baskicom0ab4

Short stories. The first (The Ballad of the Sad Café) is a novella; the others are much shorter. It told the eventful history of Miss Amelia, a manly stingy intimidating woman who owned a café. A hunchback cousin comes to stay with her and eventually she loses a fight with her ex, the cafe closes. Wunderkind features a child prodigy (piano) who loses her feel for the music. A Domestic Dilemma is about a man whose wife is an alcoholic, his complex feelings for her and his worry and love for his children. Madame Zilensky was also interesting (woman who pathologically lies, man tries to confront her but changes his mind) as was The Sojourner (man has dinner with ex and her new family) and A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud (paper boy gets lecture from man in bar). Themes: the complexity of love, with the last piece (A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud) summing it up - love as a science, starting small and building until you master the art of loving everything. The three pieces I summarized first I really loved. They all spoke clearly and had wonderful characters - especially the novella. Amelia was a very unique woman, but I believed in and could picture her. All of these pieces (except The Jockey, the one story I didn't summarize, but maybe I just didn't find it) emphasize the complexity of love and the difficulty of loving someone. In the novella, the difference between loving and being loved is discussed and Amelia is backstabbed by her 'love.' In other pieces, love/hate feeling for alcoholic wife, love for one child vs. love for another, love for a woman who leaves you, love for a teacher, for music...

2022-11-14 16:49