Lahiri, Jhumpa "Interpreter of Maladies"

Lahiri, Jhumpa "Interpreter of Maladies" - 1999

I have read this book in 2015. This was my review back then:

"As most of my friends know, I am not a big fan of short stories. However, I read 'The Namesake' by the same author and really loved it. And several of my friends had recommended 'Interpreter of Maladies' to me, one had even left a copy to me when she was moving, I just had to read it.

I was pleasantly surprised. What a lovely collection of short stories, some of them even interlink, so it doesn't seem like there are a hundred small stories that you forget right away. On the contrary, Jhumpa Lahiri has created some wonderful characters that you won't forget that easily. She incorporates all sorts of problems anyone might face who lives in a culture different from the one they or their parents grew up with. She describes some lovely people (and some not so lovely ones) who are all confronted with a life in two different parts of this world. Since the author is Indian herself and grew up in the United States, this is the background to almost all her stories. Having lived abroad (though not in such a different culture as the characters in the book) almost half of my life myself, I can certainly relate to a few of them.

Jhumpa Lahiri has a good, elegant style, her stories just flow, I will certainly read more of her writings."

A while ago, I joined an online group called Literary Wives/Marriage Plot and this was the next book on our list. So, I re-read the book because it was a while ago that I read it and we read it with a different topic in mind. What does the author say about the wives in his book?

Most of these stories take place in India and/or around Indian couples.

A Temporary Matter

We look at the end of a marriage. A couple suffers from the loss of a baby that was stillborn. They have nothing to say to each other even though they try hard.

When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

In this story, a woman remembes a man from East Pakistan/Bangladesh coming to visit her Indian family in the States while his family is back home. It is more a story about the man than about this particular wife but it still gives us an insight into the life of the Indian wives in the US.

Interpreter of Maladies

This is about an Indian American family visiting the country of their heritage. We learn even more about the life of such a wife, she is so lonely. I can relate because as a non-working wife abroad, you don't have the sort of social life your husband and children have and it is hard work to try and find your place.

A Real Durwan (doorkeeper)

This story is about an elderly woman who is a stairsweeper and lives on the roof ot the building she works in.

While this is less about the situation of a wife, it tells us about poverty and how you can be even poorer than all the others around you.

Sexy

We're back in the US. Again, not the story of a wife but of a mistress. And of a husband who is leaving his wife. A good reflection about this kind of situation from every point of view, the wife and the mistress. 

Mrs. Sen's

Her we have the story of an Indian woman living in the States who doesn't drive and doesn't have any contact outside the house. She looks after an eleven year old boy after school and teaches him about their food. Probably one of my favourite stories. I really felt for the lady.

This Blessed House

A yound married Indian couple in Connecticut who moves into their new house and find many Christian relics. The wife puts them on the mantel of the fireplace. A good story about how different people can have different opinions about what to keep and what not and what to embrace. And how they have to work on your marriage.

The Treatment of Bibi Haldar

A woman suffers from seizures and a doctor recommends to marry her off. But it costs money to get married and you have to find a suitor. So, her relatives rather let her live on the roof. This story focuses on the treatment of illness and of prejudices.

The Third and Final Continent

This guy has moved from India to London and then to the States where he rents a room from a 103-year-old lady. They develop a good connection until he gets married and moves out. We follow his and his wife's life and how they get to know each other.

As I mentioned in the stories, they are not all about the wives, some of them don't relate to their status at all, they are just there. But where they are mentioned, we learn a lot about the differences between Indian and (mainly) American wives, their rights and their duties.

I think it also helps to understand why immigrants so often stay among themselves. It is not just about the language, though that doesn't help if nobody teaches them the host language, it is more about the culture and understanding each other. Especially the wives are invisible, they disappear in the crowd. Especially if it has been an arranged marriage, the husband often doesn't understand his wife.

From the back cover:

"Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In 'A Temporary Matter,' published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant."

Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize for "Interpreter of Maladies" in 2000.

And here are the reviews of the other literary wives:

Becky from Sydney of Aidanvale

Kate from Melbourne of booksaremyfavoriteandbest

Rebecca from Maryland, USA of Bookish Beck

Kay from Washington State, USA of What? Me Read?

Lahiri, Jhumpa "The Lowland"

Lahiri, Jhumpa "The Lowland" - 2013

I've read a few books by Jhumpa Lahiri and I've had this on my TBR pile for a while. I have no idea why it took me so long to start it. Oh, wait a minute, must be those hundreds of other books on that shelf. LOL

Whilst I have read many books about India, and quite a few about the independence (e.g. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie) and the fight for it, I didn't know much about the Naxalites, just a general knowledge that they existed. In this book, we get acquainted with the organisation and its followers. And the story also touches the reason why Indians would leave their country plus the role of women in society back then, both in India as well as in the USA.

I knew it was a violent time but it's different when you hear about individuals and how they fared under certain circumstances, even if they are fictitious. Since I always like to research the background of my books, especially if they are historical ones, I learned that the group still exists and there are still many conflicts with them and numerous people are killed every year. We hardly ever hear about that in the rest of the world. What a shame!

And then there is also a "next generation" in the book and all the implications that arise from growing up in a country where your parents weren't born.

I found this novel extremely interesting and well written.

From the back cover:

"The Lowland is an engrossing family saga steeped in history: the story of two very different brothers bound by tragedy; a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past; a country torn by revolution. A powerful new novel - set in both India and America - that explores the price of idealism and a love that can last long past death.

Growing up in Calcutta, born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead of them.

From Subhash's earliest memories, at every point, his brother was there. In the suburban streets of Calcutta where they wandered before dusk and in the hyacinth-strewn ponds where they played for hours on end, Udayan was always in his older brother's sight. So close in age, they were inseparable in childhood and yet, as the years pass - as U.S tanks roll into Vietnam and riots sweep across India - their brotherly bond can do nothing to forestall the tragedy that will upend their lives.

Udayan - charismatic and impulsive - finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty. He will give everything, risk all, for what he believes, and in doing so will transform the futures of those dearest to him: his newly married, pregnant wife, his brother and their parents. For all of them, the repercussions of his actions will reverberate across continents and seep through the generations that follow.

Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portrayal of lives undone and forged anew, The Lowland is a deeply felt novel of family ties that entangle and fray in ways unforeseen and unrevealed, of ties that ineluctably define who we are. With all the hallmarks of Jhumpa Lahiri's achingly poignant, exquisitely empathetic story-telling, this is her most devastating work of fiction to date."

Lahiri, Jhumpa "Interpreter of Maladies"

Lahiri, Jhumpa "Interpreter of Maladies" - 1999

As most of my friends know, I am not a big fan of short stories. However, I recently read "The Namesake" by the same author and really loved it. And several of my friends had recommended "Interpreter of Maladies" to me, one had even left a copy to me when she was moving, I just had to read it.

I was pleasantly surprised. What a lovely collection of short stories, some of them even interlink, so it doesn't seem like there are a hundred small stories that you forget right away. On the contrary, Jhumpa Lahiri has created some wonderful characters that you won't forget that easily. She incorporates all sorts of problems anyone might face who lives in a culture different from the one they or their parents grew up with. She describes some lovely people (and some not so lovely ones) who are all confronted with a life in two different parts of this world. Since the author is Indian herself and grew up in the United States, this is the background to almost all her stories. Having lived abroad (though not in such a different culture as the characters in the book) almost half of my life myself, I can certainly relate to a few of them.

Jhumpa Lahiri has a good, elegant style, her stories just flow, I will certainly read more of her writings.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.
 
From the back cover:

"Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this stunning debut collection unerringly charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. 

'A writer of uncommon sensitivity and restraint . . . Ms. Lahiri expertly captures the out-of-context lives of immigrants, expatriates, and first-generation Americans' (Wall Street Journal).

In stories that travel from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner. Honored as 'Debut of the Year' by The New Yorker and winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, Interpreter of Maladies introduces a young writer of astonishing maturity and insight who 'breathes unpredictable life into the page' (New York Times)."

Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize for "Interpreter of Maladies" in 2000.

I reread this book with the Literary Wives/Marriage Plot and you can find my review here.

Lahiri, Jhumpa "The Namesake"

Lahiri, Jhumpa "The Namesake" - 2003

A very interesting book about an immigration family and their children born in their new country. The author has the same background as the protagonists and you can tell that from her writing.

Anybody living in a different country than the one they originally come from has some sort of similar experiences and even though the differences are not so big in my case, I could understand the background quite well.

I loved everything about the book, the characters, yes, all of them, the story itself, how the Bengal couple tries to set up their life in the United States of America, how their children try to juggle their lives between being Indian and being American, how they try to find their identity.

There are so many different characters in the story, Ashoke who decides to leave his country, Ashima who accompanies him because that's what a wife does, Gogol who is never happy with his given name, who has a problem when in India where he doesn't feel Indian and in the US where he doesn't feel American, or at least doesn't look American, his sister Sonia who seems to have fewer problems than her older brother. And then there are the friends, the other Indian families, the Americans.

The book also contains some funny stories, for example the one how Gogol receives his name, how everything has not been intended this way.

All in all, a memorable read, I would recommend it to anybody.

I read this has been made into a movie, one that stays with the book, this is one I would love to watch.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Gogol is named after his father's favourite author. But growing up in an Indian family in suburban America, the boy starts to hate his name and itches to cast it off, along with the inherited values it represents. Gogol sets off on his own path only to discover that the search for identity depends on much more than a name."

This is also a book that mentions a lot of other books, both the protagonist and his father like to read.
Buck, Pearl S. "The Good Earth" - 1931
Crane, Stephen "The Red Badge of Courage" - 1895
Fitzgerald, F. Scott "The Great Gatsby" - 1925
Gogol, Nikolai "The Overcoat" - 1842
Maupassant, Guy de  "The Necklace" - 1884
Wharton, Edith "Ethan Frome" - 1911