Writers from around the world united to contribute to the exceptional compilation that is The Art of The Story. Each story had its own individual style. Some of the stories had items they excelled at, while others failed to reach their full potential.
Firstly, Hanan Al-Shaykh’s The Keeper Of The Virgins is an excellent story. The opening line: “ One of the women wondered aloud if he was a dwarf in every way.” was attention grabbing. Immediately, it piqued my interest. Who are these women? Is this man an actual dwarf? Is he a dwarf in every way? This was an impressive way to open the short story. In a few short pages, Al-Shaykh gave brief background information with very little unnecessary information.
The Keeper Of The Virgins story was …show more content…
The entire story is written the way the main character, Hazel speaks. While the vernacular used makes this story very unique, it also makes it a little hard to follow. There is a clear sense of a developing story: members of a family go to a movie, the title is misleading, for that reason they misbehave in the theatre and strive to get their money back. Although many of the characters mentioned aren’t featured in the piece, the author does a good job at including descriptions of the other family members. Given statements such as “And my momma and her sister Daisy jumpin on them Romans beatin them with they pocketbooks.” and similar descriptions of what other family members (not present in the plot) would do give in that particular situation, one can gain a sense of the family dynamics and basic traits of the other family …show more content…
He has no clear goal or conflict other than he, like everyone else, has no practical conclusion as to where the elephant went. Here, the author stylistically does something that wasn’t present in the other short stories of the collection. Murakami blurs the lines between reality and the bizarre. “Looking through the vent, I had the feeling that a different, chilling kind of time was flowing through the elephant house-but nowhere else.” This makes the story appealing to both the practical and the theoretical. Unfortunately, this turn of aspect does not happen until near the end of the story, leaving much of the previous,
Firstly, Hanan Al-Shaykh’s The Keeper Of The Virgins is an excellent story. The opening line: “ One of the women wondered aloud if he was a dwarf in every way.” was attention grabbing. Immediately, it piqued my interest. Who are these women? Is this man an actual dwarf? Is he a dwarf in every way? This was an impressive way to open the short story. In a few short pages, Al-Shaykh gave brief background information with very little unnecessary information.
The Keeper Of The Virgins story was …show more content…
The entire story is written the way the main character, Hazel speaks. While the vernacular used makes this story very unique, it also makes it a little hard to follow. There is a clear sense of a developing story: members of a family go to a movie, the title is misleading, for that reason they misbehave in the theatre and strive to get their money back. Although many of the characters mentioned aren’t featured in the piece, the author does a good job at including descriptions of the other family members. Given statements such as “And my momma and her sister Daisy jumpin on them Romans beatin them with they pocketbooks.” and similar descriptions of what other family members (not present in the plot) would do give in that particular situation, one can gain a sense of the family dynamics and basic traits of the other family …show more content…
He has no clear goal or conflict other than he, like everyone else, has no practical conclusion as to where the elephant went. Here, the author stylistically does something that wasn’t present in the other short stories of the collection. Murakami blurs the lines between reality and the bizarre. “Looking through the vent, I had the feeling that a different, chilling kind of time was flowing through the elephant house-but nowhere else.” This makes the story appealing to both the practical and the theoretical. Unfortunately, this turn of aspect does not happen until near the end of the story, leaving much of the previous,