Monday, October 29, 2007
More Lahiri
I read about half of "Interpreter of Maladies" last night. It's very engrossing. So far the stories have been a mix of Indian and American settings with all sorts of issues involving cultural expectations, marriage, the class system, families, loss, etc. The title story is truly wonderful — with a rather brash Indian-American family coming into contact with a gentleman Indian tour guide. You can definitely see the same hand that penned "The Namesake."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
There's a story in here called "Mrs. Sen's'" about an Indian couple who live in a Massachusetts university town (a lot of her stories have this setting ... she's kind of a "regional writer"). He is a professor. She is a lonely housewife who never took to American ways, whose ties to India are ancient and umbilical. She takes in a little boy to baby sit, and he becomes witness to all her doings, all her heartache, all her foreign customs. They develop a curious bond. As I was reading it, I kept thinking this is exactly how Ashima from "Namesake" would be if she didn't have children. This is a portrait of the very same woman.
Interesting. I may have to check that out. I enjoyed the Indian-American cultural themes and Lahiri's attention to detail in "The Namesake."
So, you obviously saw similarities when you read "Interpreter," but do you feel like Lahiri repeated herself when she went from the short stories to the novel?
It is definitely worth reading. I really enjoyed "Namesake," but I think in a lot of ways the short story collection is more polished and focused (thus the Pulitzer, perhaps). It really has the passion and freshness of a first book by a talented writer — all that pent-up energy and soul that just bursts forth.
Did she repeat herself? Maybe to some extent, but I really enjoyed the longer look at some of these themes in "Namesake."
Post a Comment