short story, and then got a little bored of that tactic, but here are a few below:
The Infamous Bengal Ming: Told from the point of view of a tiger, Ming is so in love with his trainer that he accidentally mauls and kills him. He proceeds on his journey with all good intentions, only to continue to cause chaos. This is my FAVORITE story because of Ming’s struggle between domestication and natural wild instincts.
The Strange Career of Dr. Raju Gopalarajan: This one confused me, although the author won an award for it. A man is fired from CompUSA, and decides to impersonate a doctor, only to, of course, not to so well. That part I understood, but the ending left me a little stumped.
Four Rajeshes: This is a story about a homosexual man who gives love in harsh ways (love accompanied by painful swats for whatever he feels like). One day, a man enters his life, bothers him immensely with his strange-looking writing, and disappears from his life, only to permeate his mind.
On the Banks of the Table River: What a cool story! Told from the alien’s perspective from the planet Lucina, these “insects” try to adapt to living on a planet where humans enjoy visiting. At the same time, it seems that a native child, Nippima, might have gotten herself into a little bit of trouble. Loved this story!
I also really enjoyed the title story, I am an Executioner. It was such an interesting take on a love story, and not what I was expecting!
Elephants in Captivity (Part One) was really painful for me to read. It’s super short but has ridiculously long footnotes that made it really confusing and unappealing. I didn’t even want to be not-confused with that story. If you pick up this book, I’d say that chapter is a skip!
All in all, the book was half enjoyable. I really did like some of the stories, especially the ones I could understand! However, some were confusing and made me feel like I wasn’t smart enough to “get” the message.
Barnes and Nobles Discover New Writers loved it, and the author has won awards for some of his short stories. I’m mixed on this. If you’re in for a challenge, and to enjoy some of the stories and maybe not others, go ahead and pick it up.
Have you read any AMAZING short stories?
Thanks for reading,
Rebecca @ Love at First Book
I started to summarize each short story, and then got a little bored of that tactic, but here are a few below:
The Infamous Bengal Ming: Told from the point of view of a tiger, Ming is so in love with his trainer that he accidentally mauls and kills him. He proceeds on his journey with all good intentions, only to continue to cause chaos. This is my FAVORITE story because of Ming’s struggle between domestication and natural wild instincts.
The Strange Career of Dr. Raju Gopalarajan: This one confused me, although the author won an award for it. A man is fired from CompUSA, and decides to impersonate a doctor, only to, of course, not to so well. That part I understood, but the ending left me a little stumped.
Four Rajeshes: This is a story about a homosexual man who gives love in harsh ways (love accompanied by painful swats for whatever he feels like). One day, a man enters his life, bothers him immensely with his strange-looking writing, and disappears from his life, only to permeate his mind.
On the Banks of the Table River: What a cool story! Told from the alien’s perspective from the planet Lucina, these “insects” try to adapt to living on a planet where humans enjoy visiting. At the same time, it seems that a native child, Nippima, might have gotten herself into a little bit of trouble. Loved this story!
I also really enjoyed the title story, I am an Executioner. It was such an interesting take on a love story, and not what I was expecting!
Elephants in Captivity (Part One) was really painful for me to read. It’s super short but has ridiculously long footnotes that made it really confusing and unappealing. I didn’t even want to be not-confused with that story. If you pick up this book, I’d say that chapter is a skip!
All in all, the book was half enjoyable. I really did like some of the stories, especially the ones I could understand! However, some were confusing and made me feel like I wasn’t smart enough to “get” the message.
Barnes and Nobles Discover New Writers loved it, and the author has won awards for some of his short stories. I’m mixed on this. If you’re in for a challenge, and to enjoy some of the stories and maybe not others, go ahead and pick it up.
Have you read any AMAZING short stories?
Thanks for reading,
Rebecca @ Love at First Book
evilnudemonkey's review against another edition
1.0
Oh book, you were a waste of my time and ultimately trees. The only positive thing I can say of this book is: it was a compilation of words.
tbr_the_unconquered's review against another edition
3.0
Short stories have become very attractive to me of late. This has partly to do with the amount of time I spend reading Malayalam literature these days ( it is indeed sad that most of those books aren't featured here on GR). It was on browsing through Amazon's top reads of 2012 that I came across this book and on seeing it at my library, grabbed it without a second thought. Now that I am done with all nine of the tales in the book, it was an average one.
The foremost thing about this book is that there are no great shakes here. The stories do not proclaim themselves to be path breakers or innovative in any fashion. They come before the theater of your mind, perform their roles and receive your modest applause before retreating to the green room. The stories are told by animals, photographs, guilty wives and they are set in the past, present and the future. The author's prose is delightful in the fact that there is zero fat in them. It is functional and serve to guide you the reader in the right ways. My personal favorite from this collection was The infamous Bengal Ming . It was merely a matter of pure coincidence that I wanted to read a story from an animal's POV and I came across this one.
Not too much to write for it did not light in me the fire to write oodles about it. Worth a one time read.
The foremost thing about this book is that there are no great shakes here. The stories do not proclaim themselves to be path breakers or innovative in any fashion. They come before the theater of your mind, perform their roles and receive your modest applause before retreating to the green room. The stories are told by animals, photographs, guilty wives and they are set in the past, present and the future. The author's prose is delightful in the fact that there is zero fat in them. It is functional and serve to guide you the reader in the right ways. My personal favorite from this collection was The infamous Bengal Ming . It was merely a matter of pure coincidence that I wanted to read a story from an animal's POV and I came across this one.
Not too much to write for it did not light in me the fire to write oodles about it. Worth a one time read.
beththebookdragon's review against another edition
3.0
Very well written with a quiet sort of humor, but there's a thread of unhappiness or mean-spiritedness--definitely a negative attitude toward life--running through them that turns me off. Others may enjoy the stories for the above-mentioned gifts with words and humor, as well as the author's skill with narration and setting.
rickijill's review against another edition
5.0
First of all, don't be fooled by the title; "Love Stories" is a stretch in most cases. I'm so happy that this book was included in the capsule because I don't think I would have read it otherwise even though it was a Washington Post Book of the Year. There are nine stories in the collection, and I loved all of them but one. That's high praise for a short story collection, and the one story I didn't care for was about an elephant writing her autobiography, and there are COPIOUS footnotes written by....I couldn't quite figure out who wrote them because I found it too tedious to read!
Next, I'll focus on my favorite stories. In "The Infamous Bengal Ming," a tiger truly loves his zoo handler, but sadly he mauls him. He didn't mean it, honestly! And that was the beginning of a series of mishaps and misunderstandings.
In "Demons," a woman believes that a careless whisper wishing her husband wasn't there was overheard by the asura ganas, or small demons in the air all around us. These beings say "Ashtu, ashtu" at random times, and if they say it simultaneously to a person thinking or saying something, then it happens. The woman's husband dies shortly after she wishes him gone on Thanksgiving, and when she goes to a brown Thanksgiving party no one really listens when she tells them her husband is dead on their living room floor. (I'm not being racist when I say brown party. My Indian friend calls them that.)
The third story I'll mention is sort of a satirical sci-fi, postcolonialism story entitled "On the Banks of the Table River (Planet Lucina, Andromeda Galaxy, AD 2319)". It's about a humanoid insect planet that has been colonized by Earth for its natural resources. The main character is an undertaker, and he has a rebellious daughter.
Please understand that I can't do this book justice. You're going to read my review and think I'm a crazy loon, but trust me, Parameswaran can write! This book was first published in 2012, and I read somewhere that he's currently working on a novel.
Next, I'll focus on my favorite stories. In "The Infamous Bengal Ming," a tiger truly loves his zoo handler, but sadly he mauls him. He didn't mean it, honestly! And that was the beginning of a series of mishaps and misunderstandings.
In "Demons," a woman believes that a careless whisper wishing her husband wasn't there was overheard by the asura ganas, or small demons in the air all around us. These beings say "Ashtu, ashtu" at random times, and if they say it simultaneously to a person thinking or saying something, then it happens. The woman's husband dies shortly after she wishes him gone on Thanksgiving, and when she goes to a brown Thanksgiving party no one really listens when she tells them her husband is dead on their living room floor. (I'm not being racist when I say brown party. My Indian friend calls them that.)
The third story I'll mention is sort of a satirical sci-fi, postcolonialism story entitled "On the Banks of the Table River (Planet Lucina, Andromeda Galaxy, AD 2319)". It's about a humanoid insect planet that has been colonized by Earth for its natural resources. The main character is an undertaker, and he has a rebellious daughter.
Please understand that I can't do this book justice. You're going to read my review and think I'm a crazy loon, but trust me, Parameswaran can write! This book was first published in 2012, and I read somewhere that he's currently working on a novel.