Simple Recipes: Stories Author: Madeleine Thien Trade Paperback Usually ships in 24 hours Delivery is subject to warehouse availability. Shipping delays may occur if we receive more orders than stock. Our Price: $18.99 You could save $1.90 (10%) with our iREWARDS Program Ordering is 100% secure . Spend $39 or more at chapters.indigo.ca and your order ships free!. ( Details ) Dimensions: 240 Pages | ISBN: 0771085125 Published: May 2002 | From the Publisher “How simple it should be. Warm water running over, the feel of the grains between your hands, the sound of it like stones running along the pavement. My father rinsed the rice over and over, sifting it between his fingertips, searching for the impurities, pulling them out. A speck, barely visible, resting on the tip of his finger.” – from the title story Simple Recipes marks the exciting literary debut of Madeleine Thien, who has been singled out as one of the most impressive new young talents in Canada. The seven stories in this haunting collection circle around and through the territory of family relationships – often within families that have splintered – and examine the experience of alienation, weaving in the conflict between generations and cultures. A young woman searches back in time for the pivotal moment when her family lost faith in itself. Two sisters station themselves across the street from their family home, now sold, hoping that their mother, whom they have not seen in a year, will appear one last time. A wife becomes obsessed with someone she discovers her husband has loved since childhood. A high school student discovers the abuse that may lie beneath a friend’s possessiveness. A woman relives the familiar ceremony of food preparation and the moment when her unconditional love for her father was called into question. At once introspective and revealing, Madeleine Thien’s delicate prose resonates with undeniable power. Her characters in one way or another want to make amends, to understand the events that have shaped their lives. Madeleine Thien is a striking new voice in literary fiction. From the Trade Paperback edition. About the Author Madeleine Thien’s short stories have won awards and have gained many impressive shortlist nominations. This collection won the 1998 Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop’s Emerging Writer Award. Thien’s stories have appeared in literary journals and anthologies, including Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Anthology . Her first novel will be published by McClelland & Stewart in the fall of 2002. Thien, 26, lives in Vancouver, where she is completing an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. From the Trade Paperback edition. Tips for your Reading Group 1. In many of these stories, the past is a powerful, almost overwhelming presence in the lives of its characters. Sometimes the past is associated with a forgotten language, sometimes with a specific place. In what other ways does the past manifest itself in Thien’s stories? Discuss the importance of place and its relation to the past in the collection. 2. In “Simple Recipes” and “A Map of the City,” both Miriam and her father straddle the worlds of East and West, yet each has a very different personal connection to Indonesia and Canada. Compare the relationships Miriam and her father each have with these two countries. Discuss the “tragedy of place” [p 201] that afflicts Miriam’s father. 3. Why do you think the brother in “Simple Recipes” behaves the way he does at the dinner table? Discuss what lies at the heart of the tension between father and son. 4. The idea that the people we love nevertheless remain in some way unknowable to us is one which recurs in Thien’s stories. Discuss this theme, and the way Thien develops it in different ways throughout the book. 5. Certain rituals or acts play an important part in children’s relationships with their parents. What are some of the rituals the children in Thien’s stories enact in order to maintain close ties to their parents? How do these rituals change with time and with life circumstances? 6. The epigraph to the collection opens with the line, “A house is a simple construct.” Discuss the importance of houses and the physical spaces we inhabit throughout this collection. What is the significance of the tent in “Four Days from Oregon,” and the father’s bachelor apartment in “A Map of the City”? Discuss the ways in which the stories challenge the first line of the epigraph. 7. Compare the relationships between daughters and fathers with those between daughters and mothers in the collection. Contrast the ways in which the introduction of a new father-figure in “Four Days from Oregon” and “Bullet Train” affects the dynamic between mother and daughter. 8. Discuss the significance of animals in the collection, particularly the fish in “Simple Recipes,” the bear in “Four Days from Oregon” [pp 37, 41], and the rabbits in “Alchemy.” In “Dispatch,” the narrator daydreams about playing a children’s game with Charlotte, the woman her husband had loved since childhood, in which they imagine the kind of animals they would be [p 95]. Discuss Charlotte’s responses. 9. The narrators in “Dispatch” and “A Map of the City” develop a keen awareness of events in distant parts of the world. What lies at the root of this interest for each of the women? 10. Why do you think Thien chose to use the second-person “you” to narrate “Dispatch”? How do you think the reader’s connection with the story might have been different if the story had been told in the first-person “I”? 11. Thien’s writing has been praised for its spare beauty and its remarkable clarity, even as she explores emotionally charged situations. What did you think of the contrast between Thien’s reserved style and the raw, emotional power of her stories? Many of the stories are either narrated by children, or by adults looking back at their childhoods. How does Thien’s style both lend itself to and subvert expectations about the perspective of children in fiction? 12. Many of the characters in the collection are running away, both literally and emotionally. Whereas some characters eventually return, others continue to lead a life of rootlessness. Discuss the various motivations behind the following characters’ decisions to run away: Irene in “Four Days from Oregon”; the narrator in “Dispatch”; both the mother and father in “House”; Josephine in “Bullet Train”; Miriam and her father in “A Map of the City.” Why do you think the two surrogate father-figures in the collection, Tom from “Four Days from Oregon” and Harold from “Bullet Train,” either encourage or do not try to dissuade their would-be daughters from leaving home? 13. Discuss the motif of swimming, of diving, of coming up for air that recurs throughout the collection. 14. Compare the relationships between the sisters in “Four Days from Oregon” and “House” with Miriam’s friendship with Paula in “Alchemy.” 15. Discuss the issue of guilt and personal responsibility in “Alchemy.” How would you have handled the situation? How do the characters in other stories deal with their guilt? Review Quotes “Thien’s gorgeous stories [are] dense with imagery . . . weighted with intention.” – Vancouver Sun From the Trade Paperback edition. 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