Elspeth reviewed Temporary people by Deepak Unnikrishnan
Review of 'Temporary people' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is a very uneven set of short stories. Some I’d give five stars, some zero. The problem with magical realism is either it really really works or it really really doesn’t. I loved when Unnikrishnan used magical metaphors to convey the difficulty of being an immigrant worker in the UAE but felt that sometimes the metaphors got away from him.
And then there’s the weird sexual aspects. It seems like Unnikrishnan needs to shoehorn sex into almost every narrative. Maybe someone told him sex makes stories more interesting? While I agree sex is interesting, it often felt forced and unnecessary. Even when sex was an interesting part of the story he ended up taking it to a weird conclusion, like the clown story.
Maybe three of the stories I thought were amazing. Like truly wow. But the rest were kinda meh with some boo thrown in, all interspersed by …
This is a very uneven set of short stories. Some I’d give five stars, some zero. The problem with magical realism is either it really really works or it really really doesn’t. I loved when Unnikrishnan used magical metaphors to convey the difficulty of being an immigrant worker in the UAE but felt that sometimes the metaphors got away from him.
And then there’s the weird sexual aspects. It seems like Unnikrishnan needs to shoehorn sex into almost every narrative. Maybe someone told him sex makes stories more interesting? While I agree sex is interesting, it often felt forced and unnecessary. Even when sex was an interesting part of the story he ended up taking it to a weird conclusion, like the clown story.
Maybe three of the stories I thought were amazing. Like truly wow. But the rest were kinda meh with some boo thrown in, all interspersed by some truly pretentious poetry.
Ultimately, as a pravasi (technically) I found some things that really resonated with me (“And by the time you’ve done the math in your head, everything you’ve missed, what’s been gained, you’ll come to realize what the word pravasi really means: absence. That’s what it means, absence.”) And I also learned a lot about the specific pains faced by pravasis in the UAE. It's a perspective I haven't seen a lot of so I appreciated getting to know their world a little better.