Last Batch of Short Stories

Aw. I'm kinda sad to see them go...

Anyway, I did enjoy these last short stories of the semester. I did not enjoy them as much as last week's selections, but I found them interesting and a bit different. As Casey said earlier, this week's stories jumped all over the place! We moved from imaginary villages to Korea to Cambodia and back again.

Personally, I actually really enjoyed "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter" with its "ghosts in the machine" and its interesting Cambodian flavor. Sith was a cool character, and although I found her a bit annoying at the start, I began to sympathize with her as the story continued. I do think the story gets a little "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" when the narrator speaks of Sith's "tiny heart" thumping in her chest, her selfish nature, and her eventual conversion to helping those in need. However, I thought it was pretty interesting that Sith happened to be the same age as me (I was also eighteen in 2004--crazy!). That's always weird.

Overall, I thought the story was well told and entertaining. Certainly not something I would have expected. I mean, first of all, how strange it is to find a fantasy/ghost story written about post-genocide Cambodia. And even stranger still, a fantasy/ghost story about Pol Pot's daughter (who is *real* by the way, AND named "Sitha"... I did not know that). Sadly, the entire time I was reading this, I could not get that Dead Kennedys song, "Holiday in Cambodia," out of my head. That's ok, I think the Dead Kennedys probably rank among the music on Sith's numerous iPods.

Right. So there you are.