Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, moving, true.
Review: I loved all the stories in this short collection, particularly "A Temporary Matter" and "This Blessed House." Lahiri's characters are fully human, her writing is beautiful, and her narrative is quietly alive. Couldn't put this one down until I had finished the last perfect word.
Rating: 
Summary: Young author .... but no beginner ! Very good book.
Review: The author's style has a natural elegance and the book is filled with very original ideas. All short stories are very interesting and some passages are quite disturbing. And the characters seem so real ! It is not only about the Indian culture and the life of immigrants in the US, but also about human experience...through the eyes of a talented writer.
Rating:
Summary: My two cents...
Review: There are already many lengthy reviews here that will give potential buyers information about the book's characters and plot, so I shall remain brief. I simply want to urge those who have not yet read this book to do so right away! I am not even a fan of the short story genre, and still, this collection is one of my favorite pieces of fictional writing. Beautiful, luminous prose, genuine, honest characters (perhaps why some found them to be "boring"?)--what more could you ask?
Rating:
Summary: We don't ever think that the ordinary can teach us lessons
Review: I've read some of the reviews for this book and found them to be very critical. Biased in the sense that the readers seeked to find stories out of the ordinary. Since that wasn't the case, this book is dismissed as not good, boring, blah, blah, blah.I guess in a country that thrives so much on sensationalism, the emotions of each character, the lessons of each story was most likely lost on those looking for "better reading". You don't have to be an immigrant, an american, ethnic, white, black or lead an exciting life to feel pain, homesickness, fear of the unknown, new experiences. You just have to be human and "The Interpreter of Maladies" does an excellent job of expressing emotions we all feel through these ordinary characters.
Rating:
Summary: An unqualified success.
Review: This is a beautiful, poignant collection of short stories. Jhumpa Lahiri's writing is such a pleasure. She has great power of description. Nothing is overwritten or flowery; every word matters. Ms. Lahiri shows us homesickness, loss, callousness, despair, unrequited love, and painful awakenings that come with a failing marriage -- as well as hope, tenderness, forgiveness, contentment, and wisdom. Some of the stories have a palpable sadness. Others make you smile. Most do both. All are gems to be savored.
Rating:
Summary: It's the writing, stupid
Review: Interpreter of Maladies was my book club's choice for this month, so I read it. I showed up looking forward to a deeper reading of this extraordinary book. Instead, I faced stone-faced friends who dismissed this book as "too depressing". What! The malaise they found in the stories could have been solved by marriage counseling, etc. It's the writing, stupid. Jhumpa Lahiri thrives in the medium of short stories. No word or image is wasted. The setting is the immigrant experience in America but the palette is the human experience, the unbearing sadness of being alive. The humor, the stalesmates, the battles, the losses, and the small victories are all there for the assiduous reader to discover. Interpreter of Maladies succeeds as a beautiful and touching collection of connected short stories.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: The best kinds of writing remind us of how extraordinary our predominately solitary and wanting existence is on the planet, and of what a miracle it is that we survive at all; marriage, love, tragedy, displacement- our daily drone. The characters in Lahiri's stories aren't better than us, but they really aren't worse either. We feel sorry for many of them- they can't love or find self-acceptance,or a place to to belong. Common enough themes, yet their stories beg to be told because they are brimming with an ordinariness that is completely credible and palpable. These are people you walk by everyday and meet at the coffee shop but have never said hello to. And they are dying inside- like you do sometimes. Her last story, "The Third And Final Continent" is about an Indian gentleman, living in a tiny studio in Cambridge, MA after a stint in England. He is attending M.I.T., waiting for a wife he doesn't yet know and is lonely as hell. It seems like all these characters,like him, are saying, "perhaps tomorrow I will live." They make you want to live so badly, or simply make you step away and realize how much of an immigrant you are too-always travelling, needing to stop. They are dying a slow desperate kind of spiritual death-the kind you find in cities and in the loneliness of the wayfarer. Generally in life we believe we are happy when we get what we have always wanted- or think we wanted. Lahiri's stories beg us to think otherwise. This is their wisdom. They make us stop.
Rating:
Summary: makes you pause and reflect on the immigrant experience
Review: this book was a joy top read and one of those ones where you dont want the stories to end.. thats what was really good about this book.. while narrating great human stories, it at the same time makes you relate to the immigrant experience... the characters in the stories echo many of your thoughts and feelings.. great read
Rating:
Summary: Simply Great
Review: I can't believe someone who is in USA so long, can capture the essence of Calcutta in such a way. This book is simply great. I read it twice. I love the "third and final continent" story most - as it tells every man/women story who migrates to USA for job. I can't wait for her next book. Just a great book. I am truly amazed.
Rating: 
Summary: A MARKETING triumph
Review: I had great expectations when I read this book. Praise had been heaped on it from all quarters. When it won the Pulitzer, I sat down and read it. Maybe I am missing something, but I don't get the fuss. Some of the stories are good. One, Sexy, is even better. Still, the stories are, for the most part, very similar. A few are down right boring. They all read as if they were written to maximize their chance of publication in the New Yorker. That does not make great literature.
|
