Some more short stories this time. I found them all quite skillfully written. I've been won over to stories which seemingly have no particular plot or focus. I feel that, in the short story form, style and theme serve a greater importance.
The new form, millennial fiction, has a few key hallmarks. They're clinical and lack emotion. They discuss it, but there isn't any understanding from the characters. They're locked into this state of confusion about how they feel and what they want. There's this complete lack of purpose or direction. Relationships with others are described as brief moments of miscommunication and accusation.
All in all. Pretty dismal reading. And although the skill is there, authors who are within this genre... They tend not to grapple with life, so much as they just present it.
This, ultimately, splits the audience down the middle between people who feel that literature should challenge you and provide and people who are content merely to consume words and find familiarities that describe their lives.
So you will either love this collection. Or you will really hate it. For me, I fall somewhere in the middle. A novelist who writes like this would fail utterly. A short story writer manages to make brief sketches of the modern world. The reality of how we all drift along. The truth that we are losing the skills that are so vital as a society. The skills of compassion, selflessness, communication, discussion and open mindedness. But that is no business of mine. Mine has always been the pursuit of experiences. The opportunity to digest other people's lives.
And so, for me, this is a well written collection that will make you think. It won't offer any insights. It will just let you do the work of trying to find something that is purposefully absent. Meaning. Such is life.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
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