The Collected Short Stories by Satyajit Ray - Paperback

Varied and gripping tales

If you are a Satyajit Ray fan then it is worth buying. Lot of short stories in one book. Some of them are great,some of them are ok but it is worth buying.

As I avidly devoured the nearly 700 pages of this powerful volume (Penguin India, 2012), not one of the 50-ish tales in it seemed boring or mediocre. Some are masterpieces. Most of the stories being no longer than a dozen pages, the book proved ideal for reading in between work and projects. That said, the most dramatic and most sustained masterstroke is the longer, 65-page novella "Fotikchand," about the adventures of a kidnapped boy who contracts amnesia due to injury. Ray's chief strengths lie in plot and in observations of character, while the language is unostentatious and the descriptions are economical and to the point. Roughly half the stories are compelling realist fiction, while the other half contain spooky fantastic elements (magicians, ghosts, seers, space aliens, clairvoyant dreams, etc.). Both genres worked great for me. Each surreal tale nevertheless has a realist punchline. And the characters are all so recognizably Bengali, which I love.

Very nice.

Very good