The Orientation and Other Stories by Daniel Orozco is a collection of short stories that leave an extremely long-lasting impression. The author doesn’t seem to try to shock the readers, but he does it anyway. Every story is a curious mix of all those contemporary trends that are the main constituents of everyday life of a modern person.
The Orientation makes a reader laugh and then feel uncomfortable and slightly ashamed of previous mirthfulness. The more a reader learns about that office and people who work there the clearer it becomes that it is a rather strange place. It turns out to be that these white-collar workers are not that strait-laced as one might think they are. Passion, love, madness, physical abuse, emotional abuse and other forms of violence manage to coexist there almost peacefully. All of that makes readers wonder how little do they know about their neighbors, relatives and friends. Would you be surprised to find out that a quiet neighbor with a pleasant smile and immaculate manners is a serial killer? The characters of this story would not even bat an eye, for they know every little dirty secret about each other. This undiscussed agreement to keep silence is the most frightful thing. They pretend that everything is just fine, that they are one team that is happy to work together, but the truth is that they too well-aware of the fact that only fake smiles, insincere politeness and masked ignorance prevent them from numerous conflicts. What is more, they are willing to overlook everything as long as work is done.
Hunger Tales explores a difficult relationship with food. Let’s face it, there are countries where famine is one of the most serious problems, but the rest of world has to deal with the excess of food. This can be resulted in two problems: obesity and unwholesome obsession with a healthy life-style that leads to anorexia nervosa. Hunger Tales portrays three different problems, but all of them revolve around food. Anxiety that the characters feel seems to be contagious, their unsustainable hunger is both revolting and fascinating. Unlike our ancestors, we don’t need to exhaust ourselves hunting, there are mega-markets at our service. One can find almost everything there, except inner harmony. These three different situations are supposed to warn us against making a cult out of food and trying to solve psychological problems with its help.
Other stories are dedicated to everyday life and its evanescence. The author doesn’t motivate us to live to the fullest, enjoy every moment of it or other banalities that some motivational speakers like to use. The author just portrays life the way it is. Many terrible things happen around us and we don’t notice, so many beautiful things happen and – again – we don’t notice. Daniel Orozco just describes some of them, so that we could think about our own problems and winnings one day.
