 Narayan highlights the social context and everyday life of his characters , and he has been compared to William Faulkner , who also created a similar fictional town , and likewise explored with humour and compassion the energy of ordinary life . Narayan 's short stories have been compared with those of Guy de Maupassant , because of his ability to compress a narrative . However , he has also been criticised for the simplicity of his prose . 
