To Be A Princess by Nimrod Liram; Gefen Publishing House, 134 pages comprising 10 short stories, ISBN 978-965-229-568-2, $16.95.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO– Anyone whose primary sources of entertainment and information are nightly television shows would perhaps like this short story collection — if only they read in the first place. Each of the stories is highly episodic, tracing events in different people’s lives. Unfortunately no story lingers long enough to provide us the satisfaction of really knowing the principal character. Nor for the most part, do the stories build and build to climax.
Some may say that my criticisms are of the short story genre itself, but, to the contrary, I believe stories can be told completely in a short amount of space. Liram is a talented writer, but it is as if we are being presented the pilots for possible television series, in which the goal is to get us interested so that we’ll want to tune back in once a week. What is frustrating, however, is that these are series without second episodes.
Several of the stories deal with military episodes : “Tel Shams” tells of a tank battle with the Syrians in the Yom Kippur War; “Beirut, 1982, Theatre of the Absurb” tells of an Israeli unit’s race across Lebanon’s capital city to the safety of an area held by Christian allies. The best of the three is “A Reasonable Person” in which an experienced soldier analyzes whether a young officer leading a terrorist extraction unit acted reasonably after entering a Palestinian home.
Four of the stories deal with romance, or at least with coming of age. The title story, “To Be A Princess” tells of a son of an American diplomat who strikes up a friendship with an Argentine diplomat’s daughter who can trace her lineage to the Spanish throne. “A Paris” traces the adventures of young students on break who do enough menial work to have some money for some bizarre French adventures. “Simon” is a tale of a young traveler who is recruited to help harvest the grapes in a Greek village, where he meets a lovely and very marriageable young woman. “Barracuda Reef” relates the story of a doctor with a specialty is underwater medicine who goes diving with a beautiful former student.
Three stories focus on some unusual characters. “Jean Louis Meets His Match” tells of an urbane artist who hoards his own fine works and those of other artists he deems worthy; “Pandejo” tells of a wealthy, cigarette-smoking, Mexican doctor who accompanies his sister to the United States for cancer treatments. “The Maths Teacher” introduces us to a highly-regarded computer scientist who trades in the stress of his field to teach high school math not by rote but by logical theory.
Liram could use any of these stories, or perhaps several in combination, as the basis for a novel. I’d be delighted if his protagonists not only negotiated the twists and turns of life, but provided us with insight into why they make the decisions they do and what courses on the road of life we might consider for ourselves.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com