A review by greyemk
A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness by Jai Chakrabarti
4.5
Chakrabarti sits right on top of my favorite themes in literature: the sacrifices we make for family, what happens when we stop making those sacrifices, how we communicate when words fail us, how we keep going past atrocity. And what art does for us in those times.
I didn’t much care for the microstories here (I don’t like very short stories in general), but otherwise this book got better as time went on. I also stopped wishing for nice character arcs or resolutions; the point of these is that sometimes the selfish decision is the only one we feel we have left. I find Chakraborti’s writing beautiful and soothing and it makes me feel in communion with humanity. I was reading some of Tagore’s writing while reading this book and it really enhanced the experience to see his thought reflected back after a hundred years. (I bought the Tagore collection to read Dakghar after loving Chakrabarti’s debut “A Play for the End of the World”, it is merely coincidence that I was reading these two at the same time)
Favorite stories:
The Fortunes of Others (a response to Tagore’s “The Kabuliwallah”)
Mendel’s Wall
Searching For Elijah
The Narrow Bridge
I didn’t much care for the microstories here (I don’t like very short stories in general), but otherwise this book got better as time went on. I also stopped wishing for nice character arcs or resolutions; the point of these is that sometimes the selfish decision is the only one we feel we have left. I find Chakraborti’s writing beautiful and soothing and it makes me feel in communion with humanity. I was reading some of Tagore’s writing while reading this book and it really enhanced the experience to see his thought reflected back after a hundred years. (I bought the Tagore collection to read Dakghar after loving Chakrabarti’s debut “A Play for the End of the World”, it is merely coincidence that I was reading these two at the same time)
Favorite stories:
The Fortunes of Others (a response to Tagore’s “The Kabuliwallah”)
Mendel’s Wall
Searching For Elijah
The Narrow Bridge