The
Past Present
By Sylvia Petter
Iumix Limited - 2001
ISBN: 1843200058 - Paperback
Contemporary Fiction - short stories
Reviewed by: Amy
Mehta, MyShelf.com
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a Copy
"The Past Present" is a collection of insightful short stories
that take a closer look at people of different countries and cultures.
The overall effect is an analysis of certain aspects of the human condition,
as it explores how one's actions may affect others. We meet an Austrian
émigré that is now a tutor for German and an unfaithful
businessman that soothes his conscience by buying his wife wooden dolls
after each indiscretion. We also hear the thoughts of a young woman seeking
to explain the circumstances she is in as she is about to be the victim
of a fatal plane accident. Of course, while many of the tales offer a
bittersweet truth, and some tales are sadder than others, by no means
is the whole book a collection of sob stories.
Pick this one up - you
might just learn something about a land that, until now, seemed foreign
and very different from our country. Wonderful books like this one serve
as a useful reminder that we are all much more similar than we realize.
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