Operation Monsoon: Stories

Rating:
Summary: passionate voice
Review: As a first generation American of Indian descent, I found myself totally engaged by the stories in this book. The way Shona Ramaya describes people and events took me back again and again to many childhood memories. I could see the characters, their expressions, I could hear them talking to one another, and I was once again reminded what a rich culture and heritage I come from. I could not put the book down until I was done reading it cover to cover.

Rating:
Summary: This book was fabulous
Review: As a first generation American of Indian descent, I found myself totally engaged by the stories in this book. The way Shona Ramaya describes people and events took me back again and again to many childhood memories. I could see the characters, their expressions, I could hear them talking to one another, and I was once again reminded what a rich culture and heritage I come from. I could not put the book down until I was done reading it cover to cover.

Rating:
Summary: passionate voice
Review: I enjoyed this collection immensely. The stories are not quite short--about 50 pages each, more like novellas--and it works well that way. The characters are beautifully developed. I could visualize them vividly. The twists in the plot kept me turning the pages. And the plots are rich and satisfying. I went to the author's book reading, and loved it.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary writing!
Review: I haven't come across such an engaging, thought-provoking collection of stories in a long time, and I read a lot! Who is this writer? How come she is not well known? I want to read all her other books. She is an amazing writer! I recommend this book to all who want to read something that will change the way they think about things.

Rating:
Summary: First rate stories by an accomplished artist
Review: The characters in Shona Ramaya's collection of short fiction 'Operation Monsoon' inhabit the global village forecast by Marshall McLuhan and otherwriters of the 1960s. In these superbly realized stories, modern technology touches the lives of each character. A petulant expatriate Indian programmer employed in the United States attempts to control his little brother, half a
world away, by badgering emails. The wonders of the world wide web provide a business opportunity for a crippled Indian woman, considered "unmarriageable" by her family. A tea-stall boy is revealed to be computer savvy; street vendors and illiterate maids know about email and discuss "dot.coms."
Technology enables these characters to inhabit a shrinking world where a confidence revealed in India results in shocked anger in the U.S. Family feuds between brother and sister fly through cyber space between San Jose and Calcutta.
Modernity at once simplifies and complicates the lives of the characters described. In the United States, we may debate: is it required, or even right, to donate one's kidney to save a life? In India the question becomes: What if one sells this living organ? Is this a noble sacrifice, or a foolish commercial transaction? Aside from issues of modernity, individuals must struggle with age old questions of responsibility. What are the obligations of family in the face of international justice? If your cousin is a terrorist, what crime do you commit if you help him evade the law?
Ramaya deftly creates intricate moral mazes for her vividly realized characters and wisely refrains from providing easy answers. She knows the brutalities of twenty first century life. A nightmare that comes true for one character is that she may have aided and abetted men who sold village girls to brothels in Nepal. The terrorist of the title story is himself broken by state brutality. Yet there is wit in these stories as well. It flows in the emails which connect families separated by oceans and continents and shows in the complex characters we meet. One of Ramaya's more witty creations is an urbane Jesuit priest with a fondness for single malt scotch and exquisite silk shirts. Yet he too is a rounded, complete human being; we realize he is drawn to India by private family sorrows.
Ramaya's skill as an author shows in her sure grasp of several genres. In the story "Re:Mohit" she capably extends the epistolary tradition by creating a story told only in email. The detective story form for the story "The Matchmakers" provides a frame for a probing analysis of attitudes towards women and an examination of how a capable, accomplished woman cripples herself by accepting others' attitudes. The title story, "Operation Monsoon", is at once a reflexive fiction--the title comes from a book within the book--and also a complex meditation on terror and the use of terror by individuals and the state.
Ramaya is at home in many different worlds, and her sense of setting is flawless. Urban Calcutta is as vivid as the room in which one sits reading. Village life in rural India is equally well realized, as is the over chilled air of a hotel in Las Vegas where we find a convention of American academics pontificating on a "Third World" they neither know nor understand.
These are first rate stories: accomplished, absorbing, thoughtful and implicitly philosophical. They can be read as entertainments alone, but reward deeper examination and fulfill the highest directive of art: to hold a mirror up to our rapidly changing world; to illumine the deeper recesses of the mazelike human heart. Susan Thornton, Ph.D. Author of ON BROKEN GLASS: LOVING AND LOSING JOHN GARDNER. Carroll & Graff (Avalon Publishing Group)2000.

Rating:
Summary: superb!
Review: The writing is superb! The stories are surreal, yet vibrate with the reality of surviving in an ever-changing world! One of the best books I've read in the last five years.

Rating:
Summary: superb!
Review: The writing is superb! The stories are surreal, yet vibrate with the reality of surviving in an ever-changing world! One of the best books I've read in the last five years.

Rating:
Summary: Rich Prose, Rich Subject
Review: Whether she's writing about matchmaking, global terrorism, or the interactions of the human heart, you'll find these stories by Shona Ramaya compelling, funny, and knowing. Ramaya deserves to be more well known in the US and this book will go a long way to making that come true.