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I Am Me

by Ram Sundaram (Goodreads Author)

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 8 ratings · 6 reviews

"I Am Me" is a two-way book that contains twenty short stories, divided into ten individual pairs. Each story in a pair has a corresponding "mate" on the other side, which shares the same title, theme, and to an extent the same concept, but is presented in an entirely different way. One half of the book examines reality, while the other half explores the realms of fantasy....more

Paperback, 276 pages

Published December 22nd 2011 by iUniverse.com

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Mar 18, 2012 Andrew rated it 3 of 5 stars

The door behind him opened and I saw Amelia enter the room again. I turned around expectantly, but there was no Amelia in my room. I listened to her asking him to be ready for his cue in two minutes. He nodded, and she wished him good luck with a kiss that told me their relationship was different than the one I shared with her. When she left the room again, he turned back to the mirror and looked at me… yes, directly at me.

“You’re it,” he told me, but did not explain what he meant. When he left,...more The door behind him opened and I saw Amelia enter the room again. I turned around expectantly, but there was no Amelia in my room. I listened to her asking him to be ready for his cue in two minutes. He nodded, and she wished him good luck with a kiss that told me their relationship was different than the one I shared with her. When she left the room again, he turned back to the mirror and looked at me… yes, directly at me.

“You’re it,” he told me, but did not explain what he meant. When he left, closing the door behind him, my eyes fell on his dresser. This time there was no bottle of gin on it, empty or full. A part of me wanted to turn around to see what I would find on my own dresser. But I no longer had the luxury of observing two realities. For somehow in the past half hour, I had stopped being the magician and the performer; instead I had become the man in the mirror, a reflection.

***

Ram Sundaram’s modestly experimental book of short fiction, I Am Me is less a collection of twenty split narratives bookended by additional mirrored prologues and epilogues, and more a mosaic of the author’s personal philosophical journey. The aggressive overarching conceit—that twin flames and parallel selves exist across universes and realities (or states thereof)—is further complicated by the book’s physical structure: ten stories read from one end, ten stories read from the other (by flipping the book and starting from the rear… whichever end you deem that to be), with the twin epilogues of “Absolution” meeting in the middle. Whether or not this structural decision works to the book’s benefit is up to the individual. Personally, I found it needlessly cumbersome and wished for an alternative. This was primarily due to my desire to flip back and forth between stories in one half of the book and their conceptual parallel in the other. However, the decision to produce the book in this fashion doesn’t mar the content within. It’s merely a small frustration I wanted to address.

The stories themselves are an interesting mix of voices, ethnicities, and upbringings. As previously mentioned, the two halves of the book (divided by the twin prologues “Dreamless” and “Dreamer”) consist each of ten stories sharing the same selection of titles, but offering mirror images and alternate realities of one another. From the Author’s Note that opens the text: “The purpose of this ‘two-way’ arrangement though, ultimately, is to challenge the segregation of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction.’ These two labels are not as mutually exclusive as we deem; for the world of fiction borrows heavily (if not entirely) from existing fact, while the factual reality we perceive in our daily life is tainted with lies, fantasies and the artful brush strokes of an entire population’s imagination.”

Though ambitious, Sundaram’s stories have difficulty finding and maintaining any true sense of weight or social significance. I was reminded a lot of Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist—not in a narrative or qualitative sense, but in the book’s more philosophical bend. The interrogative is used to a dangerous degree in Sundaram’s stories. He asks more questions than he endeavours to answer. The questions themselves are about man’s nature, his relationship to the world, himself, and those around him; about one’s upbringing and whether or not that determines their quality as a human being. These are all valid questions to explore, but it is through his overt posing of such questions that the book looses its impact.

The scenarios presented aren’t given enough voice to be relied upon for presenting the questions, and possibly the answers as well, through their narratives and his character’s actions. Too often he asks directly, as if expecting the underlying of his stories to be too easily lost on the reader. In other instances, too many answers are given, points hammered home; “An Apple Branch” is a perfect example of this. In the “Dreamless” half of the book (which I took to be the more faithful and less reliant on magical realism to enforce its purpose), this is a tale of two neighbours, Maurice and Anwar, and the apple tree between their properties and the friendship it helps forge between them. This friendship, however, is twisted and destroyed one day, as the cultural views of a nation turn against Anwar and others of his ethnic background. This is all fine, but Sundaram, instead of incorporating imagery or a sense of foreboding into his tale that might relate indirectly or directly to the cause of this sudden shift, feels the need to end the story with the perfunctory paragraph: Maurice and Anwar parted ways that afternoon, forever. And the 200-year old apple tree was cut down in anger that very evening. The evening of September 11, 2001.

This example is endemic of the book’s most obvious problems: Sundaram always takes that extra step too far and explains his point, rather than allowing the reader to discover it for themselves. For this reason, I found the “Dreamer” tales to be the more engaging of the two halves. Though still overcooked in this manner, it is not to nearly the same degree, and their surrealism is given province over Sundaram’s need to explain.

This is not to say the book is without enjoyment. Far from it. “At First Sight” is the strongest title in the collection, and the only one that is strong in both halves of the book. For the remaining standouts, usually one of the pair is far stronger in voice than the other: “Fifty Cents” in the “Dreamless” portion of the book feels ham-fisted and too direct, while its “Dreamer” counterpart is charming, innocent, and leaves much to the imagination. Apart from the prologues and epilogues, which felt like unnecessary monologues from the author’s own philosophical avatar, Ishvar, the only story that did not work for me in either reality is the final tale, “Immortal in Death.”

Sundaram’s voices are well developed, and his use of imagery is sound. I admire the intent of this book, but in the end I wish more restraint had been given—to both the design of the book, and to the author’s overly direct need to pose and answer his own questions. Simply not enough agency and trust is given to the reader.(less)

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Jan 19, 2012 Meagan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: recommended-to-me

I Am Me by Ram Sundaram is written unlike any book I've ever read before and it really worked in my opinion. The book contains 20 pair of short stories, 10 on the reality side and 10 on the fantasy side. I have a huge imagination and fantasy is always my "go-to" when it comes to reading or even watching movies or TV. My fiance on the other hand has NO imagination and is a major realist so when I started reading this book, I took the time to read it out loud with my fiance to get his input as wel...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Dana Burgess rated it 5 of 5 stars

I Am Me is not your average collection of short stories. It is decidedly
your above average collection of short stories. Just as the top half of the cover is a reflexion of the bottom half, the front half of the book is a reflection of the back half. Each story in the book has a 'reflection'. This is so hard to explain and so cool to read. Starting with the Author's Note and Acknowledgements and moving through the book, each story is retold in the other half of the book. The stories have the sam...more

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Mar 10, 2012 Kristilyn (Reading In Winter & Winter Distractions) rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: physical-book, read-in-2012, review-books-completed

I surely hope that I’m not one of the only people in the world who wonders if this whole existence is a dream. If one day, when I’m old and gray, I’ll fall asleep and then, poof! I’ll wake up to live a new life, only to have it happen over and over again. In that same sense, I can’t help but find myself waxing poetically about nature and the beauty of the Earth, and how fascinating and amazing it is that we are actually here. Living, breathing, creatures who are capable of so much. So much thoug...more

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May 10, 2012 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

There's only a handful of books I can say ever made me deeply really reflect on life, myself, and the world after finishing reading. With I Am Me I found myself reflecting after almost every short story. You can't help it. The themes are so simple, yet the stories trigger thoughts that never really occurred to me before. You may have seen on my Top Ten Favorite Quotes I listed one from this book. That is because it has stuck with me long after I read. If you missed it here it is:

"A duck swam lei...more There's only a handful of books I can say ever made me deeply really reflect on life, myself, and the world after finishing reading. With I Am Me I found myself reflecting after almost every short story. You can't help it. The themes are so simple, yet the stories trigger thoughts that never really occurred to me before. You may have seen on my Top Ten Favorite Quotes I listed one from this book. That is because it has stuck with me long after I read. If you missed it here it is:

"A duck swam leisurely before me, without a care in the world...I thought: how utterly simple and without complication. What made its life simple? It needed the very same things I did physically to survive...It wanted a mate, as did I. But perhaps what separated us was our egos. He didn't know what he was; only what he did in order to remain, to exist. I on the other hand knew my surroundings, my world, my past, my world's past. I knew so much that I could even afford to imagine, and that imagination led me to think I was special; special only because I existed. But mere existence was not worthy of pride, or this duck would be proud too. It was pride that made my life complicated."

Think about it. Why do humans have emotions like jealousy and greediness while animals don't really? Is it because we have more awareness, language, imagination, and pride? It was times like these where I found myself closing the book and staring off into space thinking. I haven't done that in about a year since my last college class so it was nice to fire up those neurons again.

Click Read More for the rest of the review, an Interview, and Excerpt!

Aside from the content, the actual writing was wonderful. Each story had new characters and Ram was able to provide a new voice for each one. I was afraid the stories would mesh together, but this definitely was not the case.

Since it is a two-way book you have the choice to read it straight through like a regular book or read a story on one side, flip it, and read the corresponding story on the other side. I chose to do the latter, and found it more rewarding. You're able to compare the stories and themes easily. Also, I was able to compare the components that were more realistic vs. more fantasy based.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thought provoking/philosophy Adult Fiction type books. This would be a great read for someone who commutes on a train to work. You'd be able to complete a story or two and not be left on a cliffhanger all through work!

To read the Author Interview & Excerpt click here (less)

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Sep 27, 2012 Kelsey (Kelsey's Cluttered Bookshelf) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

Originally posted on my blog Kelsey's Cluttered Bookshelf

First I’d like to thank the author for sending me a copy!

This book is definitely different than anything I have read before. It’s divided into two sides, one called Dreamless (the more realistic side), and the other the Dreamer. It’s all short stories, and I’m not going to talk about each individual one since there are technically twenty, but instead I’ll talk briefly of each side of the book.

I started on the Dreamless side, where reality...more

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