Jeffrey Archer : Short Stories : A Quiver Full Of Arrows

A Quiver Full of ArrowsThis short story collection by Jeffrey Archer has 11 stories bundled up.


Story 1 : The Chinese Statue
Sir Alexander Heathcote rose from an officer in the British foreign office to become an Ambassador. He was deputed to china to represent London. He took great pride in his new assignment because it gave him the opportunity to see a vast and beautiful country. Alexander is a great admirer of Ming dynasty and appreciates the time and life of Ming dynasty.
One day he sets out into the inners of Chinese village, along with his interpreter. He meets a sculptor who is busy going about his job. Alexander is fascinated by the old man's job and expresses so.
The old man, not used to praises, let alone by a foreigner is floored. Out of sheer happiness he takes Alexander inside and shows him a statue from 15th century Ming dynasty.
What follows next is the rest of the story.


Me thinks
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This is my first Short Story collection of Jeffrey Archer. After reading his novel First Among Equals, I had great expectations from this book. But I was slightly let down. I was expecting a great punch. An arrow from the Quiver should have shot me through. But nothing of that sort happened. The story started and got over with a small twitch by a needle.
I was saddened that the first story did not start as I had expected.

I would give it a 5.5 out of 10.

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Story 2 : The Luncheon
The first person, is an author. The whole story is from the eyes of the Author. He is pleasantly surprised when he sees a lady waving at him and greets him with a hug in a literary guild party. Author is not able to place the lady. In the nick of time he remembers her as Susan whom he had met sometime back.
What follows is the recollection of the past encounter.

Me thinks
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I was totally dejected. How can you call this a story. It was a simple narration of an incident. It lacked the punch, the anxiety factory, the aaha factory. I was thoroughly disappointed to say the least.
It also proved my long held notion that "In a short story collection the second story will be a compete disaster". This book simply reiterated my belief and that too with full force.

Should I rate this story !!! anyways I would give it a 2 out of 10.

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Story 3 : A Coup
Senhor Eduardo Francisco de Silveira has come to Nigeria on an ambitious project. He is planning to build the capital of Nigeria. It is a very huge project even by Edurdo's standard. He is leaving no stone unturned.
Eduardo's company is the largest construction company in Brazil. However his rival Manual Rodriguez claims his company Rodriguez International is the biggest.
On landing in Nigeria, he heads to his hotel room. When is about to step into the elevator, he freezes in his path when he notices Manual in the lift.
What follows next is an interesting sequence of event that take place in Nigeria.

Me Thinks
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This story brought back some color on my cheeks :)
This story felt as if it deserved to be called a story. It had the punch and the strength of an arrow. Though it could not pierce me as I had built a shield of hopelessness. But it did crack the shield.

I would give it 6.5 out of 10.

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Story 4 : Old Love
William Hatchard Philippa Jameson have joined New College under James Blake to study English Language and Literature. Far from being good friends they were bitter rivals who competed ferociously in each and every class, each and every competition.
By the end of first year, every one had a feeling that these two will never compromise on anything. Their rivalry brought out the best out of both of them as they put in all their efforts to be on top.

What follows next is an interesting tale which looks at the lives of both William and Philippa across generations.

Me Thinks
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I was totally floored by the story. I was completely absorbed in the story.
When the story finally got over, I could not believe that the story actually ended...
I was almost in tears at the end of the story.
Very touching and very hear warming story of two people and their lives.

I would give 9 out of 10

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Story 5: The Perfect Gentleman

The first person, journalist and author from London, is in New York chasing a writer for a biography. He meets Edward Shrimpton in the Metropolitan Club which occurred by chance. The journalist and Edward decide to have a lunch the next day.
Late in the evening the journalist meets his father's friend Eric McKenzie at the Metropolitan club. During their dinner the journalist mentions to Eric about his meeting with Edward. Eric gets interested. Eric tells him that Eric was a national champion in Backgammon gave. Edward was an undisputed champion of backgammon until he played the game on that fateful day.
Eric asks him to question Edward about the game as it was still unknown why he lost the game on that day.

What follows is the conversation between the journalist and Edward.

Me Thinks
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An interesting story. I liked the story. Not as powerful as "A Coup" and "Old Love" but great read nevertheless.

I would give it 6 out of 10.

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Story 6 : Broken Routine
Septimus Horatio Cornwallis has one of the most boring lives. He is an insurance claim settler and his daily routine is fixed to the dot. Right from the time he gets up till he sleeps his life is so monotonous that if you follow him for a week you would know what he must be doing in the next few years.
One fine evening his routine gets broken when his boss asks him to stay little longer and he misses his train. He takes a different train which is completely packed. He gets hold of a seat and settles down only to find a teenager sitting in front of him.

What follows is an interesting non-verbal communication between the two.

Me Thinks
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Awsome !!!
This time the arrow hit with a bang, and pierced me through. Though I have read about this punch in a different context, in a different story somewhere else but i was not prepared for the ending and it took me by surprise.
Considering that this short story collection was first printed in 1980, I feel this particular punch was created by THIS story and it has been used by others in their stories.

I would give an 8.5 out of 10

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Story 7 : One Night Stand
It is the story of Adrian and Michael. who are very close friends and have literally lived together their entire life. They share a perfect bonding until they meet this lady.

Me thinks
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A passé story.

I would give it a 4 out of 10.

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Story 8 : Henry's HiccupHenry is the son of Pasha of Egypt. The wealthiest person in Egypt.
The story revolves around Henry's live pre and post pasha's death

Me thinks
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There was no story here. Except the realization by Henry that life is not the same as he thought it was.

I would give it a 5 out of 10.

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Story 9 : A Matter of principle.Sir Hamish Graham runs a construction company and is pretty successful at that. But the downturn has affected his company and one of his managers asks him to take up the Mexican project for which Mexican government has put up advertisement.
The story revolves around the Contract and the discussion between all the stakeholders of the project.

ME thinks
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Amazing story with a personal Mexican touch, that Hamish fails to pick up.

I would give it a 7.5 out of 10.

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Story 10: The Hungarian ProfessorThe first person, sportsman is in Hungary to participate in a sports meet where he has a chance meeting with an old man who has great interest in England.
They keep chatting about England, their culture their climate, interesting places.
The old man invites the sportsman to his house for a dinner.
What follows next is an interesting conversation between the two about England.

Me thinks
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Awsome !!
I was totally absorbed in the story. The arrow will hit you only if you are careful in reading the last part of the story and keeping the context of the story at the back of your mind.
Brilliant protrayal of the old man.

I would give an 8.5 out of 10

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Story 11: The First MiracleTo say anything about the story would be to give away the story.
Lets just say that history is made up of many interesting twists and turns.

I would give the story an 8 out of 10
( I had to Google around to understand the significance of the story. Great story indeed!!!)



Summary
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A great collection. A must read.
My Favourites: 4,3,6,10,11,9

Over all I would rate the book at 7 out of 10. It is a must read.

Marc the millionarire on Park Aveanue

I was reading the book "Fooled By Randomness" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In one of the sections called "Too Many Millionaires Next Door" he tells the story of Marc a Lawyer in NewYork city. I have rephrased the section below:

Mark is a lawyer in Newyork city and stays in Manhattan along with his wife. He is an intelligent lawyer who studied in harvard college and did his law from the Yale Law school. In his late 40s and earning about $500,000 he was a well settled man. His office life was hectic. He would work till 9:30 on many days and sometimes you would find him in the office even at midnight. Because of the fatigue his weekends would be lost in recuparating from the excessive work loads. He had become a partner within 7 years of his initial working years. All this hardwork left his wife frustrated and she left him.

He started dating janet, his paralegal. Later on he married her and bought an appartment on Park Avenue. Janet used to meet people from the neighbourhood manhattan houses probably once a month during the parents meet. Because of her homely girl appearance she would get snubbed by some people. She would even get jealous looking at the huge diamond ring some other lady would be wearing. Then she would wonder why her husband, even though was a yale graduate, was not earning enough to buy her all these itesms. Isn't he smart ? Why was Ronald Something whose wife would not even look at janet, worth so many millions where as her husband who was a yale graduate did not have enough savings ?

Now Janet has a feeling that her husband is a failure. But her comarision is wrong and the conclusion drawn (i.e. her husband is a failure) is totally baseless. Because she is using a wrong distribution to derive a rank.

Now compared to the General US population, Mark has done very well, better than 99.5% of his compatriots. Compared to his other harward friends he did better than 90% of them. Compared to his batchmates from Yale Law school his did better than 60% of them. BUT compared to his neighbours he is at the bottom...
why ? Because he chose to live on Park Aveanue where every neighbour is successful. But Janet did not consider the failure cases. If a guy was a failure he would not be living on the Park aveanue in the first place. So Janets sample space consisted only of successful people as living on park aveanue will not give you failures for comparision and hence she felt Marc is a failure. This lead to considerable emotional distress. Here she has married an extremely successful man but all she can see is failure in comparision with her neighbours.

Janets vision is myopic. and the sample space of comparision is wrong. This sample space is a small collection of extremely successful people in the city and comparing among them to find out your standing and being sad that marc is a failure would be doing injustice to Marc.

Moral:
When you compare youeself with others and feel you are a failure because you seem to be at the bottom of the sample space of your comparision. Just cross check your sample space. You might have actually chosen a worng set of guys/ladies to compare yourself with.

In janets case it would be better if she moves from the park aveanue and move into a different neighbourhood.