The title of A Simple Tale, the first of the two novellas that form
this book, is reminiscent of Flauberts short story A Simple Heart,
and like that story it is an account of one womans life, from birth
to old age. Maria Poniatowski, born in the Ukraine, is still a girl
when World War II breaks out. At the age of 15, she is taken by the
Germans to a work camp. At the end of the war, in a Displaced
Persons camp, she meets her future husband, Lev, a Pole. They
emigrate to Canada where they buy a house, find work and raise a
son. Maria has a series of cleaning jobs for middle-class Canadian
women; Lev dies; Maria doesnt get on with her daughter-in-law. She
doesnt see her birth family again or even, it seems, think very
much about them. These are the bare bones of the story. Its heart,
though, is the sense Messud conveys of loss and loneliness, and the
all-too-fast passage of life. Marias anger and frustration is
focused on the daughter-in-law because her son is all she has.
Marias tale of displacement is as commonplace as it is simple; but
it is no less tragic for that. The second story, The Hunters,
brilliantly demonstrates Messuds range. In marked contrast to the
first novella, its told by an American academic who spends a summer
in London to do research for his book on 18th-century attitudes
towards death. The narrative style tends towards long sentences,
learned references and typically academic convolutions. The
academic is befriended, against his will, by Ridley Wandor, the
middle-aged care worker living with her mother and their rabbits in
the flat below his. Although he dislikes Ridley, he is curious
about her, and in particular the fact that her elderly patients
keep dying. As the story progresses, the atmosphere becomes
increasingly sinister, and the reader feels uneasily that something
is amiss, without knowing exactly what. Although on the surface the
two stories have little in common, they both deal with loneliness
and the difficulty of truly getting to know other people. Messuds
remarkable achievement is that she is able to take one theme and to
develop it in two entirely different ways. (Kirkus UK)
In these two short novels, "A Simple Tale" tells of Maria Poniatowski, her childhood in the Ukraine and her life working as a domestic for a demanding old woman. In "The Hunters", an American academic is doing research in London and has a disconcerting relationship with a downstairs neighbour.
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