The Riverside Man and other short stories is a collection of the author’s experiences of life in the form of eleven heart touching short stories. Each of the story forces you to reflect on society, human behavior and emotions.
About Author
Let us first know our author- Murthy KVVS before we deep dive into the book. Born in Bhadrachalam,Telangana, he is a poet, story-writer, a blogger and a translator. His first book of poem collection “Sparsha” was published in 1990, and his essays and poems were also published in many publications . He is the one who translated one of my favorite books :The Godfather by Mario Puzo in Telugu, which had a great response from Telugu readers. He is an active blogger, and you can read more about him here.
About Book
Good writing or story-telling is an art to entertain the reader as well as convey the message that they will take away with them. I am not that a fan of reading short stories because it is difficult for a writer to go to that detail in the most simplistic way, and then as a reader I end up not relating with it, but this one is truly amazing and touches the right chord of the reader’s conscious; overall it can be a torch-bearer for the society.
For me, the prominent message or the powerful story is more important than any other thing in the book, and this one perfectly fits in that space.
The book sheds light on several topics varying from The Guest Obssessed which teaches us how to deal with monkeys (or animals), to Dantewada which talks about existence of ghosts or spirits who want to convey something. The story leaves the reader to decide whether it was a ghost or the spirit. Then, Polling Duty which deals with the management of ever-contemporary topic of elections but also talks about the real happiness of people who have a great self-respect. The last one is The Riverside Man that forces you to empathize with Sadhus or Saints who travel for their religion and live an abstained life.
My favorite story: It is hard to say the best one but what kept me thinking for the longest was A boulder in the stream that talks about life’s ups and downs and its impact to the people around that situation. This was very aptly conveyed through a student-teacher relationship.
Author takes his inspiration from the works of R. K. Narayan. I remember reading Malgudi Days many years back and we all know how magically and effortlessly Mr Narayan portrayed his observations of human life. This book also deals with the topic in a similar way, it touches and stays in reader’s heart for a long time.
Do checkout this book here.
"A penny spent on a good book has an immeasurable worth."
Happy Reading
