Product Description

"A Simple Tale" is the moving account of Maria Poniatowski, an aging Ukrainian woman who was taken by the Germans for slave labor and eventually relocated to Canada as a displaced person. She struggles to provide her son Radek with every opportunity, but his eventual success increases the gulf between him and his mother. What of the past is she to preserve, and how to avoid letting the weight of that past burden the present? Maria's story is about the moments of connection and isolation that are common to us all.
"The Hunters," the second novella, is narrated by an American academic spending a summer in London who grows obsessed by the neighbors downstairs. Ridley Wandor, a plump and insipid caretaker of the elderly, lives with her ever-unseen mother and a horde of pet rabbits she calls "the hunters." While the narrator researches a book about death, all of Ridley Wandor's patients are dying. Loneliness breeds an active imagination. Is having such an imagination always destructive? Or can it be strong enough to create a new reality?
Far-flung settings and universal themes give a sweeping appeal to Claire Messud's work.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #428887 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Publishers Weekly
These two short novels have nothing in common except for providing the pleasure of seeing a writer of enormous skill and stylistic grace excel in crafting two very different fictions. "A Simple Tale" traces the life of Maria Poniatowski, a Toronto cleaning woman whose last client has become incapacitated with age and must soon enter a nursing home. Her deterioration marks the end of an era for the 70ish Maria, who reflects on a "simple life" that is soon revealed to consist of a series of horrifying disruptions: her transfer as a teenager from her village in the Ukraine to a series of Nazi labor camps; her arrival in Canada as a displaced person after the war; her son's marriage to the wrong woman; her husband's death. Messud (When the World Was Steady; The Last Life) builds a powerful and resonant story out of the simplest and seemingly most ordinary of domestic details: Maria's teatime with her elderly client, her plastic furniture-covers, a painting of a tropical seascape. "The Hunters" is a world away from Maria Poniatowski's Toronto set in London and narrated by an American academic who has taken to spying on her two downstairs neighbors, a mother and daughter who raise rabbits. "The hunters" is what the daughter, a "suet of a woman," calls the rabbits, adding, "Although they're more like `the hunted,' in this world, wouldn't you say?" Just as a simple life proves more complex and contradictory than one would imagine, so the reversal of hunter and hunted here provides unexpected suspense and plot surprises. These two fine and remarkable novellas, each a modest tour de force, are sure to advance Messud's critical standing and to broaden her readership.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The reader gets two for the price of one in this volume of novellas. The first piece, "A Simple Tale," is the story of Maria Poniatowski. Maria was born in the Ukraine and survived World War II in German slave labor camps. Put in a displaced persons camp at the end of the war, she meets her husband, Lev, and together they decide to relocate to Canada to start a new life and raise their young son, Radek. Maria struggles to find her place in the world, first as a cleaning woman, then as a widow. A gap forms between her and Ron, as her son now calls himself, because Maria disproves of his wife, who in Maria's words is not a nice girl. In the second piece, "The Hunters," a nameless English professor is researching death during a dreary summer in London. Alone and depressed, the narrator eliminates most human contact, until the downstairs neighbor, Ridley Wandor, knocks on the apartment door. The narrator becomes enthralled with Ridley, a home health aide, and her tales of a sick mother whom no one ever sees, patients who die with alarming frequency, and a horde of pet rabbits. Both novellas illustrate the frustration of human relations, loneliness, and the veracity of personal histories. Messud's (The Last Life) short novels are well written, intense examinations of isolation that will appeal to readers of literary fiction. Recommended for larger collections.
- Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker
These novellas both have displaced protagonists who cannot decide whether to seek a deathlike stillness or to embrace life's mess. In the first, a Toronto cleaning woman finds that the ritualized relationship she enjoys with a long-term employer has provided more continuity than anything else in her life, which has included famine in rural Ukraine, slave labor in Germany, love in a displaced-persons camp, emigration, and a cozy family existence. In widowhood, however, her sense of order is in danger of taking over and annihilating all that is left. Being almost too fastidious to live is also the dilemma of the narrator of the second tale, an American academic in London who loathes the friendly woman who lives downstairs. The tone is Jamesian, but the ending holds a beast in the jungle only for the hapless fellow-tenant.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Novellas Are Hard
and especially so in Claire Messud's case when "The Last Life" was so deliciously rendered, so unforgettably film like and full of nostalgia without ever being sentimental. In contrast, I found these novellas too tight and with too little room for the reader to daydream on them. But this is highly subjective. I read one professional review that praised the first, damned the second work--there are 2 novellas here. Another reviewer, highly respected saw it just the other way around. But for myself, I missed the last novel and felt these experimental works may lead to a greater next novel, not another novella, which I do not believe is Ms. Messud's best genre.

A Fierce Young Voice
Claire Messud's THE HUNTED is surprising work, and what most surprises is that this young writer has mastered a demanding literary form, the nouvella. In "A Simple Tale" she enters the mind of a World War II survivor of Hitler's labor camps and traces this woman's consciousness from youth to her older years as a Toronto cleaning woman. All of the characters in this nouvella are fully fleshed out and thoroughly interesting. "The Hunters" is set in contemporary London and deals with the psychology of fear and suggestibility. To say that it is a contemporary take on James'"The Turn of the Screw" is to suggest its creepiness and fascination. not to dismiss the nouvella as trite hommage. The book is a double dose of adventurous thinking and accomplished writing from a writer who has found her voice at a very young age. Highly recommended.

Artistry of Words
Wonderful introduction to an author who will surely make her mark in contemporary literature. Messud utilizes the pen to paper as would a painter use their brush to a canvas. In both short novels----or novellas, Messud engages the reader into the full depth of a story in the shortness of 100 pages each. Unlike other reviewers, I was not prejudiced by having read The Last Life first and so disappointed with these stories. (although it sits next to me as I write because I can't wait to see more of her work). In A Simple Plan, we learn the whole life of Maria to who and what she has become today from her plight as a child. The Hunters story immediately strikes the reader without ever revealing the gender of the first person narrative. The most engaging part of both of these stories is that the language makes them come alive, almost dance off the page. I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading more of her work.