My two cents ...

Finished reading My Side of the Matter by Truman Capote, yesterday. It had four short stories -- Miriam, My Side of the Matter, Music for Chameleons and Mr Jones. Except for the first story, Miriam, I could not make much sense of other stories, they just went over my head.

Miriam is a story about Mrs. H.T. Miller who is living alone for several years, after death of her husband. She has no friends to speak of and she usually did not go further than the corner grocery store. One day, Mrs Miller had gone to see a movie where she happened to spot a strange looking girl of about ten or eleven years old, whose hairs were absolutely silver-white. She request Mrs Miller to buy the movie ticket for her. In the course of talking with her, Mrs Miller come to know that the name of the girl was Miriam, which was also the first name of Mrs Miller. After the movie, Mrs Miller forgot all about the girl. During a night on which it had snowed very heavily, Miriam pays a visit to Mrs Miller at her home. At first Mrs Miller is very surprised by her visit, and later she becomes very annoyed by the behaviour of Miriam. Miriam promises to go after Mrs Miller give her something to eat. After eating the sandwiches made by Mrs Miller, Miriam asks for cherries and almond cakes. After few days, Mrs Miller goes out for shopping and ends up buying cherries and almond cakes. On the same day, she is visited again by Miriam, who now has come with our cloths and dolls, and announces that she will be staying with Mrs Miller. Mrs Miller is by now very terrified and rushes out to her neighours for help. Her neigbours calms her down and go to lookout for Miriam in Mrs Miller's home. He returns after few minutes and says there is no one in Mrs Miller's home. When Mrs Miller returns to her home, she finds that Miriam is very much there.

Miriam had entered Mrs Miller house and mind, and she refuses to leave. It happens sometime with us that we are terrified or afraid of things or events, but most of them are only in our minds and just imaginary.

The next books I will be reading is Ladies Coupe by by Anita Nair. It is story of a woman's search for strength and independence .