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Mr. Kapasi, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri's title story, would certainly have his work cut out for him if he were forced to interpret the maladies of all the characters in this eloquent debut collection. Take, for example, Shoba and Shukumar, the young couple in "A Temporary Matter" whose marriage is crumbling in the wake of a stillborn child. Or Miranda in "Sexy," who is involved in a hopeless affair with a married man. But Mr. Kapasi has problems enough of his own; in addition to his regular job working as an interpreter for a doctor who does not speak his patients' language, he also drives tourists to local sites of interest. His fare on this particular day is Mr. and Mrs. Das--first-generation Americans of Indian descent--and their children. During the course of the afternoon, Mr. Kapasi becomes enamored of Mrs. Das and then becomes her unwilling confidant when she reads too much into his profession. "I told you because of your talents," she informs him after divulging a startling secret.
I'm tired of feeling so terrible all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I've been in pain eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better; say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy.Of course, Mr. Kapasi has no cure for what ails Mrs. Das--or himself. Lahiri's subtle, bittersweet ending is characteristic of the collection as a whole. Some of these nine tales are set in India, others in the United States, and most concern characters of Indian heritage. Yet the situations Lahiri's people face, from unhappy marriages to civil war, transcend ethnicity. As the narrator of the last story, "The Third and Final Continent," comments: "There are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept." In that single line Jhumpa Lahiri sums up a universal experience, one that applies to all who have grown up, left home, fallen in or out of love, and, above all, experienced what it means to be a foreigner, even within one's own family. --Alix Wilber
From Publishers Weekly
The rituals of traditional Indian domesticityAcurry-making, hair-vermilioningAboth buttress the characters of Lahiri's elegant first collection and mark the measure of these fragile people's dissolution. Frequently finding themselves in Cambridge, Mass., or similar but unnamed Eastern seaboard university towns, Lahiri's characters suffer on an intimate level the dislocation and disruption brought on by India's tumultuous political history. Displaced to the States by her husband's appointment as a professor of mathematics, Mrs. Sen (in the same-named story) leaves her expensive and extensive collection of saris folded neatly in the drawer. The two things that sustain her, as the little boy she looks after every afternoon notices, are aerograms from homeAwritten by family members who so deeply misunderstand the nature of her life that they envy herAand the fresh fish she buys to remind her of Calcutta. The arranged marriage of "This Blessed House" mismatches the conservative, self-conscious Sanjeev with ebullient, dramatic TwinkleAa smoker and drinker who wears leopard-print high heels and takes joy in the plastic Christian paraphernalia she discovers in their new house. In "A Real Durwan," the middle-class occupants of a tenement in post-partition Calcutta tolerate the rantings of the stair-sweeper Boori Ma. Delusions of grandeur and lament for what she's lostA"such comforts you cannot even dream them"Agive her an odd, Chekhovian charm but ultimately do not convince her bourgeois audience that she is a desirable fixture in their up-and-coming property. Lahiri's touch in these nine tales is delicate, but her observations remain damningly accurate, and her bittersweet stories are unhampered by nostalgia. Foreign rights sold in England, France and Germany; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stories to be Savored,
By litaddiction (Chicago) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Interpreter of Maladies (Paperback)
In "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine," one of the stories in this outstanding collection, the 10-year old narrator savors the candies Mr. Pirzada gives her, enjoying just one each night. So it was with me, indulging in Ms. Lahiri's stories one by one over nine evenings. Ranging from 13 to 28 pages, these are not happy stories. Yet a certain optimism bubbles up as the characters persevere through melancholy themes of displacement and estrangement and loss. Ms. Lahiri's language is a warm breeze, carrying the reader into and through the story ... and at the end of each, you will find your eyes focused not on the page, but through the page as if at the actual scene that just wrapped. Absolutely not to be missed!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clean and fluid--not to mention human--storytelling,
By vintageearth (Yarmouth, Maine) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Interpreter of Maladies (Hardcover)
With her unique gift of perception, Jhumpa Lahiri has captured the human condition from various angles. Even in the most familiar settings and circumstances, a tactile sense of conflict exists within each character. Her writing is clean and precise, but with a rhythm so natural it breathes emotion and atmosphere while the reader forgets they are reading. A very human storyteller.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
fantastic collection of short stories,
By
This review is from: Interpreter of Maladies (Paperback)
Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeI do not usually read short fiction, but when I see the sticker on the front cover that reads "winner of the Pulitzer Prize", I am willing to give the book a chance. Short story collections winning the Pulitzer are rare, just about as rare as a debut winning the prize. This is the debut collection from Jhumpa Lahiri (who has a novel coming out in Sept 2003) and after reading it, I feel that it is definitely worth reading and deserving of the Pulitzer. It is obvious that all of the stories are of a high quality, but there were some that stood out more than others. "The Third and Final Continent" is probably the best of the collection and is simply a stunning story that I did not quite want to end. "Sexy" is a story dealing with adultery and a woman in a relationship with a married man because he makes her feel sexy. The title story and "A Temporary Matter" are also excellent stories. Lahiri's stories all deal with Indians (native to India) and the every day life they live. Most of the stories are set in America with expatriates, but a couple of stories are set in India. More noticeably, these are all human stories and Lahiri captures life so perfectly that we feel that we are living these stories. Even so early in her career, Jhumpa Lahiri is already a master of her craft. Highly recommended.
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