A Smattering of Darkness By Alisha Priti Kirpalani
Alisha Priti Kirpalani lives in Mumbai along with her husband two daughters one cat and over a hundred board games From full length novels to blogging to micro fiction she is known for the elegant language and insightful nature of her emotionally charged writing. She is the author of Ghosts In Our Backyard The Ramsays real life encounters with the supernatural published by HarperCollins Out With Lanterns a genre breaking novel about the discovery of life love and everything in between A Smattering of Darkness a collection of short and shorter twisted tales dealing with the human psyche. She was acknowledged as a top writer in Feminism for her blog on Medium her on cow this is so good The first story alone was enough to have me hooked I read it blubbering shocked at the raw emotion Kirpalani conveyed so well This set of stories has me yearning for from this insanely talented author You must read this book 46 This book is collection of short shorter and shortest stories The author has separated into 3 chapters chapter one has four short stories In this chapter I liked the story of Seven and tick tick tick. 4 He accelerated aiming for maximum impact Then he saw the cat and jammed the brakes The cat saved her nine lives and his one 5 They fought over the colour of the bedroom Neither gave in The colour of dreams of love turned grey Ending before beginning 6 For 50 years he has been eating her gooseberry muffins He hates them but he loves her They don t even taste sour now. 7 Show me you love me she would constantly moan He spent a life time trying but she only realised it once he was gone The book A Smattering of Darkness most of the tales lives up to the title The book has 40 pages and can be read in one sitting I enjoyed the book 46 The short writings in this collection are openings into the souls of humanity In some stories people are seeking solutions to problems in desperate ways a cancer stricken man desiring time a homeless person looking for comfort an abused wife needing relief etc All are told in raw and exact emotions The book ends with two three line events and descriptions that could be stories within themselves The author s writing skills are excellent and she kept my attention with each tale 46 3. 5True the to blurb this is a novella full of short stories It was an enjoyable albeit short read The writing is good in some parts the imagery is painful and beautiful Though some of the stories could have a little meat to them to make them have impact some of the shorter ones seemed like ideas for stories than actual stories My main complaint is the book cover the author needs to re think it I feel this book would have a much better effect with some dark and beautiful cover art There are trigger warnings for cancer domestic violence suicide and infidelity These stories are not happy ones Though a few are as the synopsis says cheeky and mysterious. My favorite story was The Fable of Fallibility I really enjoyed it dark without being too oppressive In the last chapter Shortest there is a line I adore It was the last human heart They did not know what it was On it they stepped as the last tears ever were wept. The stories in this collection make you think and make you feel which is all anyone can ask of from a bookreally Support this author buy and enjoy this novella 46 The stories in A Smattering of Darkness were written over a long period of time The subject matter is dark but revealing the darkness will shed the light on the human condition Through the lens of empathy compassion and most of all understanding I penned these stories I believe we all face defeat drudgery death at some point in our lives How do we feel What sees us through We are all prisoners of our minds of the events in our lives and of those around us The tip of the iceberg shiny and gleaming is not what interests me The solid mass beneath that which supports the brittle edifice is what fascinates me It is the defining theme unifying all the stories What we frantically hide from prying eyes but it is what dominates each and everyone of us That convoluted working of the psyche 46 This is an alternate cover edition for ASIN B019RAKH1U A collection of short stories of varying lengths encapsulating the grey shades of the human psyche A riveting and deep journey into the minds of a terminally ill man a battered wife a mysterious teacher amongst other flawed but ever so human protagonists Surprise endings cheeky resolutions and thought provoking finales are characteristic of this anthology Ranging from one line to full length each story leaves a lingering impact that resonates long after the page is turned A Smattering of DarknessQuite true to its blurb A Smattering of Darkness is a collection of short stories of varying lengths encapsulating the gray shades of the human psyche It has short stories addressing some very shady aspects of the human mind A world full of violence abusive behaviors gender issues selfishness and how people see everything else except another human being in front of them as the most important thing in the world. Surprisingly while she does not mention it there is a quite a bit of paranormal element that looms large in Alisha Priti Kirpalani s work The Encounter touching that sphere The sinister shadow of the monster within each mortal has been highlighted well with her pen Spirits is a fantastic example of that. Alisha is good with wordplay and she is also successful in many spots in placing before us the exact feeling the protagonist might be going through those hidden thoughts a person in that situation might actually have and some of these instances had me by surprise a pleasant one at her ability to capture that instance well Yet and I don t want to come across as rude or distasteful but there were several other places where some phrases which represented thoughts felt as if the writer had to struggle with being able to express them finely they left me wanting in the department of linguistic expression. There was something that had me a somewhat vexed with the content The ends were always a twist nothing at all how you would see the stories go Sometimes I felt that some stories were begun right nurtured in infancy wanting to deliver some message to the reader but then abandoned as they grew hurriedly closed shut with a weird even inexplicable ending because the writer simply felt like playing a twist in her whim just to make them appear quirky and not because it was so needed I might be wrong everyone can have a different take but this is what I felt One of the stories Seven truly impressed me the way it was sketched like a live journal of a sufferer of the plight of the protagonist The ending was undeniably nice perhaps the rare positive one but it didn t match the realism that was so evocatively penned in the rest of the paragraphs. The stories had me sad and they were even heavy to hold and for this very reason I went slow with them reading one and the some time later with a somewhat repetitive pattern of pukish descriptions and since some entered no conclusive end except the ones that did I was left with an unhappy feeling. Except for the very end The shortest ones were the best To quote one from it She broke his marriage moved into his home Faith foretold that history does repeat He found another one who swept him off his feet. I received an E copy of this small anthology in exchange for a fair and honest review 46 Darkness as part of everyday life A few interesting short stories the shorter ones I didn t quite enjoy the shortest were just phrases some really good He accelerated aiming for maximum impact Then he saw the cat and jammed the brakes The cat saved her nine lives and his one. They fought over the colour of their bedroom Neither gave in The colour of dreams I still like and enjoyed reading it An eBook was provided by the author in exchange of an honest review 46 I could sense the author s presence in this book of short stories I almost felt as if she were reading them to me I believe she is highly invested in her characters. The stories as indicated by the book s title are grim dealing with issues such as mortality helplessness identity and revenge The story that resonated with me the most was The Promise which partnered innocence with malignant intent The resolution is tragic. The stories are arranged in segments Short Shorter and Shortest For me the Shortest stories are presented as ideas than as full tales and need content However the ideas are solid I think that with a little time and polish Alisha Priti Kirpalani will be a name to watch in the future 46 This is the first book I picked up this year and I must tell it was a delight reading these wonderful stories The story ideas are very original and brave It takes courage to take one of these ideas and develop them into fiction and the writer has done a commendable job The characters that inhabit these stories are very interesting Their ambiguity struggles and darkness make them very complex and multi layered They have a certain quality of quirkiness to them As a fan of films by Krzysztof Kie lowski and Coen brothers or our very own Vishal Bharadwaj and Anurag Kashyap I could very well appreciate how the writer has developed these characters and how she has built the story arc One aspect of these stories is that they are very visual For instance when I read a part about the city I could actually see Mumbai in front of my eyes I could see the nights the footpath the underbelly of the suburbs and things that are very distinctive of that city This is a great thing to achieve in writing The writing weave imagery build drama create tension and surprise the reader in a very entertaining way It has all the ingredients that make good fiction I liked each and every story from A Smattering of Darkness for various reasons Some stories had interesting plot line while others had quirky characters Some had fantastic dark humour while some had great emotional appeal My personal favourites would be Tick Tick Tick Spirits Short section Eternal Love Promise Shorter section and every piece from the Shortest section 46
| A Smattering of Darkness By Alisha Priti Kirpalani |
| English |
| 46 |
| Kindle Edition |
Of love turned grey Ending before beginning