{"id":9187,"date":"2014-11-16T10:45:01","date_gmt":"2014-11-16T05:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/?p=9187"},"modified":"2020-11-15T14:13:12","modified_gmt":"2020-11-15T08:43:12","slug":"difficult-pleasures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2014\/11\/16\/difficult-pleasures\/","title":{"rendered":"Difficult Pleasures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Anjum Hasan<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Anjum Hasan is definitely among my top 3 favourite authors, and this book only adds to it. But that also means that this is not a thoroughly objective review. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>The book has thirteen short stories that have a varied set of characters in different circumstances. As the jacket informs us, some of the stories are borderline surreal, but that doesn&#8217;t take away from the empathy that the author (has and) seems to be able to evoke in the reader. This is especially commendable because the characters vary in age, socio-economic class, mindset, location and many other factors. Yet, the single common takeaway from each of these (sometimes not-so-ordinary) slice of life situations is how the author is able to drag the reader in and empathise with the character\/s even if not completely identify with.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I loved the two child&#8217;s-perspective stories &#8211; &#8216;Birds&#8217; and &#8216;Hanging On Like Death&#8217;. Both are quite the tearjerkers, with some sublime narration. At least a couple of stories are built on the premise of sudden uncharacteristic decisions, and a different couple of them have sudden twists as well. &#8216;For love or water&#8217; was a favourite and reminded me of a character from the author&#8217;s earlier books. So was &#8216;Immanuel Kant in Shillong&#8217; and this time (since I have visited the place recently) I was able to visualise some of the settings.<br \/>\nTo me, very few authors can capture the &#8216;need to escape and the longing to belong&#8217; as well as Anjum Hasan. In essence, a wonderful read especially if you like Anjum Hasan&#8217;s style of writing that reveals layers each time you read.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9188 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DP.jpg\" alt=\"DP\" width=\"438\" height=\"561\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DP.jpg 438w, https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/DP-234x300.jpg 234w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 438px) 100vw, 438px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 438px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 438\/561;\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anjum Hasan Anjum Hasan is definitely among my top 3 favourite authors, and this book only adds to it. But that also means that this is not a thoroughly objective review. \ud83d\ude42 The book has thirteen short stories that have a varied set of characters in different circumstances. As the jacket informs us, some of <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2014\/11\/16\/difficult-pleasures\/\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[370,6007],"tags":[1958,4579],"class_list":["post-9187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-fiction","tag-anjum-hasan","tag-difficult-pleasures"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9187"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9956,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9187\/revisions\/9956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}