Imagine you have worked hard for several years to produce a collection of short stories and it has been nominated for a top prize. You are hoping to make the shortlist and would welcome the accompanying perks: publicity in newspapers, increased sales, prestige of calling yourself a shortlisted author and having your name attached to the historic record of the prize. But then you read this:
The judges for the Frank O'Connor award have dispensed with the ritual of issuing a shortlist, announcing today that Jhumpa Lahiri has won the world's richest honour for a short story collection. The jurors decided that Unaccustomed Earth was so plainly the best book that they would jump straight from longlist to winner, and have awarded Lahiri the €35,000 (£27,000) prize. ...I don't know about you, but I would feel cheated out of a potential recognition that doesn't come around very often. Especially since some of the nominated books this year may actually be better than the winning book from another year, considering that the quality varies from year to year.
"With a unanimous winner at this early stage we decided it would be a sham to compose a shortlist and put five other writers through unnecessary stress and suspense," explained the award's director, Pat Cotter. [Link]
In its June 9, 2008 issue, The New Yorker has published 'Natasha'--a short story by Vladimir Nabokov, circa 1924; translated by son Dmitri Nabokov.
The story is a study of contrasts. Witness this early scene: Ailing Khrenov "pulled the blanket tightly around him" but "the thermometer was warm, alive—the column of mercury climbed high on the little red ladder. "
Old Khrenov, who is bed-ridden, ill and almost dying, is most in touch with reality -- he pays attention to people's movements, and presumably, to their feelings as well. He is obsessed with the world outside that can come to his bedside only via the newspaper. He makes a pronouncement early in the story that one almost misses.
Young Natasha, even while nursing and caring for her father with utmost sincerity, is quite attuned to "the warmth of her own body, her long thighs, and her bare arms...". She is lost in her own world of formication just as Baron Wolfe lives in his own fantasy world. But through Wolfe, towards the tail end of the story, we are made to confront the following life-affirming questions: is it really that simple to decide who inhabits reality and whose life is fictional? Is one man's insignificant life less complete because he merely dreams? Is another man's gigantic life a solid reality when all he does is moan, groan and complain his way through it? Again, an interesting juxtaposition of contrasting themes.
Truly, a charming, moving, riveting short story.
Cross-posted at Russian reading challenge.
Rattawut Lapcharoensap, the Thai-American writer, was featured in Granta 97: Best of Young 
American Novelists 2. The first of his short stories I read, which appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, was called At the Cafe Lovely. I thought it was powerful writing and it stayed on my mind for a few weeks. I later came to know that he was only 25 when that story was published. (He was born in 1979. Read an interesting interview here.) He has since published a collection of short stories called Sightseeing.
His stories Farangs and (an extract of) Valets brought out similar reactions in me, but Cafe Lovely remains my favorite.
To round out my post, though, here is a critic's viewpoint on Sightseeing.
