An Atmosphere of Eternity: Stories of India

By David Iglehart

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0964778319
• ISBN13: 9780964778313
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Sunflower Pub Co
• Length: 157 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Refreshing, delightful and multilayered

Imagine you took a journey to a place that appeared to be completely different from where you come from. What would happen when you reach there and actually experience the place? Will you be shocked? Will you fall in Love with it? How would you interact with the natives? How would they react to you? Would you look at the place with wide-eyed wonder or try and get away as soon as possible? Would you learn something from the place and then would you give something precious to the people who live there? David Iglehart addresses these and similar questions in his delightful collection of short stories, `An Atmosphere of Eternity', and arrives at answers that are often surprising and intriguing. The `foreigner' in these stories is often an American who has somehow been cast into the cauldron of humanity that is India. In stories devoid of any non-Indian characters, it is the author who is the `foreigner' regarding age-old customs and dilemmas of his Indian characters with wonder and understanding. Whether he is writing about Americans interacting with Indians or Indians dealing with Americans, Mr. Iglehart treats and develops his characters with love, care and a deep understanding of human nature. The stories give a glimpse of various facets of India and its own unique society. Often they are multilayered and embed within them, deep philosophical ideas that are universal. For example, `An Indian Odyssey' is not just a story of an extraordinary encounter between a young American and an aged Indian vagabond, both sharing the same second-class compartment of a Bangalore bound-train, it is also an expression of what faith can do for you and how much one may be governed by ones own demands. In `A Trip to Rampur', a lonely Indian boy of a royal family receives a knife as a gift from a Country musician he has put up for the night, and a even more valuable gift of friendship and companionship (if only for an evening), that changes his life. In `The Best way to Play the Nagasvaram', a wife teaches her husband that true art comes from the heart. A similar theme underlies the story `A dance among the ruins' where a hardworking American student of the Indian dance form of `bharatnatyam' comes to recognize the value of putting ones `heart in it'. Delving into these stories the reader will find similar gems waiting for them. At the same time in the great story-telling traditions of India and America, Mr. Iglehart's style is flowing and deceptively simple. The stories are refreshingly devoid of `middle class ennui' that has been a feature of several works of late. The reader who picks up `An Atmosphere of Eternity' will be guaranteed not only a good read but also a thought provoking one.