Direction (Set of 5 questions): You have a brief passages with 5 questions following it. Read the passages carefully and answer the questions.
A good novel tantalizes its readers with glimpses of flesh and lures them into a different world. Short stories, by contrast, rely on instant attraction and immediate gratification and leave their reader hanging. Alexander MacLeod's brilliant debut collection, "Light Lifting", is engrossing and ultimately satisfying; each story has the weight of a novel. These seven stories grip because they are long enough to immerse the reader.
A good storyteller knows far more about his characters than he shares with his audience. Mr. MacLeod passes this test: though he plunges the reader into fully formed worlds, he leaves out just the right amount.
But it is the beautiful writing that really carries this book. The choice of words is spare and simple, and the rhythm is perfect: despite the sadness that overlays many pieces, they flow with the comforting lull of a bedtime story.
There are unflinching tales not of heroism, so much, but of survival. The most experimental piece, “Wonder about Parents”, snatches scenes from different homes. One family launches a crusade against headlice the “size of a poppy seed”, raking out hair night after night, “kids scratched raw”. Another drives cross-country through a snowstorm with their sick four-month-old daughter; the Christmas tree in the hospital bears a sign: “These gifts are empty boxes. Please refrain from opening.”
Other stories capture the consequences of a single moment when the ordinary tips into the extraordinary: in the title story a secondary schooler gets embroiled in a bar brawl on the last day of a summer job; in “Adult Beginner I”, after a woman nearly drowns in the ocean, fear becomes “a biological fact” in her life.
Much fiction is narrated by outsiders, but in Mr MacLeod's imagination being an outlier depends on the context. In “The Loop”, for example, a cycle courier stands out as an able-bodied, right-minded youth among the fat, elderly and invalid people to whom he delivers medication
Not every story in "Light Lifting" is perfect. A couple could be tighter; the male characters are better formed than the female ones. . But these are small niggles in a stunning work. Mr MacLeod's next contribution will be eagerly anticipated.
Why according to the passage, are Alexander MacLeod's stories gripping?
Because the characters are well sketched
Because they leave the reader hanging
Because they are long enough to immerse the reader
Because he shares less than what he knows with the audience.