"Descent from the Rooftop" by Anita Desai. (From Best Indian Short Stories, Vol 1, edited by K. Singh)

"All her first impressions of Bombay returned and sprouted –once more it was a city of lies, filth, noise, double-dealing, in which all fantasy, all grace came to a hideous end as soon as it descended from the rooftop to the lighted street."   From "Descent from the Rooftop" by Anita Desai

"Descent from the Rooftop" is the third short story by Anita Desai I have so far read and posted upon.  I think like this one best of all.  I loved this story of a woman from a desert region of India who has recently married an affluent Bombay business man.  We don't learn the circumstances of his their marriage was arranged.  We learn she is a "country girl" when her husband teases her for her fear of riding in elevators.

The couple are on their way to a party at the home of the "friends whom her husband is most proud". He wants to show off his new wife and we sense she is worried that she might not fit in with his sophisticated friends.  Everyone at the party is beautifully attired and I so much enjoyed reading the exquisite descriptions of the clothing.  The conversation turns to a woman from their circle now living in Paris.  She has a wonderful flat there marvelously decorated.  She teaches classical Indian dance.  Her life at first sounds perfect then through gossip we learn her husband has many debts and she had to fire her cook.  Still she sounded wonderful.

As they leave the rooftop apartment she sees the guests and their magnificent clothes seem very ordinary.  The ugliness and squalor underlying the surface glamour of Bombay let her see what her life will really be like.  

"Descent from the Rooftop" is a wonderful story.  It brought out so much in just a few pages.

I hope others will share their experiences with Desai with us

Anita Desai's (1937, Mussooire, India) mother was German, her father was a Bengali business man.   German was the language of her parents household but she also grew up fluent in Bengali, Urdu, Hindi and English.   Her literary language is English.   She has been short listed three times for the Booker Award and her daughter, Kiran Desai won the award.   Anita Desai has taught creative writing in numerous high prestige American colleges.   She is a fellow The Royal Society of Literature and Girton College in Cambridge.   She has also won numerous awards in India.   Much of her fiction deals with the lives of ordinary people in India and the hardships created by the 1947 Partition.    

Mel u

"Sale" by Anita Desai (1978, 12 pages)

Anita Desai (1933) has been short listed for the Booker Prize three times.  "Sale" is my first happy exposure to,her work and I certainly hope it will not be my last. 

"Sale" is set in the home and functioning studio of an artist, a painter of amazing works.   He lives with his wife.  The paintings are scattered all over the house.  The house is in chaos, near to filthy, with cigarette butts on top of paintings.  One day a couple comes to look at his work. They are impressed by his paintings but do not see what they want or maybe they are just feigning interest to be polite.  They tell him they were looking for a large landscape.   You can sense the desperation of the artist to make a sale.  He offers to paint them at once any kind of work they want.  You can feel the sadness when his wife asked him if he thinks they will come back another time to make a purchase.  

I read this very well done story in this first rate anthology

Mel u

Thanks Valerie!! International Women's Stories

"Nineteen Fifty-Five" by Alice Walker-USA
"Games at Twilight"  by Anita Desai-India
"Heavy Weather" by Helene Simpson-UK

In Thanks to My Daughter Valerie

for the perfect Christmas Book

When I saw my middle daughter Valerie, 16, had given me a copy of  The Penguin Book of International Women's Stories I was totally happy to get it as I love reading short stories by people, especially women, from all over the world.  I admit I was even happier to see what an excellent very thoughtful gift she had given me.  One of the reasons I read a lot of fiction by women authors is to help facilitate my understanding of my daughters and their world, a very different one from the one I lived in at 16.  Of course I soon looked over the collection to see if there were writers I wanted to read, new to me writers and authors from countries that might help me with Project 196 in which I am attempting to post on a short story from all 196 countries of the world.  The answer to all of these questions was a resounding Yes!   Today I will post briefly on the stories I have so far read.

"Nineteen Fifty-Five" by Alice Walker (USA, 1944, best known for The Color Purple) is a very popular novelist who focuses on the life experiences of African Americans from the southern states of the country.  "Nineteen Fifty-Five" cover about thirty years in the lives of a very Elvis like singer whose manager bought a song from a woman for $1000.00 and went on to make it the start of a career that would make mega-millions.   We see how the singer, basically a country boy, keeps in touch with the woman over decades and how the sale of this song and the huge wealth of the singer changed both of their lives.  There is sadness in the story but it is basically a wholesome feelgood kind of story.  

"Games at Twilight"  by Anita Desai is a simple very family oriented story about children in India playing a universal kid's game-hide and go seek.  Anita Desai  (1937, India) is a very well known novelist that I have wanted to read for sometime.  Thanks to Valerie I now want to read her more of her work.  She has been short listed for the Man Booker Prize three times.   In the story we see the wonderful natural beauty of the setting and we feel that we are there with the family. This was a beautiful story.

"Heavy Weather" by Helene Simpson (UK, 1959) is a very moving story about a married couple with two children, a girl four and a new infant son.   One of the the things they talked about and they admit bothered them, especially the mother who does most of the work taking care of the children, is that they no longer have much time to read, something they loved.  They share a passion for the novels of Thomas Hardy, especially Jude the Obscure.  I really enjoyed this story a lot.  (I have previously read and posted on her short story "Diary of an Interesting Year".)

Thanks Valerie-and there are thirty-six other stories in the collection!