Interpreter of Maladies

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Summary: My favorite stories EVERin the New Yorker are Jumpa Lahiri's
Review: The best stories I've ever read in The New Yorker have been Jumpa Lahiri's. They mix subversive little details with ordinary life in a way that makes me melancholy in just the right way.

Imagine my surprise to learn that my best friend went to high school in South Kingstown with Jumpa and his mother wanted him to marry her! (do not know what Jumpa thought of this).

I am very much looking forward to reading more of Jumpa's stories.

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Summary: This book shows a lot of promise.
Review: Frankly, I bought the book because of the author's name. However, the stories were beautifully crafted and rich with detail. Most of the stories are memorable. Two were unforgettable.

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Summary: An Excellent Collection of Stories
Review: These stories are, without exception, absorbing and beautifully written. The authors insights are fascinating, and the stories never take the easy way out. I'm looking forward to reading more by Ms Lahiri!

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Summary: Eagerly awaiting
Review: I have read two of Ms Lahiri's short stories in the New Yorker. They were wonderful and I eagerly await her book "Interpreter of Maladies"

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Summary: Highly-seasoned stories.
Review: I arrived at this Pulitzer-Prize-winning collection of nine short stories after first reading a couple of them in "The New Yorker" magazine. Lahiri's stories are seasoned with Indian spices. Her characters are both interesting and real. For instance, in the opening story, "A Temporary Matter," we meet a married couple who have become "experts at avoiding each other" (p. 4) as their marriage crumbles, sharing secrets and weeping together in their dark house. In "Mr. Pirzada," we find the narrator carving a Halloween pumpkin while India and Pakistan grow closer to war. The girl tells us, "I prayed that Mr. Pirzada's family was safe and sound," while pretending to brush her teeth, "for I feared that I would somehow rinse the prayer out as well" (p. 32).

"I could tell you stories," one character confesses in the book's darkly moving title story (p. 63), "a woman not yet thirty, who loved neither her husband nor her children, who had already fallen out of love with life" (p. 66). In another story, "Mrs. Sen's," we meet a "responsible and kind" professor's wife learning to drive so that "everything will improve" (p. 119) in her new American life, and so that she may drive herself to the market to purchase "a whole fish." She dreams of maybe even driving all the way back to Calcutta, "ten thousand miles, at fifty miles per hour" (p. 119).

Lahiri feeds her characters well by serving up page after page of exotic Indian food, and lots of it: peppers marinated with rosemary, boiling pots of tomatoes and prunes (p. 7), "bright paprika stew" (p. 10), shrimp malai (p. 20), fried spinach with radishes, pickled mangoes (p. 25), "lentils with fried onions, green beans with coconut, fish cooked with raisins in a yogurt sauce" (p. 30), "tortes of pesto and mascarpone cheese" (p. 93), purple eggplant, and stew with fish and green bananas (p. 133). Some stories here are stronger than others. But as a collection, you won't go away from Jhumpa Lahiri's book hungry for good fiction. "Splendid!"

G. Merritt

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Summary: Brilliant prose
Review: The "Dr. Pirzadeh" story is the best of this collection; it tells the story of the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence from Pakistan from the perspective of an emigrant listening to the news in the evenings. Very touching. The other stories are all very well told.

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Summary: An accessible Pulitzer
Review: Even readers who don't normally take time for serious fiction will find this book of short stories moving and memorable. The first story alone, with its unexpected ending, is worth buying your own copy for. Like the characters themselves, the stories span continents from India to the United States. For Americans the stories provide greater insight into the immigrant experience, which is an integral part of the United States but usually submerged in its popular culture. For immigrants and children of immigrants, the stories provide characters and situations they can identify with. Enough said, just read it.


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Summary: Spare and simple on the surface ...
Review: ... complex and compelling below. I've savored these short stories over some days and find myself later, remembering some character, some setting, their measure returning with clarity and fondness. A lovely collection ...

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Summary: Indians living in exile
Review: Nine short stories. My favorite? The story titled "Sexy". I liked the way the main character Miranda evolves. She gets involved with Dev, a married Indian man. She is keen on trying to know more about Dev. Dev shows her the city in India where he was born in a magazine, and later he throws the magazine away. Miranda retrieves the magazine, hoping to find the photograph of the city where Dev was born. Eventually, she finds out what the affair really means to her from a young boy.

Not all the stories are depressing. "Third and Final Continent', for example, is a story about an Indian guy who comes to work in US and his relationship with an elderly landlady. The story ends on a positive note.

Most of her stories are about Indians living in exile. "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" is about a little girl who is constantly fascinated with her Indian heritage. She wonders why she has to learn about Revolutionary war and King George, if she is interested in the Indian subcontinent.

The writer has eloquently displayed the emotional confusion of an outsider.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written
Review: Makes Indians feel at home if away from home and gives westerners an understanding of the immigrant Indian who seeks the physical comforts of the west, and yet in spirit they cling to the fond memories of a nation that emotionally never lets go of you... Beautiful!