Interpreter of Maladies: Stories: Jhumpa Lahiri

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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. Interpretation of Maladies brings to light many of the issues with identity faced by the Diaspora community. The book contains the stories of first and second generation Indian immigrants, as well as a few stories involving ideas of otherness among communities in India. The stories revolve around the difficulties of relationships, communication and a loss of identity for those in diaspora. No matter where the story takes place, the characters struggle with the same feelings of exile and the struggle between the two worlds by which they are torn. The stories deal with the always shifting lines between gender, sexuality, and social status within a diaspora. Whether the character be a homeless woman from India or an Indian male student in the United States, all the characters display the effects of displacement in a diaspora. Assimilation of Indians to America is one of the overarching themes in Interpreter of Maladies. Lilia and her parents are on either side of a divide. Identity issues are typically compounded generation to generation. Though Lilia’s parents remember their own experiences in India vividly, Lilia is an American and therefore a step removed from the culture of her parents. Lilia’s father is dismayed that she is ignorant of current events in India. Lilia does, in fact, attempt to study the history of Pakistan but she is unable to do so on school time. Lilia does have an interest in her parents’ world, but she is fully enmeshed in, to Mr. Pirzada, unthinkable customs. Halloween, a purely American holiday, mystifies Mr. Pirzada. A collection of short stories that focuses on the immigrant experience of Indian people, as well as a couple of stories that do take place in India.

Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri was born in London and brought up in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. Brought up in America by a mother who wanted to raise her children to be Indian, she learned about her Bengali heritage from an early age.At home that is all you have to do. Not everybody has a telephone. But just raise your voice a bit, or express grief or joy of any kind, and one whole neighborhood and half of another has come to share the news, to help with arrangements” And that’s exactly what these stories are about; the sense of belonging. Feeling that you belong is as important as the need for food, or sleep, or even breathing. It gives value to your life ; finding a supportive community, or having supportive friends, family or neighbors, and being able to be a supportive member of such a community yourself, helps you to find meaning in your life. At the same time, the game that appears to be drawing them together also reveals a past filled with deception. Things have not always been as they seemed between these two people. In addition, readers learn early in the story that Shoba has always been one to plan ahead and that she keeps a separate bank account. Readers are left to wonder whether the pattern of deception will be broken or intensified.

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! The revelation of Mrs. Das proves her infidelity further shattering the image of the Das family proving the fact that the relationship is more of an arrangement than a bonding of love. 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 stories are about the lives of Indians and Indian Americans who are caught between their roots and the "New World." 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." 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.” 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.