Short stories will leave you wanting more

This summer, besides reviving our energy after a draining spring semester, it’s time for us to revive something else: the short story.\nI realize that the semester just ended, that the chunk of money you earned from selling back your textbooks has already been spent and that the last thing you want to do is buy another book. \nBut one day when you have an extra hour or two, pick up a short-story collection. Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection “Interpreter of Maladies” will hook you immediately and make you want to read more short stories. \nIt’s rare for someone to recommend short stories to read, although the annual compilation “The Best American Short Stories” has been gaining and maintaining popularity throughout the years. The “Best American” series offers up a batch of some of the most notable stories, but try reading a collection of stories written solely by one author. \nLahiri, whose collection won national recognition, helps bring awareness to the short story, showing the importance it still has in today’s literature. \nThe clarity and ease with which Lahiri transforms the individual worlds she creates in her nine stories reads with such power. She doesn’t need a huge vocabulary to spice up her writing; her language flows naturally, the stories weave together.\nThis smart short-story collection will leave you satisfied, but only for a little while. Your tongue will only be wet a little, leaving you to beg for more marvelously spun short tales. \nIn each of her nine stories, acceptance and love is sought for throughout different cultures and generations. Lahiri, who is from India, writes stories mostly about that country and culture, telling of the arranged marriages and the love that grows through them, while also telling stories of the heartbreak that also results in life and love. \nSome of her stories, such as “The Third and Final Continent,” focus on a journey to another country, but the message of finding a place to belong, a final resting place, resonates with anyone who has ever packed up and gone somewhere where belonging was difficult at first.\n“Sexy,” another story in Lahiri’s collection, tells of a woman who has an affair with a man she meets while at a department store. While told from the woman’s point of view, this story can relate to any gender, and to anyone who has ever loved before. The story is heartbreaking, and I found its message to resonant remarkably. \nLahiri’s collection proves that short stories are still alive. The collection gives readers nine different stories filled with life and worldly knowledge – just as much as a novel can offer.\nCultural and generational gaps are explored throughout this collection, but what Lahiri proves in her stories is that no matter the cultural difference or gap, the raw human emotions of love, acceptance and belonging are what we all search for, no matter who we are or where we come from.