Rating: 
Summary: The Lives of Strangers
Review: "The Unknown Errors of Our Lives" is a collection of short stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni that focuses on Indian women and their immigrant experience in America. In many ways, the subject matter of these stories are similar to those of Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of the Maladies" (a favorite book of mine). Many of the stories in Unknown Errors also deal with marriages of different sorts and in different stages: arranged marriages, engagements, deteriorating relationships. The first story in the book is entitled "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter". This is a touching story about an older widow who moves from India to live with her son's family in America. Her son tells her "We want you to be comfortable, Ma. To rest. That's why we brought you here to America." Her attempts to share stories of India and cook traditional meals and help out around the house are looked down upon of by her daughter-in-law and she begins to feel un-welcomed. Life with her son and grandchildren in America isn't what Mrs. Dutta imagined it would be. Through Divakaruni's writing, the reader can feel Mrs. Dutta's pain and disappointment. As in "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter" the story "The Intelligence of Wild Things" brings up issues of keeping Old World traditions alive after immigrating versus becoming Americanized. "The Intelligence of Wild Things" is about a woman who visits her younger brother, Tarun in Vermont. She discovers that his girlfriend is an American girl with "freckled skin and reddish-gold hair." She wonders how her brother who "had never wanted to come to America" has become so Americanized while she, who agreed to an arranged marriage in order to move to America, still clings to traditions she learned growing up in India. "The Lives of Strangers" is one of my favorite stories from the collection. This story is about Leela, a young Indian woman from America who visits her aunt in India. They go on a pilgrimage in Kashmir with a group of women. One of these women is Mrs. Das whom the rest of the women believe was "born under an unlucky star" and therefor shun her due to a fear that her bad luck may rub off on them. Divakaruni does a fantastic job in this story portraying Leela's struggle with guilt and a conscience that is telling her to do what is right despite what others say. Some stories in this collection are definitely stronger than others, but overall, the book offered an excellent look at the Indian immigrant experience from the female point of view.
Rating:
Summary: The Lives of Strangers
Review: "The Unknown Errors of Our Lives" is a collection of short stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni that focuses on Indian women and their immigrant experience in America. In many ways, the subject matter of these stories are similar to those of Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of the Maladies" (a favorite book of mine). Many of the stories in Unknown Errors also deal with marriages of different sorts and in different stages: arranged marriages, engagements, deteriorating relationships. The first story in the book is entitled "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter". This is a touching story about an older widow who moves from India to live with her son's family in America. Her son tells her "We want you to be comfortable, Ma. To rest. That's why we brought you here to America." Her attempts to share stories of India and cook traditional meals and help out around the house are looked down upon of by her daughter-in-law and she begins to feel un-welcomed. Life with her son and grandchildren in America isn't what Mrs. Dutta imagined it would be. Through Divakaruni's writing, the reader can feel Mrs. Dutta's pain and disappointment. As in "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter" the story "The Intelligence of Wild Things" brings up issues of keeping Old World traditions alive after immigrating versus becoming Americanized. "The Intelligence of Wild Things" is about a woman who visits her younger brother, Tarun in Vermont. She discovers that his girlfriend is an American girl with "freckled skin and reddish-gold hair." She wonders how her brother who "had never wanted to come to America" has become so Americanized while she, who agreed to an arranged marriage in order to move to America, still clings to traditions she learned growing up in India. "The Lives of Strangers" is one of my favorite stories from the collection. This story is about Leela, a young Indian woman from America who visits her aunt in India. They go on a pilgrimage in Kashmir with a group of women. One of these women is Mrs. Das whom the rest of the women believe was "born under an unlucky star" and therefor shun her due to a fear that her bad luck may rub off on them. Divakaruni does a fantastic job in this story portraying Leela's struggle with guilt and a conscience that is telling her to do what is right despite what others say. Some stories in this collection are definitely stronger than others, but overall, the book offered an excellent look at the Indian immigrant experience from the female point of view.
Rating:
Summary: another heart-warming novel in the Divakaruni tradition
Review: ALTHOUGH I HAVE SPOTTED THIS NOVEL ON MY LOCAL BOOKSTORE SHELVES A FEW MONTHS AGO, I KEPT PUTTING OFF THE DECISION TO PURCHASE IT MOSTLY BECAUSE I USUALLY PREFER NOVELS OVER SHORT-STORIES. I ADMIT THOUGH BEING HIGHLY IMPRESSED WITH THIS BOOK.
FOR THE SECOND TIME (HAVING PREVIOUSLY READ "SISTER OF MY HEART" AND BEING EQUALLY ENCHANTED BY IT) I WAS REALLY ENTRANCED BY THE AUTHOR'S SIMPLE YET HEART-TOUCHING WRITING STYLE. MOST STORIES ARE INHABITED BY VERY HUMAN AND DOWN-TO-EARTH CHARACTERS I COULD VERY EASILY IDENTIFY WITH. THEY LEAD VERY ORDINARY LIVES AND THEIR CONFLICTS AND STRUGGLES ARE PART OF ORDINARY LIVES, TOO. THESE ARE PEOPLE TORN BETWEEN OLD LOYALTIES, STRONG FAMILY TRADITIONS AND NEW IDENTITIES. I THINK THAT AS A WHOLE, THIS IS A HIGHLY ENJOYABLE SHORT-STORIES COLLECTION WHICH IS LIKELY TO PROVIDE YOU WITH A PLEASURABLE READING. WARMLY RECCOMENDED!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Insightful and Painful
Review: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an excellent author and her works captivate and cause one to reflect. In particular, this body of work illuminates painful consequences to sometimes innocent choices...or lack of any choice. This should appeal to any reflective person.
Rating:
Summary: One of her best
Review: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni writes in a style which any person can identify. Although her characters are women of Indian origin, any reader can identify with the characters from her stories, and the stories themselves. Exploring topics which ranged from those of whom numerous storied have been written, to some unique, imaginative one, her talent at handling them, makes this collection a remarkable one.
Rating: 
Summary: Indian Roots... American Water
Review: Chitra Divakaruni has done a marvelous job of captivating the experiences of Indian immigrants who have relocated to the States. Most of her stories are set in the Bay Area, California...this is where she has resided for a while now!! These short stories are rich, full of culture and detail on the personal experiences of each of her characters who have travelled a long journey to come to the land of dreams!
Some of her characters strive to survive and others feel homesick and need some time to get adjusted to the American Life! These characters such as Mrs. Dutta have Indian Roots and cannot survive in an unknown land...even American Water cannot cure her thrist for her country! Ms. Divakaruni uses symbol and meaning to make sense out of the lives of these characters in turmoil who have a new habitat!
This book sort of reminds me about Darwin...Survival of the Fittest! =) A good book for anyone seeking to learn more about the Indian culture or immigrants and their thoughts on the relocation process...a mental process that usually needs a long time to get adjusted...
Rating:
Summary: Everywoman, everygirl......
Review: I love short stories and first discovered Divakaruni by reading a short story she wrote for a magazine. What struck me then and what strikes me now having read THE UNKNOWN ERRORS OF OUR LIVES is the similarity of the experiences of the heroines in her nine tales and my own experiences or those of "plain old American" female friends and relatives of mine. I believe Divakaruni writes tales almost any woman can understand and identify with...in the same way we understand our friend's confidences, stories like the "Little House" series American girls read as children, family myths, etc. Most of us grew up with the idea we were moving toward some destiny. Often this was the way our own life would reveal itself over time. An aspect of the progress of our life might be a pilgrimage to a "holy" site. In her story "The Lives of Stangers" Divakaruni relates the experiences of two women who make such a journey to a sacred place in Kashmir. In her tale "The Blooming Season for Cacti" she tells of both the geographic movement and the internal shift of a heroine who discovers her unknown self. Many of us have experienced attempts by relatives to "arrange marriages" whether we know it or not by introducing us to someone "nice". And many of us have had the reaction of the young woman in "The Unknown Errors of Our Lives" who discovers the unknown errors are the ones you commit unknowingly over and over. Many women opt to make their own choices like one of the characters in "The Names of the Stars in Bengali." I personally have two female Indian friends who married blonde, blue-eyed "American" guys. Many Americans have made a journey to a far city away from relatives and toward the future (the most mobile society on earth). It does not matter if you live on the East Coast of the U.S. and your mother is on the West Coast or she is in some other part of the world your life will be different and you will grow apart (i.e. lose that childhood connection). Many folks of Indian descent migrated to the United States from India as well as places other than India. One reason Americans may identify with Divakarumi's stories is because we are a nation of immigrants, but folks of Indian descent folks blend relatively seamlessly into U.S. culture (at least in Washington DC, New York, the West Coast, and other areas) because many of them speak English from birth, hold middle class values, and migrate from what used to be British East Africa, England, Canada, Fiji, and the West Indies. The Indian diaspora took place long ago and since the U.S. is a former British colony, folks from other British colonies have much in common with us...including our language. Which leads me to Divakaruni's writing. In addition to telling tales I can identify with, creating characters I care about, and describing settings with wonderful detail, Divakaruni has a way with English. Her writing is beautiful, filled with imagery, lyrical and very much like the tales told by that great Canadian author Alice Munroe (another former colony). If you like Alice Munro's short stories, you'll love Divakaruni's tales.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor Woman's Jhumpa Lahiri
Review: I recently read this book and was struck by the similarity to Jhumpa Lahiri's recent Pulitzer Prize Winning compilation - Interpreter of Maladies. Both contain 9 stories predominantly about Bengali women in various phases of the Indian-American experience whether they be engaged, newly married, frustrated and middle aged, widowed, oppressed, liberated, abandoned, etc. However, I felt that Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni didn't make good use of the short story format and used excessive descriptives without really allowing us to connect emotionally with any of her protangonists.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: I've read all of the other books written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and she has yet to disappoint me. There is no question that she is a remarkable author. My favorite story in this book was the one that the book is named after. During the course of reading this book I often found myself unable to put it down. The only sad part was that like many good things in life, it had to come to an end.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious!
Review: Most of the times, one would not be doing justice to a book by trying to describe it in one word. Nevertheless, in this case I am tempted to say that this book can be reasonably described by one word- maudlin. The author has gone way overboard in trying to describe the feelings experienced by the Indian immigrants in the U.S. There is a pretentious sense of "depth" hovering in the book at all times. I cannot help but think of this as a poor attempt to emulate author Jhumpa Lahiri's excellent piece of work. I will give the author credit for nicely capturing a few genuine emotions, but the foolishly grandiose nature of the book more than compensates for the good points she scores.
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