A LIFE OF ADVENTURE AND DE- LIGHT by Akhil Sharma. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.: New York. 202 pages. wwnorton.com $24.95 hardcover.
From the award-winning author of An Obedient Father (2001 Hemingway Foundation PEN Award) and Family Life (2014 New York Times Best Books of the Year; 2015 Folio Prize; and 2016 International DUBLIN Literary Award), comes a collection of short stories that entertains and spares no one. In Akhil Sharma’s A Life of Adventure and Delight, eight stories explore the quest for perceptible love, the life and liberty of relationships, and the perpetual pursuit of happiness.
Each story is built on profiles of characters old and young, flawed and beautiful, traditional and modern, all searching for a sense of love or at the very least belonging. However, whether they learn from their mistakes is at the core of each protagonist.
At times Sharma employs short, sharp sentences that reflect a Hemingway-esque clarity and precision. His writing is neither pedantic nor oratory, leaving the grist in the details proficiently enough to evoke varying levels of humor in despair.
The collection is built on missteps, selfishness, lack of communication, and unshakeable tradition. Yet there is wit, and there is hope—two things without which these stories would be far less powerful. The collection’s title is ironic, for there is little adventure in the stories and even less one would call delight. They are stories that have no conventional beginning, middle, or end. They are, separate and together, slices of life, glimpses into the human condition.
The opening story, “Cosmopolitan” and the title story, “A Life of Adventure and Delight” are possibly the two most sadly humorous of all. Both speak to a sexual naiveté and a desire to be more than one’s former self.
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Denne historien er fra December 2017 - January 2018-utgaven av India Currents.
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Elephant and Donkey Tribes of Politics
The Motorcycle Guru Speaks.
On Feminism
It has been eight months since I started my MFA at Bennington College. In the last eight months I have cooked half a dozen meals. I pack my children lunches and I clean up the kitchen after my husband when he makes dinner for the family after he comes home from working in a Silicon Valley tech company. Cooking has never moved me. Motherhood has—but not the baggage of social dos and don'ts that accompanied it. I have done fewer play dates than the meals I have cooked in the past few months, and I rarely go to a birthday party. My husband takes the children to their social engagements. “But is this fair?” you might ask and I answer, “It is not about fairness, it is about what moves you as a person and how to keep that flame of what keeps you alive, burning within you, while negotiating roles in an adult world that still largely favors men over women.”
Of Wedding Bells And Hospital Bills
Not another invite,” I groaned, picking up a thick cream and red colored envelope.
A New Lease Of Life
How an Indian grandmother started making heart-healthy choices.
A Mother Loses Her Child: Fact And Fiction Coalesce
LUCKY BOY by Shanthi Sekaran. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House, New York. 472 pages. Hardcover. $27.00
From The Hood Without A Loo
TOILET: A LOVE STORY. Director Shree Narayan Singh. Players: Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Padnekar, Anupam Kher, Sudhir Pandey, Divyendu Sharma, Subha Khote. Hindi w/ Eng. Sub-tit. (Viacom).
Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness
A LIFE OF ADVENTURE AND DE- LIGHT by Akhil Sharma. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.: New York. 202 pages. wwnorton.com $24.95 hardcover.
Who Was Enid Blyton?
Raised in and out of India, I don’t remember reading too many Enid Blyton novels—barring those from the Noddy series. I knew, though, they were all the rage among girls—mostly girls. They’d spend hours reading them and like fish in a school, prattle over what they’d read over their lunchboxes.
Victoria And Abdul: It Looks A Lot Like Love
VICTORIA AND ABDUL. Director: Stephen Frears. Screenwriter: Lee Hall, based on book by Shrabani Basu. Cast: Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Eddie Izzard, Adeel Akhtar, Tim Pigott-Smith and Michael Gambon. Focus Features, 2017. MPAA Rating: PG-13
Looters, Schemers And A Curse
Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond.
