Unaccustomed Earth
by Jhumpa Lahiri
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Book Reviews of Unaccustomed Earth
Book Review: Simple. Sparse. Perfection
Summary: 5 Stars
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, "Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn out soil. My children ... shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth." This quote, which was a revelation to me, so much so that I redid my work e-mail "inspiration quote" signature to put it it, is the inspiration of Jhumpa Lahiri's new collection of short stories called "Unaccustomed Earth".
This is the first book I have read of hers, and it simply does not disappoint. Eight stories are so intricately woven with their words and themes that each in itself is a beautiful work of art, and yet together, form the basis of a masterpiece. Former author of Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake (movie tie-in edition), Lahiri's carrying on her success with this new bunch. The book starts with the story named after the book, a story about a Bengali woman named Ruma and her father who comes to visit her from Pennsylvania. Cultures and expectations collide as these two virtual strangers learn to exist with each other without the familiar glue of her mother, who passed away only months before. A garden, her mixed race son, and a secret love, permeate the layers of this opening story that literally leave you breathless by stories end. Similar themes are woven through the other seven stories, some which I liked more than others, but all of them written with such scope and craft.
Reading a story written by Lahiri is like sitting in a well ordered, immaculate living room, with a rich, fragrant onion sitting in front of you. As you delve into the story, you peel back the layers of the onion, and the exactitude and preciseness of her stories marvel, and the scent of the onion, not bitter or harsh, but rich and alluring, fill that perfect room, so much so that by the end, all of yours senses are heightened, and you may possibly have tears in your eyes.
It's as if Lahiri wrote her stories, and took a literary comb and brushed out all of the extra verbs, nouns, and adjectives (most which can clutter today's fiction), leaving only the essential words behind, creating an exquisite picture. People have compared Lahiri's writing to Hemingway. I sense more of Michael Cunningham, who also strives for leximic precision. Both Cunningham and Lahiri's writing is character centered, creates worlds of inner conflict, and flows like a beautiful river.
After just reading the first story, I told five people of this marvelous new book, and highly recommend you to that if you want to marvel in the worlds created by Lahiri, this is the perfect place to start.
Book Review: Something for everyone!
Summary: 5 Stars
Jhumpa Lahiri's new collection of stories detail the lives of several Bengalis learning to combine their heritage with American culture. Compromise and balance are imperative when approaching the variety of issues these characters encounter, including friendship, romantic relationships, morality, education and family values. Even seemingly minor parts of life, including dress and food, are examined, as they are very significant to the Indian identity. Generational differences are on the forefront of each story; many characters were either born in the United States or came to the country when they were young, making them identify more with the American culture they have been surrounded by. These struggles are visible in every story, but are tailored to fit the individual characters and their lives.
Part one of the collection is made up of five stories. My favorite was "Unaccustomed Earth" in which the perspective is alternated between a newly widowed man who visits his middle-aged, pregnant daughter. She feels obligated to allow him to move in with her family (her Caucasian husband has even agreed) but is reluctant to ask. The father knows the request is coming but doesn't want to accept, content with his life of travel and new (secret) girlfriend. Over the course of his visit the two grow closer, learning more about each other in just a few days than they had over an entire lifetime. The other stories are also fantastic, Lahiri expertly crafting characters with depth.
Part two consists of three stories that are connected to each other, told by a man and a woman whose relationship goes back to childhood, when their families temporarily lived together. The three stories tell about their separate lives and how they are once again brought together as adults.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone. There's so many layers that everyone can identify with something in it, even if they're not Indian (I'm not!) Themes such as cultural identity, love and family apply to everyone. Lahiri has obviously decided to write about Bengalis; some people have a problem with this. What does it matter? The characters and their stories are fresh and insightful , and the writing is beautiful. Would we ask a surgeon to do someone's taxes? A dance instructor to run a construction crew? Probably not; let a writer write what they know, especially if they do it well!
Book Review: Lahirism
Summary: 5 Stars
I used to think the mid-point between optimism and pessimism was realism--before reading the ineffable work of Jhumpa Lahiri in this collection of short stories. There exists no term for what she achieves in these delicately sliced portions of intersecting lives. It is not that no one accomplishes all that seems possible for them, not that no one is as ultimately afflicted as they could be, although these two outcomes hold true in every tale. It is that her characters and their situations (which include the other characters) seem to evolve to a precise center between the worst that could have happened to them and the best.
There are other apparent mid-points attained by Lahiri. Characters are actors and acted upon just about the same. They do good and ill, what's loyal and what betrays, the honorable and the faithless in equal measure. They alternately evoke our sympathy and dismay, satisfaction and frustration, solidarity and disdain. Call it "lahirism."
You'll find nothing extraordinary here, no excess of courage or cowardice, no belly laughs or eyes cried out, no fierce wind or fiery sunlight. You will find life, of course, from conception to death--sometimes planned, sometimes accidental, at moments unwelcome, at moments embraced.
The stories float on pitch perfect prose, with descriptions invading the plotline like soft apologies, strangely placed and always well-timed. She does not open her stories in the beginning; she opens them organically, like a flower, throughout the telling, so that her last words are as much a beginning as her first. No sentence is meant to be screamed or whispered. Revelations do not descend upon you; you grow toward them.
And that is the final genius of lahirism. Your growth toward revelation continues long after the story ends, as you ponder the choices made and the incursions endured. Jhumpa Lahiri's delicate flowers continue unfolding just as her characters' lives are presumed to continue unfolding, and that is when you realize that her seeming reach for the quintessential mid-point is an illusion. There is nothing symmetrical about life. Or death. It is one constant, aching, implacable surprise.
This burgeoning treasure of an author is someone to shout about, even though her luminous prose would never think of raising its voice.
Book Review: Poor writing
Summary: 2 Stars
Lahiri gets a free pass for having a Pulitzer and for being Indian-American. I find her writing altogether prosaic, with not a single paragraph worth lingering over. To be sure this is a biased opinion. On the other hand, I am surprised that nobody has noticed the lapses in grammar, syntax, idiom and vocabulary, and instances of plain silliness, that occur so frequently in her work as to nullify any credit she deserves for her narratives. Apparently Lahiri thinks little of the process of revision, a major preoccupation with good writers; certainly, she doesn't have an conscientious editor.
Here are things I found irksome in her first story :
P3 : Eurorail ; pensions
P4 : receive mail on his end
P5 : In a few months ... the trips would diminish.
P6 : waiting for the time to pass
P10 : nurtured inside of her
P23 : never one to be conversant during meals
P28 : In spite of his jet lag he had trouble falling asleep
P32 : opened up the cupboard
P33 : spouses dying within two years of one another
P37 : part time litigation ; the parking lot where the swimming pool was ; she told her father to wait on the benches.
P43 : It would be another four weeks until the amnio, allowing them to learn the sex.
P44 : buried things into the soil
P45 : While her father was in the shower, she made tea ; and the house was filled with silence.
P51 : the day before her father was scheduled to leave ; Saturday morning, ..., the garden was finished.
P55 : everything he'd purchased
P57 : to put a bill into the mail
This is poor writing indeed, by my standards. As for her literary skills, Lahiri writes like an author of non-fiction, telling us story and background without accepting the challenge of showing these.
Judging from the high praise in this forum, winning a Pulitzer has elevated Lahiri to being the spokesperson of the Indian-American experience and ethos. But for the accident of her birth, I find her to be neither particularly Indian nor particularly Bengali. With a few culinary adjustments, she could be writing about Turkish or Malaysian immigrants.
Book Review: Ties that bind and apart people
Summary: 5 Stars
At first sight, Jhumpa Lahiri's latest short story collection, "Unaccustomed Earth" moves on the same ground of her two previous efforts - the Pulitzer prize winning "Interpreter of Maladies" and the novel "The Namesake". After all, in this new book, she is also dealing with cultural e generational gaps. But, once one digs deeper, the reader can find things that go beyond these.
These stories are, in the end, about ties. And we can realize that the same ties that unite some people can be the ones that apart others. Lahiri's major influence is clearly Chekhov, dealing with details to reach bigger results. Sometimes, a small thing is capable of trigging a major reaction - for instance some old photographs in a story called "Year's End", in which something that has been long kept inside the protagonist's heart comes out in a moment of rage. This scene, as a result, will shape the rest of his life.
Lahiri writes about what she knows. The problem her young character faces are probably much the same ones she had to - or knew people who had to. On the other hand, her imagination is so precise - as is her prose - that she can make things up and be totally believable.
Each of the stories in the first parte of the book is self-contained. But the second part of the collection must be read in the right order because they add layers to the character and follow them two throughout the years.
Since her first book, Lahiri displayed a sure hand to tackle not only the narrative, but also her characters' arc. In "Unaccustomed Earth" this is not different, but we can easily notice a more mature writer. Her style reminds of the great Alice Munro's, in which the shifts and turns of the narrative are totally developed - nothing comes up gratuitous.
In the end, the stories leave a sense of loss, but also a note of hope. In the world where Lahiri's characters inhabit, there is not much room for fairy tales' solutions - which is pretty much like our real world. Her last story has a heartbreaking ending, but, at the same time, the assurance that destinies have been filled.