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Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Short Stories for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: author biography; plot summary; character analysis; an overview of the story's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Short Stories for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Thomson Gale--and "Short Stories for Students." ... Read more

Product Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Short Stories for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: author biography; plot summary; character analysis; an overview of the story's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Short Stories for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Gale--and "Short Stories for Students." ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from MELUS, published by The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnics Literature of the United States on December 22, 2007. The length of the article is 4615 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Foodways and subjectivity in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies.(Critical essay)
Author: Laura Anh Williams
Publication: MELUS (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 22, 2007
Publisher: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnics Literature of the United States
Volume: 32Issue: 4Page: 69(11)

Article Type: Critical essay

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

Product Description
In making her selections for this year's volume of The Best American Short Stories, Amy Tan was drawn to stories that satisfied her appetite for the magic and mystery she loved as a child. In this vibrant audio collection, fantasy and truth coexist brilliantly in works by veteran writers as well as by accomplished new voices. Each tale, read here by its author, offers a rich journey into a different world.Amazon.com Review
A great story gets its hooks into you right from the start; you know you'rein the hands of a good writer when the very first sentence transports youwholly into another world. "Mother preferred Zulu servants." "It must be,Ruth thought, that she was going to die in the spring." "Who would havethought that a war of such proportions would bother to turn in its furyagainst the fools of Chelm?"

The 21 fictions featured in The Best American Short Stories 1999have very little in common--but whether they're about ranchers orcommuters, romantic seekers or New Age pilgrims, what they do share is asense of urgency. In each of them, there's a kind of voice thatannounces its need to be heard. "I'm not a bad guy," pleads the narrator of"The Sun, the Moon, the Stars," and even though he cheats on hisgirlfriend, by the end of Junot Díaz's story you might be tempted to agreeanyway. (Especially considering the charming way he turns Melville'sBartleby the Scrivener into a verb--as in, "A lot of the time she Bartlebysme, says, 'No, I'd rather not.'") "Real Estate," by that master ofbittersweet comedy Lorrie Moore, starts by repeating "Ha! Ha! Ha!" for twosolid pages but becomes a rueful take on marriage, house-hunting, and evendeath: "The body, hauling sadnesses, pursued the soul, hobbled after. Thebody was like a sweet dim dog trotting lamely toward the gate as you triedslowly to drive off, out the long driveway. Take me, take me too,barked the dog."

Other standouts in this collection include Alice Munro's "Save the Reaper,"a kind of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" where no one is killed orsaved; Rick Bass's haunting evocation of winter in the north country, "TheHermit's Story"; and Tim Gautreax's "The Piano Tuner," about a manic-depressive Creole princess playing cocktail piano in a motel lounge. (Thisis one tale that truly does end with a bang, not a whimper.) Takentogether, they are ample evidence that the American short story is alive,well, and eminently able to--in the words of guest editor Amy Tan--"help uslive interesting lives." --Chloe Byrne ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Both Wheat and Chaff....
It's probably not good for the anthology that the piece I most enjoyed was Amy Tan's introduction; I thought that by itself was worth checking the book out. The actual stories left me wanting something more, with the exception of "The Sun, The Moon, The Stars" by Junot Diaz, "Real Estate" by Lorrie Moore, "The 5:22" by George Harrar, and an honorable mention to Heidi Julavits' "Marry the One Who Gets There First". These stories all combined great writing with great insight, all in the framework of good narrative flow. The others--and I confess to not reading several--lacked something. Annie Proulx's piece sucked me in, and had vivid, sparkling dialogue and great writing. However, it failed to deliver on story. When I came to the end, enchanted by all the previous elements, I felt cheated and angry at it's sloppy conclusion. Even Stephen Dobyns' "Kansas" left me flat, and Dobyns never fails to impress me. Overall, this is a good collection, just not a great one by any means.

Black sheep of the family
Every year I anxiously look forward to the arrival of the newest addition to my favorite book series, and every year my patience is rewarded and my appetite for a wonderful collection of short stories is entirely satisfied... that is until this 1999 edition of The Best American Short Stories. The compilation of short stories selected by Amy Tan this year has sadly disappointed me. Furthermore, my disappointment is escalated when one must consider the fact that Amy Tan is among my favorite authors. The combination of my favorite book series and one of my favorite author would presumingly produce a definite great edition yet sometimes the surest things are the most unforeseen.

The Best American Short Stories has always been a reliable and constant supplier of great contemporary work and uniquely distinctive tales. Stories that are far from typical but pleasantly uncanny and sometimes pleasingly bizarre. Stories that do not have a simple introduction, climax, and then resolution but stories that create their own course. Stories that you find yourself still thinking about days later in the shower, still trying to understand what exactly you comprehended. Yet instead what I found was a pretty traditional and conventional assortment of stories. I am not saying that these stories are particularly bad stories because they are not, it is just the straightforward fact that they are not as daring or come near to being as refreshing as their predecessors. I found many of her selections boringly light even when dealing with subject matters that are all but light. They tell their story and that is all. Everything felt so laid out and revealed that there was no room for analyzing or dissecting. Many of the stories were exactly as what appeared and nothing else, nothing left underneath to discover. They reminded me of the stories the entire class would read as one in the eighth grade and everyone wouldreach the same obvious conclusion of what the moral and purpose of the story was as the teacher nods her head to provide assurance.

There is still a couple of decent stories in this entire book (such as Pam Huston's The Best Girlfriend You Never Had) that renders the two stars given but in no way is that an endorsement to spend your money on two short stories. Instead, I recommend you simply visit you nearest bookstore, lean against a bookshelf and spend 15 minutes reading those two stories. Once you are done, place that book back on the self because that is where it belongs. I never thought I would be saying that about a book from this series but hopefully this is the first and last time I will have to. And hopefully this is just the black sheep in this family of over-achievers.

P.S.
In the end, I simply realized that perhaps a great novel writer should stick to novels and not picking short stories.

Did I miss something?
I am a big fan of the Best American Short Stories series, but this one was a huge diappointment.I like stories that have some meat;they should resonate with depth a long time after being read.This collection offers few such stories.Then again, I wasn't expecting much more from Amy Tan.Try '98 or '00 instead.

A fine collection
I found this to be an excellent, thoughtfully assembled collection of stories.I must especially disagree with the reviewer who felt that having a b writer like Pam Houston in a collection with Rick Bass ammounts to a literary injustice.Quite to the contrary, Houston's story is the best in the book and bears re-reading.(And, if you've checked out John Updike's Best Short Stories of the Century, you'll note that her story was one of the few tales from the nineties to be included.)This is a slow, collection, certainly, which may turn off some readers.But I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

A diverse collection of voices and stories
Amy Tan has done a good job selecting 1999's batch of stories for"Best American Short Stories"; I've read better volumes, but I'vealso read worse.My favorite story was Tim Gautreaux's "The PianoTuner," a hilarious, unnerving tale about the advantages anddisadvanages of "fine-tuning" another person's character throughthe use of drugs or other modern methods.The next-best story, in myopinion, was Chitra Divakaruni's delightful and wistful "Mrs. DuttaWrites a Letter," another story about trying to change one's characterin order to fit in with difficult surroundings, and the limits on one'sability to do so.Finally, my third-favorite selection was Rick Bass's"The Hermit's Story," a tale of rugged individualism and survivalin a winter setting that ends with a wonderful image involving fire and afrozen lake, an image I won't spoil for you here.

This volume iscertainly the most diverse edition of the series so far in terms of itsauthors' racial and cultural backgrounds--at least a third of the storiesare by non-white authors or have non-white main characters.As Amy Tannotes, however, what matters more than racial or cultural diversity isdiversity of voice and experience.I found more in common, for example,between "The Piano Tuner" and "Mrs. Dutta Writes aLetter," in both stories' focus on the theme of changing one'scharacter and learning to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings, than I didbetween "The Piano Tuner" and, say, Annie Proulx's moreimpressionistic "The Bunchgrass Edge of the World" (another storyabout rural Americans); or between "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter"and Jhumpa Lahiri's ominous "The Interpreter of Maladies"(another story about Indian families).In any event, this year's editionprovides plenty of diversity of both background and voice, and is a solidaddition to the "Best American Short Stories" series. ... Read more