Two disclaimers: I've only read three of the short stories present in I Am An Executioner (The Infamous Bengal Ming, The Strange Career of Dr. Raju Gopalarajan, and the eponymous story) before condemning it to my PBS bookshelf. I first ordered it because of my intrigue with the description, but the first story left me cold, and it only went downhill from there.
(Spoilers present from here on!)
The Infamous Bengal Ming was about a tiger falling in love with their handler that has the obvious twist ending--the tiger kills him--halfway through, and merely strolls across the second half of the stadium to the finish line. The Strange Career of Dr. Raju Gopalarajan had the courtesy of being a more traditional disappointment: the exact progression you expect from the premise plays out, with him starting off successfully treating minor topical ailments, riding the high of his success, before ultimately maiming a man in surgery and then operating on his own wife, resulting in his getting sent to prison. I found both wholly lackluster, not only in substance but in writing style; both are written as though they were biographies, lacking any of the dramatic irony or sardonic telling that might have transformed bare-bones plots into something more fascinating.
I will admit that the story from which the book gets its title, I Am An Executioner, held my fascination for far longer. Though the writing style remained as stale as before, it set up its intrigue better by hinting at the protagonist's dark past, exploring the dichotomy of his newlywed's reactions to his work, and presenting a curious death row prisoner. It maintained my interest and flew by to the last page... where the story simply ended. The prisoner is executed for reasons unexplained, his wife's inconsistent reactions are never explored, his past is never revealed, and absolutely nothing/no one changes or evolves as a result of the events of the story. This was the point at which I lost any real desire to finish the collection.
Any clever interpretations of the darkness of love seem to simply be replaced by uncomfortable, unnecessary acts of depravity. A homeless woman, infant, and young girl are all brutally killed by either tiger mauling or stoning, and a man gets his arm surgically carved down to bone. I won't even get into the executioner's disturbing sexual advances. In the end, I can't help but wonder what the author's motivation for writing any of the stories was, as no more than the bare minimum appears to have been put into a single one of the stories I read.
(Spoilers present from here on!)
The Infamous Bengal Ming was about a tiger falling in love with their handler that has the obvious twist ending--the tiger kills him--halfway through, and merely strolls across the second half of the stadium to the finish line. The Strange Career of Dr. Raju Gopalarajan had the courtesy of being a more traditional disappointment: the exact progression you expect from the premise plays out, with him starting off successfully treating minor topical ailments, riding the high of his success, before ultimately maiming a man in surgery and then operating on his own wife, resulting in his getting sent to prison. I found both wholly lackluster, not only in substance but in writing style; both are written as though they were biographies, lacking any of the dramatic irony or sardonic telling that might have transformed bare-bones plots into something more fascinating.
I will admit that the story from which the book gets its title, I Am An Executioner, held my fascination for far longer. Though the writing style remained as stale as before, it set up its intrigue better by hinting at the protagonist's dark past, exploring the dichotomy of his newlywed's reactions to his work, and presenting a curious death row prisoner. It maintained my interest and flew by to the last page... where the story simply ended. The prisoner is executed for reasons unexplained, his wife's inconsistent reactions are never explored, his past is never revealed, and absolutely nothing/no one changes or evolves as a result of the events of the story. This was the point at which I lost any real desire to finish the collection.
Any clever interpretations of the darkness of love seem to simply be replaced by uncomfortable, unnecessary acts of depravity. A homeless woman, infant, and young girl are all brutally killed by either tiger mauling or stoning, and a man gets his arm surgically carved down to bone. I won't even get into the executioner's disturbing sexual advances. In the end, I can't help but wonder what the author's motivation for writing any of the stories was, as no more than the bare minimum appears to have been put into a single one of the stories I read.
