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gulshanbatra's review against another edition
3.0
Mad Country is a somewhat half-fulfilling read, about a country and people, and their problems - some of which are unique and some others not quite so. The collection of stories covers a fair gamut of society from the Himalayan country of Nepal, nestled between two of the most populous countries in the world - China and India.
I must admit I was a bit biased when I started reading this book - I thought I had some personal knowledge about that country, and that would give me a head start in understanding and empathizing with the stories and the characters. While that turned out to be somewhat true, the stories and the characters themselves left much to be desired.
Almost all the stories have a good premise, in fact at least one of the stories, the opener - Fast Forward - gets off to a flying start, with strong and colorful characters, with equally strong beliefs and ideas - setting you up to expect some strong fireworks.
Unfortunately, that’s where most stories fall flat - the conclusions. It seems like the author had some very good story starters, but when he sat down to writing he wasn’t able to conclude them - at least not impressively. The stories seem fairly realistic, and in fact are probably close to the truth. Not all stories can have an explosive or even a dramatic denouement, and not all authors can be a Henry or a Saki. That’s not a fair comparison, but when you get down to reading a book and decide to invest time and effort (and money!), the least you expect to find is something that you didn’t know before, if not be outright impressed.
That’s what I found consistently missing in most of the stories. I wish he was a little more adventurous with his characters, that he would let them do what I most certainly believe they could have done with their chances, and most importantly let them take chances to do something. Many of the characters are shown to be wasted away - and I guess that must have been his intent, to share the despair and lack of resolution in many situations, no neat bows here. But then one would have looked for a little more shock(!), at least.
I know I may be sounding (a little) despicable myself, but I believe as a reader I can compare this with at least what all I’ve read in the past. I too have to keep moving ahead.
Or else I too will get wasted.
I must admit I was a bit biased when I started reading this book - I thought I had some personal knowledge about that country, and that would give me a head start in understanding and empathizing with the stories and the characters. While that turned out to be somewhat true, the stories and the characters themselves left much to be desired.
Almost all the stories have a good premise, in fact at least one of the stories, the opener - Fast Forward - gets off to a flying start, with strong and colorful characters, with equally strong beliefs and ideas - setting you up to expect some strong fireworks.
Unfortunately, that’s where most stories fall flat - the conclusions. It seems like the author had some very good story starters, but when he sat down to writing he wasn’t able to conclude them - at least not impressively. The stories seem fairly realistic, and in fact are probably close to the truth. Not all stories can have an explosive or even a dramatic denouement, and not all authors can be a Henry or a Saki. That’s not a fair comparison, but when you get down to reading a book and decide to invest time and effort (and money!), the least you expect to find is something that you didn’t know before, if not be outright impressed.
That’s what I found consistently missing in most of the stories. I wish he was a little more adventurous with his characters, that he would let them do what I most certainly believe they could have done with their chances, and most importantly let them take chances to do something. Many of the characters are shown to be wasted away - and I guess that must have been his intent, to share the despair and lack of resolution in many situations, no neat bows here. But then one would have looked for a little more shock(!), at least.
I know I may be sounding (a little) despicable myself, but I believe as a reader I can compare this with at least what all I’ve read in the past. I too have to keep moving ahead.
Or else I too will get wasted.
nirooj56's review against another edition
3.0
I am gonna say its a nice read. It could be just me, but I found difference in Mr. Upadhyay writing style in Mad Country from his other stories/books. As a fan of his works i can say that the stories in Mad Country are really gems.
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