Book Review - The Japanese Wife (Kunal Basu)

Though my reading habit is 7 years old, I have never opted the short stories. Short stories, may be short but the experience and thrill is no lesser than what you get out of novels. Of course novels have their own interesting elements. Anyways coming to the point, I happened to choose this collection of 12 short stories ”The Japanese Wife” (- written by Kunal Basu) on the recommendation of my friend. The first story itself is titled the Japanese wife and the rest of the stories doesn’t have any relevance to Japan or its wife and i still can’t decipher why the book has been given the title. Nevertheless, when i finished the first story I knew that the rest of the stories are something not to be missed for sure. The moment I finished one story, I would smile, relish the ending and can’t wait to open the next one.

All stories are about the un-expected, the author surprises you at the end no matter how he starts the narration, it may be featurless or spicy in the beginning but you got to watch out for the ending.

A gist of the First story..

“The Japanese Wife” - Snehamoy, a bengali teacher living in a remote village near the Bay of Bengal writes to his pen friend Miyage living in Japan. They soon become husband and wife bonded and living their married life through their words scribed in the letters not having seen each other. A widowed woman and her son enters into Snehamoy’s life, she is the one whom snehamoy was supposed to marry. Snehamoy writes about all his life to Miyage but intentionally conceals the woman’s entry. when snehamoy starts to develop a compassion for the woman he receives a devastating letter that Miyage is sick.

So, how the story ends is something awesome!! as a reader of the usual genres of fiction, thirller and romance, to be frank I wasn’t prepared for the ending and it came as a shock.

The other 11 stories were not as amazing as this Japanese wife, yet they are unique and deserves a read. Author brings in shades of his interest in communism then and there, looks like he is a globe trotter and that’s seen in the vast information spread across in each story. And to be honest there were few stories which i was not able to understand, may be because i was not reading inbetween the lines /got distracted or was not familiar with the subject the author was trying to imply but i’m gonna give it a second try  :-)

Verdict: Simply superb