Stories like an assortment of chocolate

The Penguin Book of
Contemporary Women's Short Stories
Penguin Books

In this age of feminism, reading a collection of women's short stories is like adding more flowers to a bouquet. In a world where women become stronger everyday, coming up with a collection such as The Penguin Book of Contemporary Women's Short Stories is like another milestone. Master story tellers like Maeve Binchey , Angela Carter, Nadine Gordimer, Mary Lavin and many others have accumulated their tales in this book. The book is like a mountain of treasure waiting to be discovered. In the richly imagined stories the book plunges the reader into the borderland between opposing forces; youth and age, exclusion and privilege, alien and the familiar.
The book opens with the story "Shepherd's Bush" by Maeve Binchy. In this story May, a young lady comes to her friend Celia in London with plans for an abortion of the unborn child inside her womb. She writes "Business" in the card at the airport in the section where it says "Purpose of journey". May is aware that for the first time in her life she is not being honest. She had come to London without informing her family or her boyfriend. She is grateful that her friend Celia has volunteered to help her out. Celia makes arrangements with the doctor. At the hospital she meets Helen who is there for her fourth abortion. May is aware that while her boyfriend knows nothing of her plans, Helen's boyfriend is with her, going through the hassles of the whole procedure. May leaves London feeling sad that her boyfriend has been in the dark about the unborn child whereas she is sacrificing her motherhood for him. While she hides everything she sees how easy things are for other Londoners such as Helen. Maeve Binchy's art of story telling is unpretentious, so believable that the characters' presence seems to linger there long after the story ends.
The celebrated word master Nadine Gordimer narrates the coolheaded plot of terrorists to blow up an airliner. In her story, "Some are Born to Sweet Delight", the writer very tactfully builds up a climax that leaves the reader gasping. The protagonist is Rad, a foreigner on English soil. He is very gentle and shy. You don't meet too many of such young men these days. His ways are strange. Hence Vera, when she falls in love with him, accepts this strangeness as a part of him. She thinks he is different because he is from a land on the other part of the globe. Even when he takes away her virginity without saying "I love you" even once, she thinks that is how things are done in his country. The love shown between Rad and Vera is very real indeed, leaving the reader in little doubt that they are genuine lovers. When Vera becomes pregnant Rad is a happyfather-to-be and decides to send Vera to his parents, promising to get married as soon as she comes back. Like a responsible husband-to-be, he pays her air fare. On the day of the departure, at the last moment Rad places a present for his sister in Vera's hand luggage. But Vera never gets to see his sister, for the airliner blows up in midair. The reader feels almost sorry for Rad and Vera and yet the significance of Rad's part in sending Vera on the very aircraft that is blown up leaves the reader in a state of perplexity. The reader therefore holds his breath and comes to the final twist of the story that leaves one open-mouthed in surprise.
The story "The Thorn" by Mary Gordon is about the pain of losing a loved one. Lucy, a little girl, has lost her father. The kind doctor draws a heart for her, not like Valentine's, but this heart is made of flesh. The doctor tells her that her father's heart was broken. She sees him being put into a wooden box. Her father has never left her and has gone somewhere and so Lucy tries to get inside too. When she is barred from getting inside the wooden box she seems to hear her father telling her that later on he will come and take her. Lucy is invited to a camping trip. But she refuses to go, saying that she has to stay at home. She cannot tell anybody, not even her sister Trinitas whom she loves, that she has to stay in her room because her father is certainly coming to take her. In Lucy's heart this pang of hope mixed with uncertainty is like a thorn, causing her to twitch with pain. She remembers her father saying,
"I love you more than anyone will ever love you. I love you more than God loves you."
Lucy wants to tell her mother about the thorn in her heart, but her father had said that he loved her more than anything, even God. And she knows that he had said he loved God very much. And so he must love her more than her mother.
Lucy goes through the year believing firmly that her father is coming to her to take her in the box. And then things seem to grow faint, even people's voices sound far away. She feels as if her heart has grown very thick, like Uncle Ted's boxing gloves. The thorn no longer touches the inside walls of the heart; there are only deep sighs.
Lucy's sadness touches the reader with the helplessness the little girl feels when the person who loved her the most is taken away. She is too young to understand that her hope of having her father back is futile. Neither does she know how to hold on to hopes of a better future. Her world is either black or white. The pain of losing our loved ones makes our hearts cry. Adults have their own ways of dealing with the pain. But Lucy, being too young, is seen accepting the loss of her father in her innocent ways.
Here are the outlines of three stories, namely the beginning, the middle and the end of the book. The stories between the three parts remain for the readers to read and savour. The Penguin Book of Women's Short Stories is like an assortment of chocolates, different in taste but all of which are relishing. All the stories are mesmerising, the difference being that of each one trying to be better than the next. The moments spent with the stories are going to be held on to for their fabulist ideas and different styles. And surely the reader will not put the book down until the last story is read.
Tulip Chowdhury is a teacher and writes fiction.