Either my tastes have changed since I first read Gordimer (which is entirely possible - since I first read her in college 11 or 12 years ago) or she's changed her style in this book a little. Jump and other Stories is one of my favorite books ever, but I may have to re-read it now to see if it's as good as I thought it was. This collection....not so good. I think I was most disheartened by the lack of dialogue. Gordimer doesn't have the characters talking. Instead, she describes what they're saying. It makes things clumsy. I guess in general, there's less fire in her work since so much of it was based on apartheid and with that demise, there's a little less to write about. There's still absolutely racial tension and prejudice, but it's not as blatant as it was before. Those problems being a little more of an undercurrent rather than a main focus blunts some of the shock Gordimer was able to bring up in her previous works. ( )

Author is a Nobel Prize winnder in 1991.
Lucid, memorable prose. ( )