Interpreter of Maladies

Rating:
Summary: more than worth the time
Review: In all honesty, when I first read a story by Ms. Lahiri, I wasn't expecting much. It was just another story in the New Yorker (and if you ask me, that particular magazine has gone south, far, far south). But there was something magical in the simplicity of the story (it was "The Third and Final Continent"). The closing of the story was wonderful, evoking a vague universality in thought and experience. Her use of language isn't exactly terse, yet it excludes unnecessary words that would only bog it down. The sentences are smooth, elegant, even, and direct. It spoke to me as stories should, and all too often don't. I await more Lahiri.

Rating:
Summary: Entrancing!
Review: These short stories provide a lyrical, compelling look into the world of 'otherness': the immigrant, the child, the outcast, the elderly. Ms. Lahiri's beautiful prose immerses us in the bittersweet worlds of her characters. You are sorry when each story is over and think of them long after you're through. A wonderful book!

Rating:
Summary: A fine debut - more please!
Review: This is a terrific collection that evokes what it is like to be an immigrant as well as reminds one of other worlds. The characters are beautifully developed with a rare economy of style. The person below who disliked the book needs to pull her head out and start seeing the book for what it is. Perhaps it is not considered intellectual in Boston to praise books that are both thoughtful and entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: remarkably poised writing
Review: Lahiri has collected nine stories; most are very much set in Boston and the area around it, with a feel for the universities that help define it, but, there are two or three placed in India. Her writing is deeply domestic: the characters are most comfotable inside their residences, be they apartments or houses. Indeed, a few sem to nearly be shut-ins, and none live heroicly or with grand purpose. Lahiri is quite good at describing the lives of her characters, and gives them a sort of small dignity appropriate to their modest lives. She writes with a settled rhythm, smoothly pacing her stories and never trying to astound the reader. And the writing is good: the imagery is apt, and presented with understatement, and the stories are laid out well. Occassionally, Lahiri does misstep, particularly when we are given an excessively long introduction to Bangladesh in When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, but, all in all, the stories come across with strength and clarity, and a kind of grace. Lahiri is, it appears, just one of the many (e.g. Gish Jen, Ha Jin) recent, very good, young writers detailing the experience of Asians, both in America and in their native countries, and beginning to shape a new kind of American literature.

Rating:
Summary: If you've ever experienced culture shock...
Review: These stories are so touching to me maybe because i have lived in countries other than my own. In her stories, characters either move away or observe other people that have moved away (I especially liked the last story in the book, about the 103-year old landlady). The author has a simple style, very lyric, and her observations are smart and plain, no artifice. I totally disagree with the comment of another customer about the writing being contrite. There's no way this prose could be defined as contrite. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about other culture and who wants to learn about culture shock.

Rating:
Summary: Interpreter of Maladies... A gentle breeze
Review: During the last few months, this book by Jhumpa Lahiri has become one of the popular gift items in our family. And this is for a very good reason. Reading this book was like a gentle breeze with a familer fragrance brushing the sweet memories of a world with hidden treasures. In her stories, Ms. Lahiri has created a magical world with her eloquent and skillful writing. She seems to have an insight into human characters and a capacity of describing a situation to its very essence. Creations and portrayal of characters such as Mr. Pirzada, Mrs. Sen, Mr. Kapasi, Sanjeev, Miranda, Bibi etc, are so realistic that one is tempted to look for them among the acquaintances. She has created stories of unusual depths around insignificant circumstances and with insipid, ordianry but realistic characters. She is a writer with eyes of an artist, who with her skillful descriptions, can create vivid images in the mind of a reader, who is almost transported into the story. As a writer, her strength is in her ability to tell a story and no doubt, she has demonstrated it very well. I have many favorite pieces of her stories, but I like to mention the following excerpts in which I was impressed with her abilites to relate to the minds of the characters she created. In " When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dinner", the child of the host family, wondered about something closer to his world. " Before eating, Mr. Pirzada always did a curious thing. He took out a plain silver watch.....". The child hears about a distant world with all its unrest and war, but cannot relate to it. He tries to find a clue to Mr. Przada's actions which seem strange to him. Another part is the description of the chopping blade in "Mrs. Sen". Through eyes of Eliot, the little boy, the writer describes the blade. This is a superb description, through the eyes of someone who is not familier with the details of the usage of an Indian domestic kithen tool and describes it in his own way. In the final pragraph of "Interprter of Maladies", the writer skillfully ends the story, but leaves the readers to draw their own conclusions about the Das Family and their sense of importance and priorities. ".. the slip of paper with Mr. Kapasi's address on it fluttered away into the wind. No one, but Mr. Kapasi notices." It is hard to interpret the slight ache in this reader's heart that she felt. Was it for Mr. Kapasi or Mrs. Das? Or, was it for Mr. Das? Or was it for Bobby who got abused by the monkeys? My congratulations to Ms Lahiri for her work. I look forward to her future work.

Rating:
Summary: Huge dissapointment and reason not to rely on reviews!
Review: I have been recently exposed to a whole world of SA writers and this has got to rank on the bottom of the list! Never have I found reading so predictable and contrived as Luhiri's "Interpreter of Maladies" I was sorely dissapointed. I purchase books by SA female writer irrespective of the reviews because I feel its one way to support and encourage more SA females to write. Never have I been more dissapointed...especially in light of the hype the Western media has endowed upon Lahiri. Her style of writing is banal and her content, cliche. After I read her book, I switched to non-SA writers. It saddens me that the current SA writers hype after Rushdie and Arundhati Roy's "God of Small Things" the western media would celebrate such a cliche writer in the midst of amazing SA writers (Rohington Mistry, Rushdie, R.K.Narayan, etc). I would not recommend this to ANYONE! If you are truly interested in good SA writers, read ANYTHING by Rohington Mistry, R.K.Narayan, A.Roy, G.Mehta, or C.Banarjee. I would never read anything by this author and would rank her writing on the bottom of the tons of books I have read by SA writers.

Rating:
Summary: reading it gave me maladies
Review: Don't believe the hype. This was the WORST book I read in the past few years. Trite. Tedious. And completely unoriginal.

Rating:
Summary: 9 Beautiful Stories
Review: I picked this book up randomly in my local book store. I love reading short stories, and though I had never heard of the author, the book held my interest during the first few pages. I was happy to find out later that this book does more than just hold your interest. There are nine really beautifully crafted stories in this book. Each one is unique, and simply draws the reader into the characters live, if only for a brief moment. I read a lot of short fiction, and it can be a really hard medium to master. I was happy to find out that Jhumpa Lahiri has not only mastered the medium, but added something more to it. Later I found out, though not to my suprise, that one of Lahiri's stories has been included in the Best American Short Stories for 1999. All of the praise which has been given to this book and its author are more than well deserved.

Rating:
Summary: Great writing!
Review: The writing is subtle and fluid, and the stories make a huge impact in a very short space -- hallmark of the master short story writer. It's like getting an accidental glimpse of another life through a window, sometimes with little or no resolution to the conflicts of the story, which is more realistic than the traditional "beginning, middle, end" paradigm. Not a word out of place. Loved it!