Interpreter Of Maladies

Rating:
Summary: Interpreting subtle ties and cultural clash
Review: The young writer Jhumpa Lahiri bears a huge responsibility. Not only because her debut "Interpreter of Maladies" won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2000, but also because she has gather an immense group of fans. And none of these facts are true by chance. This writer deserved them both.

"Interpreter of Maladies" is a collection of short stories - some already published, and some new. What is more impressive about this book is Lahiri's command of the language. It can be stunning the way she can display simple words side by side to create a complex effect. This is an ability that many experience writers have never succeeded. But to make the experience more complex and delightful this writer is a chief storyteller. Her characters and plot are as complex and beautiful as her language.

Lahiri has a clinic eye for detail -or better for detailing the ordinary lives of ordinary people making them very unique. This is a device that she shares with Raymond Carver - who was also a master for this kind of short story. Analyzing the first text in the book, for example, "A Temporary Matter" and we see a couple, that used to love each other, but are falling out of love. The way the display their emotions and feelings couldn't be more Carverinian. The surprise comes from the absolutely unexpected - that at the same time sounds plausible.

With a foot in the modern future and an eye in the traditional past, the writer gave her stories a global dimension. They are set in many different cities, like Boston, Orissa, Bengal, Cambridge. But she is able to portray all of them with accuracy and, above all, passion. There isn't a single word that wasn't crafted with a lot of passion and intelligence. In the end, this is the kind of book that also enriches one's vocabulary - but using uncommon words doesn't make Lahiri sounds pedantic. On the contrary, this is a device she applies to create the strangeness of the disconnected world where her characters inhabit.

These people aren't eccentric or bizarre; they just are the way they are - and this is another major achievement. They are people trying to tie lose ties of their lives - may them (the ties) be with other people, with a new country or the old one. This way, the writer created a map of the disconnected human heart in search of something new (or even old) to link itself to.

With elegance, beauty and passion, Lahiri builds her stories - until the last one, that has a reason to be placed in the end of the book. By the end of this text, "The third and final continent" we understand where we had been through the previous stories. The last lines resonates everything we had read until them. And it can break and heal one's heart.


Rating:
Summary: Culture and Acculturation
Review: This book, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is an amazing collection of stories about Indian culture and acculturation in America. Each story puts the reader into a different world that allows them to see American and Indian culture through the eyes of each narrator. I will look forward to Lahiri's next novel or collection with anticipation.

Rating:
Summary: INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by JHUMPA LAHIRI
Review: This novel is a very interesting piece and it reflects Indians in a variety of ways in their country or in other continents migrating for different reasons either by birth or by heritage. The authors use of short stories invites us into the inner experiences of her characters and goes in depth about the way of life of some Indian descent both in India and from one continent to another. The novel doesnt specifically focus on a particular character but on various Indians and thier situations capturing moments of their day to day lives, customs, reasons for migrating, expatriation, values and many more. Her switching from one short story to another lets us imagine other lives in different situations, giving each story something special to remember. Some of her stories are set in 1960.
Her background comes to show us why she uses migration to come to play in her stories and why she focuses on India. Jhumpari Lahiri was born in 1967 in London, England to Indian parents and raised in Rhode Island but visited India several times. In her book, she has a collection of nine stories which she draws on this immigrant experience to create worlds where characters of Indian descent live both in the U.S. and back in India, travelling back and forth.
Some of the stories are set in the 1960s where the U.S. and countries like Pakistan had political turmoils and was. She tends to put in our minds things about her culture ranging from way of lfe, marriage, beliefs, and many more capturing different moments in different stories.
The title story was set in India and it was about an Indian who gave tour guides and he engages with an unhappy housewife who has been trapped with a secret for so long and then feels a sign of relief being able to finally share it him, learning about his other job, being a translator for a doctor for people with ailments.He finds himself involed with the intimate details of other lives as he serves as an interpreter of maladies.
In "A Temporary Matter", a married couple on the brink of divorce due to the loss of a baby rediscover their lost love, thanks to a nightly power outage in their area. The temporary matter refers more to their marriage than to the power outage because helps in reuniting their long forgotten closeness and make them recapture secrets the had kept from eachother. This was a good story because it showed the way a mishap can destroy a relationship and how a little situation can rekindle it.
In "Where Mr Pirzada came to Dine," she goes into a more suspense context and she moves into the life of an Indian under emotional pressure because of the situation in his country. It describes what happens when an immigrant couple invites a visiting Pakistani to dine with them each night and watch television broadcasts on what was going on in the war at Pakistan because his beloved wife and family where there which he had not heard from. The story is told by the couples 10 yr old daughter who is drawn into the sentiment of the moment wishing his family well and praying silently for him and his family reuniting.
In "Sexy," she moves into a more intimate context. A young woman has an affair with a married man she meets at a dept store perfume counter. she shows the reader how their relationship was perfect till the feeling of guilt broke it up because of the effect of how a broken marriage affected her coworkers cousin and made her think twice about the whole affair.
In "Mrs sens," she shows us a young boys analysis of an indian couple using qualities the couple portrayed for example their uncloseness, comparing them to what he was normaly used to.
There are also stories of sadness, grief suffering and loss which made me feel sad."The treatment of Bibi Habler" and "A real Durwan" possesed such qualities.They had this sad feeling to it, i feel she was trying to let us know of the suffering and of how backward some places still are.
I really enjoyed the stories in the book although i did not want any of the stories to end. Another thing which was good was the fact that all the stories had something to it and something to learn about which made the book special.The book also tends to broaden your mind about other cultures, their beliefs and many more.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating short-stories
Review: Usually novels full of short-stories do not catch my attention, but seeing as this book won the Pulitzer Prize, I gave it a try. I was thorougly surprised! The stories had so much depth, emotion, and symbolism strewed about. Ranging from immigrants from South Asia, to young women in South Asia, the novel was full of strong characters. I found I could sympathize with the story of a young girl who became acquainted with a Bengali man whose family was still in Bangladesh (back when it was still part of Pakistan) the most. That story, "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine," was definitely my favorite. One thing that I didn't like was how every story ended in a sad and unsure note. Some stories were utterly depressing and left a reader confused. Even with that flaw, Lahiri was able to convey South Asian culture in an amazing manner. So though it was a bit unrealistic with the melancholy mood lingering everywhere (South Asian culture isn't all that gloomy!), the novel presented excellent ideas and themes.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books
Review: What an incredible collection! A friend told me that after reading these stories he felt as though he'd been "punched in the stomach," because they had touched him so deeply. Jumpha Lahiri does an incredible job in capturing the "essence" of the people in her stories, and in showing their dreams, wishes, frustrations and worries. From the story of a young woman in a relationship with an older man to the couple having problems in their marriage, each story rings true to the challenges and difficulties we face in our own lives. Jumpha Lahiri has a remarkable grasp for getting to the heart of a situation, and you are sometimes left breathless by how much the stories resonate.