My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead - Jeffrey Eugenides

My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead

Jeffrey Eugenides

Harper Perennial



The moment I love best about any book, is the moment I start the first sentence. That sense of anticipation when starting something new. It's the moment when I open myself to a whole new discovery of characters, plot and settings. It's also an intimate conversation with the author, a small personal confession perhaps or an admission of values whispered through dialogue between characters.



I don't tend to read anthologies of short stories. I only bought 'My mistress's sparrow is dead' because I accidently spilled coffee over it and felt compelled to purchase it. But what a great find it turned out to be! In this anthology of love stories, Eugenides has brought together an eclectic collection of both well known as well some lesser known authors.



I cannot imagine why I had not gravitated towards anthologies before. They are like a beautiful jewelry box that presents you with a new treasure every time you open it. Each story repeated for me the trill of a new begining, a cast of new characters and a whole new backdrop waiting to be discovered. It was like a ten course meal, presented with humility and muted fanfare.



Although I enjoyed most of the stories, some did bore me which is another thing I found wonderful about such anthologies. If the story failed to grab me in the first couple of paragraphs, I just skipped to the next one and started the journey of discovery all over again.



The only disadvantage I can think of with such anthologies is, how can one review a book with 27 stories, each written by a different author? Although Anton Chekhov's story was clearly my favourite in both prose and plot, I did enjoy most of the others in the collection as well. My mistress's sparrow is dead, is a great collection to keep by your bedside and open at anytime and at any story. Most are short enough to be finished in around 30 minutes, so you can pick it up in between books or when you are looking for something to read over a cup of coffee. And if the story does not match your mood, then you can let your fingers and eyes roam like a pair of talismen, till they lead you to one that does.