Unaccustomed Earth
by Jhumpa Lahiri
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Book Reviews of Unaccustomed Earth
Book Review: For My Favorite Writer - Unaccustomed Indeed
Summary: 3 Stars
I am an avid reader of Lahiri. She is inarguably one of my favorite writers. I have read the two previous books. The stories when they come out in the New Yorker, and interviews when there is one.
I think some of that shot me in the foot this time around, after all, I did not get any money back for the stories I'd already read- one as far back as 2002.
What I usually love about Lahiri's work are her characters. I have always been able to connect with them at a much deeper level, but with the exception of a few, there was really nothing much there for me. There was a lot of storytelling as opposed to character building.
Some of the characters were drowned in high browed prose which is/would've been perfect for the character but not for me.
I am not studying for my PhD. A great deal of Hema's last chapter dealt with her study, and a lot less with her personally- unless Kaushik was around.
It is also quite clear to see that the first story Unaccustomed Earth and Only Goodness were at one time related. UE hints at the brother who has gone astray whereas OG explores the story of the "lost" bother- just with a different name.
I felt a little let down by this book because I feel it was patched together at best. Perhaps Lahiri's publishing company was putting pressure on her to get something out and this is what we got. While good, it certainly is no Interpreter of Maladies.
Maybe if this was my first time reading Lahiri, or perhaps if I glanced and enjoyed her stories in The New Yorker and decided to give her a try, I would've been very satisfied with this book, but my time and money has been invested much further and I was one of the few who was not satisfied.
Lahiri is still one of my favorite authors. Her writing style will always soothe me, but I think she could have done so much better. It's not a bad read by any means, but definitely it could have been better.
These are my opinions.
Book Review: A particular culture, but universal struggles
Summary: 4 Stars
I neglected to pick up this book for the longest time, thinking I would have little interest in cross-cultural struggles of which I've had no experience. But, truthfully, as a reader, you need only have had experience with parents, siblings, boyfriends or girlfriends or any friends at all, to appreciate the stories in this book.
In particular, I was charmed by the title story, that of a father who visits his married daughter and his grandson. The father has a secret, and the daughter has a dilemma. The story is narrated from both of their points of view, and both are utterly sympathetic characters. The daughter's thoughts are so universal to the human experience, regardless of culture, that they struck me as utterly true. For example: "Even with Akash [her son] to care for, part of her was beginning to prefer the solitude, without Adam [her husband] hovering around, full of concern about her state of mind, her mood."
The other stories did not grip me as fully; perhaps because most of them concern young lovers and their dramas. It's just my time of life, I suppose, that makes the relationship between parents and their adult children (and husbands and wives) more interesting to me.
But all of the stories are compelling, and the language spare and beautiful. I rarely read fiction, but have always loved the short story form, because the brevity forces an author to pare down events and emotions to their essential core. I also appreciated Ms. Lahiri's understated characters; they seemed like real people to me. I recently read Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs and was frustrated with the outlandish characters who populated that book. Few writers show the restraint that Ms. Lahiri does. For some readers, that translates into boredom; for me, it is a pathway to engagement.
Book Review: Continuing Gulf Between Two Cultures
Summary: 5 Stars
In this brilliant book, Lahiri sustains her control of characters and weaves tight stories. Her plots and characters move effortlessly through each vignette. Once again we meet the structured Bengali culture and their American children who never seem to completely belong in either world.
The stories emphasize intermarriage between a Bengali and an American but their coming together seems natural and no definitive blame is placed on troubled intermarriages. I had originally thought the stories wold be linked but only two were related directly.
Arranged marriages often make life easier . We learn about the strict, almost inflexible, Bengali families who come to America and desperately retain their sharp divide of women's place and the man's responsibility in a marriage. Not so when a Bengali girl or boy marries an American. Many of the alliances seemed anguished and incomplete. I didn't feel any of the characters could find contentment.
What held every story together, whether it was a drunken husband or a grieving wife missing her Bengali mother, was the demanding emphasis on education. The Bengali expected their American son or daughter to become dstinctively educated at the very best Ivy schools to attain optimum success in their fields. This theme seem the overriding reason for coming to America. The Bengali wives remained tied to their Indian cultures and continued their obsequious responses to their husbands. They remained isolated and out of touch. Not their children who desperately tried to find a place for themselves in our rich country and liberal culture.
This was a wonderful book; she is one of the best authors. We are thrown into the plots from the very first sentences. She reminds me of Anne Tyler, taking simple people who live mundane lives, but who are quite complicated and intense.
Book Review: Marvellous!
Summary: 5 Stars
In the prologue of this book is a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne that is simply astonishing in its disasporal beauty: "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 have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth." And so begins this collection of equally astonishing short stories by Lahiri. As much as I enjoyed her first collection of short stories (Interpreter of Maladies), I was rather put off by her next novel: The Namesake. I felt that the latter was a depressing and foreboding warning against seeking out unknown lands and new adventures. But maybe I was mistaken, maybe Ms. Lahiri is, in fact, celebrating this diasporic journey. The short stories she has weaved in this book are perfect. The characters are so well developed that you feel a sense of loss when the story is done. The first few stories are self contained, and the last three are tied together; all written with Ms. Lahiri's precise sense on how to complete a sentence in the most descriptive way using the least amount of words. In the last set of stories, Ms. Lahiri uses the guise of fiction crossing over into real world calamities as the protagonist perishes in the 2004 Asian Tsunami (this literature device when used wisely is strikingly creative -- Nelson DeMille was the first author I read who used it in Night Fall; in his case, 9/11 being the profound event.) As is usually the case with Ms. Lahiri, the stories in this book are centered around the Eastern US seaboard, with Calcutta providing the anchor that roots the character's lives once they seek their fortunes in unaccustomed earths. This book was simply fantastic. I cannot recommend it highly enough!Book Review: Beautiful and Profound
Summary: 5 Stars
What a wonderful collection of stories, equal to her debut triumph and Pulitzer Prize winner, The Interpreter of Maladies. I was immersed in each story and felt connections to the various characters, despite the cultural differences. There is so much in life that can be universally understood beyond ethnic, national and racial boundaries, and Lahiri communicates this beautifully.
The first part of the book contains five separate short stories which all deal with similar themes. All of the Bengali characters are involved in unconventional relationships, often marrying Americans despite their traditional parent's wishes. The emphasis is the rift these relationships cause between the parents and their grown children who shirk the conservative lifestyle and culture of their parents. But underneath it all, there still remains a sense of obligation to aging parents and a familial bond that transcends the younger generation's Americanism.
The second part of the book is three related stories that could have easily been a novella. It is the story of a Hema and Kaushik whose lives intersect at different periods over the years. They first know each other as young children whose parents are close friends. Then they are thrust back into each other's lives as teenagers, under uncomfortable and tragic circumstances. Finally, decades later, they meet randomly in Rome and have a fleeting affair despite Hema's engagement. Theirs is a story full of remorse and what-could-have-been. It is a sad but profound conclusion. I loved the different voices Lahiri gave to these three stories, the first being told in first person by Hema, the second by Kaushik, and the final story of their last reunion in third person. Brilliantly written and engaging.