User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
How’s this for blurbs: when the female author published this collection of short stories at age 32 in 1999, she won the Pulitzer Prize, the Pen/Hemingway Award and the New Yorker’s Debut Book of the Year.
Like the author’s other collection of shorts that I have reviewed (Unaccustomed Earth, 2008) these stories are about Bengali immigrants in the US from the Bengal area of India, around Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). There are about 250 million Bengalis in the subcontinent, about 2/3 making up the Muslim nation of Bangladesh and about 1/3, mostly Hindus, in West Bengal, a state in India.
But, with the exception of two stories, these folks are not urban slum dogs --they are upper-income folks with PhD’s and MD’s who grew up speaking English in India and who came to the USA to be doctors, professors and engineers in the high-tech beltway bandit firms around Boston. They live in Boston townhouses and upscale suburbs. And there’s a twist to saying these stories are about “immigrants” because most folks in these stories were fully assimilated into the global upper class before they even arrived in the USA.
Here’s a sample of what the nine stories are about:
In the title story, a man who is an interpreter of native Indian languages for a doctor is also a tour guide for visitors to India. He tells this to a Bengali couple, with their kids, visiting from the states. The wife, desperate for someone to confide in, thinks he is like a psychological counselor and pours out her secrets, shocking the tour guide.
In “Mrs. Sen’s,” an eleven-year old boy learns the depth of the loneliness of a Bengali woman in Boston who desperately misses her native country and her large extended family back in India.
“A Real Durwan” is one of two stories set back in India, not in the USA. A poverty-stricken old woman, bent with age, has a job sweeping the stairwell in an apartment building. She sleeps on a pile of rags below the mailboxes. As improvements are made to the building the tenants decide they want a real concierge and toss her onto the street.
In “Sexy,” a young woman listens every day to her co-worker aghast at the infidelity of her cousin’s husband who has left his wife for a younger unmarried woman. Although she and the co-worker are best of friends, the woman can’t tell her that she herself is having an affair with a married Bengali man.
In “This Blessed House,” a young Bengali couple has just moved into a new home and they keep finding posters of Jesus behind closet doors, crosses, statues of Mary in the bushes and nativity scenes in nooks and corner. Over her husband’s objections, the wife collects these and displays them on the mantle. “ ‘We’re not Christian,’ Sanjeev said. Lately he had begun noticing the need to state the obvious to Twinkle.” Sanjeev is an introverted engineer. And it could just be that life-of-the-party Twinkle, despite her poor housekeeping skills, could just be the complementary partner Sanjeev needs if he has sense to hold on to her.
The stories in the author’s collection, Unaccustomed Earth, were very good but Maladies is excellent. No wonder it won so many awards.
Map from portcities.org.uk
Rating: really liked it
You know a book's good when someone asks you for a synopsis, or snippet, or impression, and all you can do is smile there, enveloped in some subtle magic that only you know about, & kinda forget what it was all about altogether. This happened with "Interpreter of Maladies", a perfectly-titled collection of short stories about Indian Americans in India or in the U.S. Their ages & experiences range from children to marrieds to 103 year-olds, from tourism in the old world to the natural assimilation to a new one.
The first story makes me shiver just thinking about it--I made my students read it as an example of the perfect short story. & the last one encapsulates the author's overall thesis perfectly. It's all a masterpiece. A privilege to read.
Rating: really liked it
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa LahiriInterpreter of Maladies is a book collection of nine short stories by Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri published in 1999. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award in the year 2000.
The stories are about the lives of Indians and Indian Americans who are caught between their roots and the "New World."
Content:
A Temporary Matter: A married couple, Shukumar and Shoba, live as strangers in their house until an electrical outage brings them together when all of sudden "they [are] able to talk to each other again" in the four nights of darkness.
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine: Mr. Pirzada is a botany professor from Dhaka and is living in New England for the year after receiving a research grant from the Pakistani Government; he has left behind his wife and seven daughters,
Interpreter of Maladies: Mr. and Mrs. Das, Indian Americans visiting the country of their heritage, hire a middle-aged tour guide Mr. Kapasi as their driver for the day as they tour.
A Real Durwan: Boori Ma is a feeble 64-year-old woman from Calcutta who is the stairsweeper, or durwan, of an old brick building. In exchange for her services, the residents allow Boori Ma to sleep in front of the collapsible gates leading into the tenement.
Sexy: “Sexy” centers on Miranda, a young white woman who has an affair with a married Indian man named Dev. Although one of Miranda's work friends is an Indian woman named Laxmi, Miranda knows very little about India and its culture.
Mrs. Sen's: In this story, 11-year-old Eliot begins staying with Mrs. Sen—a university professor's wife—after school. The caretaker, Mrs. Sen, chops and prepares food as she tells Eliot stories of her past life in Calcutta, helping to craft her identity.
This Blessed House: Sanjeev and Twinkle, a newly married couple, are exploring their new house in Hartford, Connecticut, which appears to have been owned by fervent Christians: they keep finding gaudy Biblical paraphernalia hidden throughout the house.
The Treatment of Bibi Haldar: 29-year-old Bibi Haldar is gripped by a mysterious ailment, and myriad tests and treatments have failed to cure her. She has been told to stand on her head, shun garlic, drink egg yolks in milk, to gain weight and to lose weight.
The Third and Final Continent: The narrator lives in India, then moves to London, then finally to America. The title of this story tells us that the narrator has lived in three different continents and chooses to stay in the third, North America.
عنوانها: «ترجمان دردها»؛ «ترجمان ناخوشیها»؛ «مترجم بیماریها»؛ «مترجم دردها»؛ «مترجم ناخوشیها»؛ نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش ماه نوامبر سال 2001میلادی
عنوان: ترجمان دردها؛ نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ برگردان: مژده دقیقی؛ تهران، شهر کتاب، هرمس، 1380؛ در 124ص؛ شابک ایکس - 964363003؛ چاپ دوم 1384؛ در 197ص؛ چاپ سوم 1388؛ شابک 9789643630034؛ چاپ چهارم 1393؛ موضوع داستانهای کوتاه از نویسندگان هندی تبار ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده ی 20م
عنوان: مترجم دردها، نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ برگردان: امیرمهدی حقیقت؛ تهران، ماهی، 1380؛ در 266ص؛ شابک 9649333393؛چاپ دوم سال1381؛ چاپ چهارم 1385؛ پنجم 1388؛ در 224ص؛ شابک 9789649333335؛ ششم 1389؛ هشتم 1391؛ نهم 1393؛
عنوان: مترجم ناخوشیها؛ نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ مترجم: تینا حمیدی؛ تهران، ویدا، 1380؛ در 202ص؛ شابک 9646807100؛
عنوان: ترجمان ناخوشیها؛ نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ برگردان: حمیده صفارمحمدی؛ اهواز، مردمک، 1382؛ در 307ص؛ شابک 9649125140؛
عنوان: مترجم بیماریها، نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ برگردان: ویدا اسلامیه؛ تهران، نشر علم، 1383؛ در 302ص؛ شابک 9644053648؛
عنوان: مترجم دردها، نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ برگردان: محمدعلی صوتی؛ تهران، نیک آئین، 1383؛ در 214ص؛ شابک 9647356110؛
عنوان: مترجم دردها، نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ برگردان: آبتین خردمند؛ تهران، کولهپشتی، 1392؛ در 254ص؛ شابک 9786006687773؛
فهرست داستانها: «موضوع موقت»، «وقتی آقای پیرزاده برای شام میآمد»، «ترجمان دردها (مترجم دردها)»، «دربان واقعی»، «جذاب»، «خانه خانم سن»، «این خانه متبرک» و ...؛
مجموعه داستان «ترجمان دردها» با اینکه نخستین کتاب «جومپا لاهیری»، نویسنده ی «هندی تبار آمریکایی» است؛ اما در زمانی کوتاه، پس از انتشار، برنده ی جایزه ی بهترین کتاب «نیویورکر»، جایزه ی «پن همینگوی»، جایزه ی «کتاب برگزیده ی پابلیشرز ویکلی»، جایزه ی «ادیسن مت کاف» از «آکادمی هنر و ادبیات آمریکا»، جایزه ی «کتاب برگزیده نیویورک تایمز»، جایزه ی «اْ هنری»، نامزد جایزه ی «لوس آنجلس تایمز»، و برنده ی جایزه ی «پولیتزر ادبی سال 2000میلادی» شده است؛ رویدادی که برای یک مجموعه داستان کوتاه، کمتر روی میدهد، اینبار این رویداد برای کتابی است که به فرهنگ و آداب مردمان شرق میپردازد
نقل نمونه متن از داستان «ترجمان دردها»: (کاغذ، وقتی که آقای «کاپاسی» نشانیاش را با دستخطی واضح و خوانا رویش مینوشت، لوله میشد؛ خانم «داس» حتما برایش نامه مینوشت، از کار مترجمی اش در مطب دکتر میپرسید، و او به زبانی شیوا و فصیح پاسخ میداد، فقط جالبترین لطیفه ها را انتخاب میکرد، تا او موقع خواندنشان در خانه اش در «نیوجرزی» با صدای بلند بخندد؛ به موقعش، سرخوردگی خود را، از ازدواجش فاش میکرد، او هم همینطور؛ به این ترتیب، صمیمیتر میشدند، و دوستیشان عمیقتر میشد؛ آن موقع، دیگر عکسی از خودشان دو تا داشت، در حال خوردن پیاز سرخ شده زیر چتری زرشکی رنگ، که خیال داشت آن را لای کتاب دستور زبان «روسی»اش محفوظ نگه دارد؛ آقای «کاپاسی»، در همان حال که ذهنش به سرعت کار میکرد، ناگهان دچار احساس ملایم و خوشایندی شد؛ مثل احساسی بود، که مدتها پیش، بعد از ماهها ترجمه کردن، به کمک فرهنگ لغت، به او دست میداد، وقتی که عاقبت قطعه ای از یک رمان «فرانسوی» یا شعری «ایتالیایی» را میخواند، و کلماتش را، که گرهشان در نتیجه ی تلاش خودش باز شده بود، یکی پس از دیگری میفهمید؛ در آن لحظات، آقای «کاپاسی» احساس میکرد، که همه چیز دنیا درست است، که همه ی تلاشها به ثمر میرسد، که همه ی اشتباهات زندگی، دست آخر معنی پیدا میکند؛ حالا هم این امید، که با خانم «داس» در تماس خواهد بود، وجودش را از همین احساس پر میکرد)؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 28/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 24/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Rating: really liked it
In 2000 Jhumpa Lahiri became the first Indian American to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her short story collection The Interpreter of Maladies. In these nine poignant stories, Lahiri relates the Indian immigrant experience, connecting the tales and creating one voice for them. The stories shared a sadness of being separated from one's family by thousands of miles, yet also offered a glimmer of hope for their lives in India or the United States.
Not generally a reader of short stories, this year I read two powerful novels, Homegoing and The Book of Unknown Americans, which told one story in vignettes. Unlike these two books, however, Maladies is nine separate stories which share one overarching theme. The characters never meet even if they came from the same city in India to the same city in America, craving the company and friendship of other Indian Americans. Lahiri does a masterful job of giving purpose to her protagonists even if in some cases we only get to know them for fifteen short pages. As each story begins in a negative light and ends positively, the reader looks forward to each successive story in the collection.
Even though each story is brilliant in its own right, three stand out in creating an upbeat environment upon conclusion: the keynote story The Interpreter of Maladies where Mrs. Das comes to terms with herself as the story ends; The Story of Bibi Haldar where the title character is ostracized and desires to marry above all else; and the ending story The Third and Final Continent with an unnamed protagonist who looks back on his first days in America thirty years later. All share the theme of Indians who find it easier to hang on their customs than assimilate, creating people proud of their culture yet longing for their old country. This did not seem all too different to me than immigrants from other ethnicities and Lahiri does a superb job of making the Indian experience stand alone.
Lahiri was raised in suburban Boston in Rhode Island and appears to create her characters from childhood memories. Whether it was two Indian girls going trick or treating or a newlywed couple grappling with whether to observe Hinduism or Christianity, the stories are written in a labor of love. Each story is penned with the details of the color and texture of the women's saris to the brand of tea that the characters drank. From reading the stories of of these immigrants, I felt empathy with their lives as second half twentieth century arrivals to America.
Jhumpa Lahiri has weaved together stories of sadness yet has her readers leave feeling positive about her characters. Although short in length, each story is powerful from start to finish and has the readers desiring to know more about the characters' lives. A collection worthy of the Pulitzer, I look forward to reading more of Lahiri's work. Interpreter of Maladies rates 5 bright stars.
Rating: really liked it
I usually don't enjoy short stories that much. Collections of short stories tend to have stories that are really strong mixed together with ones that aren't and this was no exception. I do think the foreward for the kindle edition that I had contributed a lot to my enjoyment of the stories. It really helped frame a connecting thread through out each story and tied it back to the title of the collection. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed the stories as much without having the foreward highlight the themes to look for or without it explaining what made the collection great. I find that often that is the case, like i definitely wouldn't have understood the significance and enjoyment of Don Quixote without the foreward. I do find short stories a lot less satisfying than novels though, they lack a certain build up and depth usually that I would get with a novel, and I tend to find the endings to them to feel much less strong. I don't think the last story, The Third and Final Continent, was that great and definetly felt like one of the weakest. I did like The Treatment of Bibi Haldar, This Blessed House, Mrs. Sen's, Interpreter of Maladies, and When Mr.Pirzada Came to Diner to name a few. I might be forgetting some. Anyway the book definitely did a good job exploring themes of cultural differences, living in diaspora, and a general malaise of life. A 4.5 stars for this one.
Rating: really liked it
Writing short stories is not easy. A novel is an easier literary form in a way - it allows you the space for character and plot development and gives you the space to slowly fall in love with it.
Short story, on the other hand, is like literary speed dating; it only has so much time to set itself apart and make a somewhat decent expression. It's much easier for me to think of good novelists than good short story writers. Let's try - Hemingway, Poe, Bradbury, Chekhov, maybe a few more. Well, I guess Jhumpa Lahiri can join the exclusive club. Her novel
The Namesake left me wanting more, but her short stories are very well-done. Apparently the Pulitzer people thought the same thing.
If I were to describe the stories in
Interpreter of Maladies in a single word, it'd be
"melancholy". They are permeated by
quiet, subdued, rich, and almost beautiful sadness; sorrow that paradoxically sometimes seems almost uplifting, even cathartic. The stories are slow to unfold, contemplative, intensely lyrical, nostalgic, and quietly moving.
"Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."
Lahiri writes about India and Indian heritage, be it Indian immigrants to American university towns or people in India. The country itself, its culture, its beliefs, its traditions, and the pain of missing it are ever-present in her fiction.
The Namesake dealt with exactly the same premise, and the similarities between that novel and these stories are profound. The similar theme, repeating over and over in the stories, makes you anticipate the storylines, but somehow it does not detract from enjoyment of the prose and the stories.
It's not about the plot; Lahiri's storytelling hinges on the inner world of her characters, their hopes, dreams, and memories.
"Whenever he is discouraged, I tell him that if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer. While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."
Overall, I enjoyed this story collection quite a bit. I chose to ration it over a few days rather than swallow them all at once, and it was a good experience.
I definitely recommend this book and easily give it 4 stars. Now I'd be curious to see if and how Lahiri can expand her themes and touch on the subjects other than immigrant experience.
Rating: really liked it
“Interpreter of maladies” evokes that space in limbo, that straddling identity of immigrants trying to start a new life abroad and the cultural displacement they suffer both in their native and adopted countries. Enriched with colorful details of the Indian tradition, cuisine and celebrations, this collection of nine stories addresses the universal struggle of getting adapted to the ways of a foreign homeland without losing one’s original roots.
Lahiri’s prose is fluid and simple, but it more than meets the challenge of building a bridge between two different worlds with amazing precision, delineating a tight-knitted atmosphere that serves as common ground for all the stories. Men and women who strive for balance in arranged marriages, resisting the strain of prolonged homesickness, isolation and guilt; feelings deeply rooted in the complex web of human relationships that alter the way time, place and expectations are perceived.
The characters that populate Lahiri’s world live in the tense duality of being exiles, but proud to have left India to build a prosperous life in the West. Their Indian heritage acts as a catalyzer for all the events that seem to unfold in slow motion like a sequence of images that uphold the solitary confinement of the characters, leading up to an anticlimactic outcome that is muffled by the mundane quality of the troubles that haunt them.
The succinct, restrained expression of Lahiri’s storytelling is gradually accumulated and acquires the poetic force of what has been hinted at but not completely articulated into words; a full world of possibilities that amounts to a summation of silent questions that don’t aspire to be answered.
The future is put on hold in that familiar sensation of not knowing what is going to cross our paths next, maybe an opportunity, maybe a reversal, maybe a caressing whisper that assures us that everything is going to be alright. Or maybe all at once, making a perfect conjunction of imperfect circumstances, just like it happens more often than not in everyday life.
Maybe that’s the reason why Lahiri’s stories sound so intimate and real; because they tell our life stories with all their mundane struggles without dismissing the beauty of their ordinariness.
Rating: really liked it
A short story a day keeps boredom away and makes you genius.✿ Day 1 :-Temporary matter - 3.25 stars
pretty mediocre in my opinion but it's my first time reading Lahiri books and she has a flair for words.
✿ Day 2 :- When Mr. Pirzada came for dinner - 4 stars
well well well that was sad and sweet.
Ps:- I like smart kids.
✿ Day 3 :- Interpreter of maladies - 4.25 stars
it was literal until it transcended to sophisticated level
✿ Day 4 :- The real durwan - 3.75 stars
poignant and left me with a question "what could have happened next?"
✿ Day 5 :- Sexy - 2 stars
it was flat for me compared to other stories that I have read!
✿ Day 6:- Mrs. Sen - 2.75 stars
all bout attire and cooking, I don't mind but its like repititive
✿ Day 7:- The blessed house- 2.5 stars
started really great but then went downhill and the ending ruined it all
✿ Day 8:- Treatment of Bibi Halder - 3.5 stars
pretty intriguing and interesting, every Indian can relate
✿ Day 9:- The third and final continent - 3 stars
a perfect end to the book
Overall = 3.2 stars ~ 3 stars
Rating: really liked it
In this stirring collection of short stories, Jhumpa Lahiri displays the diasporic struggle of men, assailed by nightmares of home, over the dilemma of assimilating into the new world or holding on to the past culture.
The author exhibits her majestic power of story telling with such grace and allure that the most wonderful thing happened to me today. I seemed to have lost the sense of 'time' while reading this splendid depiction of the plight of the homeless. This doesn't happen often.
I was put into a trance by Lahiri's portrayal of the bereaved couple lamenting the death of their unborn child and confiding their frightful secrets in the dark during an electrical outrage. When Mr. Pirzada came to dine, I as well prayed for the conflicts to come to an end and for the rightful birth of my country. When Miranda wronged a stranger, the vermillion, promising marital bliss threatened me too. Along with the girl once gripped by a mysterious ailment, I was cured. Like the interpreter of maladies, I have dreamt of settling disputes of which I alone can understand. After all, home has beckoned us all.
My thoughts have been vigorously rejigged. Lahiri's steadfast curiosity about human valor and her beautiful drawing of human spirit have left me stunned.
Rating: really liked it
There are certain things in life that bewilder and baffle us with their staggering normality. Things so simple yet unmistakably captivating, common-place yet elegant, subtle yet profound. Jumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize winning collection of short stories is one of those things. She writes with a grace and an elegance that transforms her simple stories into a delicate myriad of words and feelings. Each story transforming you into a singularity bound to its harmonious beauty. The different stories somehow seem to be explicitly woven together to make a sari of the most beautiful kind. I felt this cumulative effect of an interconnection between all these produced feelings. This delicious melancholy that only the deepest parts of our soul can feel.
“She watched his lips forming the words, at the same time she heard them under her skin, under her winter coat, so near and full of warmth that she felt herself go hot.”
“It was only then, raising my water glass in his name, that I knew what it meant to miss someone who was so many miles and hours away, just as he had missed his wife and daughters for so many months.”
Her stories transcend the cultural & ethnic aspect of things, any person can relate to all these experiences. For me, Interpreter of Maladies is a humanistic book that highlights the common experiences of all people, not just the Indians, while at the same time show-casing a rich culture that some people are not familiar with. She made me feel attached and connected to these characters that had few similarities with me. She made me feel the bond with these people, their experiences, their sadness, their joys, their pain. She made me understand. She made me long for home. She made me feel human.
“Eventually I took a square of white chocolate out of the box, and unwrapped it, and then I did something I had never done before. I put the chocolate in my mouth, letting it soften until the last possible moment, and then as I chewed it slowly, I prayed that Mr. Pirzada’s family was safe and sound. I had never prayed for anything before, had never been taught or told to, but I decided, given the circumstances, that it was something I should do. That night when I went to the bathroom I only pretended to brush my teeth, for I feared that I would somehow rinse the prayer out as well. I wet the brush and rearranged the tube of paste to prevent my parents from asking any questions, and fell asleep with sugar on my tongue.”
This book shines a light into the dark recesses of our lives. Into those places where we keep our darkest secrets, those places that even we may not be aware of. It shines a light, not a glaring white light from a bulb or a fluorescent, but rather a small light. A light from a candle that illuminates only the most necessary of things. Those things we often neglect when the bright light showcases everything around us. The weak candle-light casts a melancholy feeling only to these important things. But really, maybe that melancholy light is all we need to notice things that really matter.
"In the dimness, he knew how she sat, a bit forward in her chair, ankles crossed against the lowest rung, left elbow on the table."
"They each took a candle and sat down on the steps."
"Something happened when the house was dark. They were able to talk to each other again."
"Once it was dark and he began kissing her awkwardly on her forehead and her face, and though it was dark he closed his eyes, and he knew that she did too."
"As he watched the couple, the room went dark and he spun around. Shoba turned the lights off. She came back to the table and sat down, and after a moment Shukumar joined her. They wept together, for the things they now knew."
As I end, let me borrow from the book's goodreads summary. I do believe that this paragraph captures that very essence of Ms. Lahiri's beautiful craftsmanship.
"There are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept." In that single line Jhumpa Lahiri sums up a universal experience, one that applies to all who have grown up, left home, fallen in or out of love, and, above all, experienced what it means to be a foreigner, even within one's own family.
"As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."
Rating: really liked it
Just superlative. Her writing transported me immediately into whatever world she had created.
I was fully immersed with every story. Her writing is not flowery or verbose. At the end of each story, I “got it”. I understood the point she was making. I did not walk away from a story asking “what did I just read? I don’t understand the point of this story”. Some of the stories had sad endings, some had hopeful endings. But regardless of the tone of the ending, I felt satisfied—that I had read another good story.
I just finished a story a couple days ago that won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and I could not understand why it merited such an award from that prestigious institution. Well, this collection won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000—I could fully understand the deserving recognition this author got. A superb job. I will want to read more of her. I just read a very nice book review by a GR reviewer, Glenn, of her collection of essays on book covers, The Clothing of Books (2016), so that will certainly be on my TBR list!
In looking at one of the reviews for this book, I couldn’t put it any better than they did: “Within a short number of pages, Lahiri successfully articulates characters that are multifaceted, dynamic and wholly original. Her prose in general is on point—simple yet rich.”
https://www.booknookrevs.com/nook/rev...
Stories in order of their appearance and where they were initially published (last story was apparently new for this collection) and my ratings:
• "A Temporary Matter" (previously published in The New Yorker) — 5 stars
• "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" (previously published in The Louisville Review) —4 stars
• "Interpreter of Maladies" (previously published in the Agni Review) — 10 stars if I could
• "A Real Durwan" (previously published in the Harvard Review) — 4 stars
• "Sexy" (previously published in The New Yorker) — 4 stars
• "Mrs. Sen's" (previously published in Salamander) — 3.5 stars
• "This Blessed House" (previously published in Epoch) — 5 stars
• "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar" (previously published in Story Quarterly) — 3.5 stars
• "The Third and Final Continent" — 7 stars if I could
Reviews:
• https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytim...
• http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/p...
•https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream...
Rating: really liked it
I really enjoyed this collection pf short stories that won the Pulitzer in 2000. Lahiri's limpid text evokes the sadness and nostalgia of being an ex-par - something I can definitely identify with. She has a wonderful word palette allowing her to create these small snapshots of life as a Bengali. My favorite was the title story about a part-time taxi driver taking an American family around to see temples near Calcutta. The driver interprets for country people at a medical clinic as he studied languages that are no longer widely spoken. The way in which the author invokes the cultural distance between the driver and the tourists and his infatuation with the mother/wife of the family is beautiful without being sappy - and sincere enough that the woman actually confesses an infidelity to him. The saddest story I felt was that of Mrs. Sen who takes brief care of little Elliot for a short time in which he learns about frailty and loneliness (mirrored between that of his mother and that of Mrs. Sen). The last story is the most positive and demonstrates how love can evolve from arranged marriages - sometimes due to the most unlikely circumstances.
This is a beautiful book (and completes my reading of all Pulitzer winners between 2000 and 2016) and makes me want to read her longer fiction such as The Namesake.
Rating: really liked it
“He learned not to mind the silences.” ― Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
Some of the stories were brilliant, some were very good and only a couple were meh. This novel captures for me the right tension between foreignness and loneliness and those small wires, crumbs of connection that bridge people and cultures. Yeah, I dug it.
Personally, I don't care about awards (See William H. Gass). And I really don't care that she's a woman (other than the fact that I'm trying to read more women this year) or that she's Indian American (although both are a significant part of this collection).
I don't believe she was subsidized for either being a woman or being Indian, of if she was I really don't care. Everybody is subsidized by something. White men get the white men subsidy. The rich get the rich subsidy. The educated get the educated subsidy. The poor and broken get the helluva life story subsidy. If I could sum it up, I'd guess that this book probably won the writer lottery: the right good book gets published at the perfect momemnt.
The stories themselves gave me the same temperate, nuanced, soft vibe I get when I read Kazuo Ishiguro or Julian Barnes. So, at least in my mind, she fits/resonnates more into/with the: über-educated, upper-middle, British/East Coast US, 'outsider now inside' club(s) more than the female writer or even Indian American clubs. But then again, I could be wrong.
Anyway, I don't have to say that this was her first published book and she still ended up writing (from what I've heard) solid, serious fiction. So that.
Brilliant stories:A Temporary Matter
Interpreter of Maladies
Mrs Sen's
This Blessed House
Good stories:When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine
Sexy
The Third and Final Continent
Meh stories: A Real Durwan
The Treatment of Bibi Haldar
Rating: really liked it
It is interesting to reflect on the fact that humans are so mismatched to the lives and people they choose for themselves!
A collection of short stories, navigating the intricate web of cultural clashes in India, UK and USA, moving back and forth in history, from the trauma of the Partition to the moon landing and beyond that, circling around families for twenty pages just to let go of them when the reader thinks the narrative starts to create a pattern of sense, this is a wonderful reading experience! And bizarrely, the loosely connected short stories seem to match well in their description of misfits.
Why do we live with people we don't feel belong to us, with people who try to suppress what we value as treasures rather than celebrating with us?
Why is a close relationship so often similar to an act of slow suffocation?
Can we blame it on the custom of arranged marriages, which appear in some of the stories? Hardly, for the marriages that were founded on physical attraction generate the same issues. Can we blame it on the institution of marriage itself? Hardly, for the role of mistress is just as difficult to bear. Can we make it a gender issue? Hardly, for husbands are not exempt from the suffocation, even though they may have slightly more freedom of movement. Can we blame it on a specific culture? Hardly, for humans are humans whether they live in deepest poverty in Calcutta or in brilliant luxury in a university town in New England.
Funnily, the character who seemed to develop the most strength and inner happiness in the end was the sick young woman in India who was rejected by everyone, even her family, and who found herself pregnant and forced to raise a child on her own in "disgrace".
She was "cured".
Cured of her seizures, cured of the pressure to adapt to the expectations of others. Cured of trying to be matched, she formed her own pattern.
Brilliant stories, wonderfully human!
Rating: really liked it
Four of these stories were excellent. Three were very good. One - which the book was named after - contained some of the finest writing I've ever read. But the last - the penultimate story in the collection - appeared to suggest that a young woman's life was saved by rape, which left a very bad taste in the mouth. I'm sure Lahiri didn't intend this - I may be woke, but I'm not a total pedant. Nevertheless, the insinuation is there, and I doubt I'm the only reader who will take less than kindly to it as they try to enjoy this otherwise excellent book.
