Rating: 
Summary: Evocative, subtle, post-post modern;
Review: VERY BENGALI VERY AMERICAN Simple lives, simple stories, that's life all about. Only a good author knows how to narrate the obvious, without adding OHenry-esque melodrama, but bringing out the nuances of mundane lives. Lahiri excels in that. The Third and Last Continent is poignant and rich. So is the first one The Temporary Matter.
Rating:
Summary: Unique and extraordinary stories
Review: It is difficult even for a well-established writer to be the Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction! When a new writer grabs the prize with his or her first collection of stories, it is important to read the book rather than go by the label!I was impressed by the unique and extraordinary nature of Ms Jhumpa Lahiri's short stories. She is a writer of extraordinary elegance. She portrays the pains of being a foreigner in another country by narrating her stories objectively without dwelling too much on emotions. Ms Lahiri provides valuable insights into marginal characters who travel between two worlds. Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies" is also a great contribution to new and emerging diasporic literature in which lives of people who are living away from their home and their displacement, rootlessness, and the ambivalence is portrayed. In these stories Ms Lahiri does more than that. Her stories provide powerful insights into life, love, relationships moreover the pains of living away from home. The stories are unique and extraordinary.
Rating: 
Summary: an overwhelming air of self-consciousness
Review: i don't mind autobiographical works, or works that are tinged with said autobiography; there are uncountable works of absolute genius that had their genesis in events that the author experienced. furthermore, i don't give the Pulitzer committee largesse; anyone remember "the stone diaries" or "a summons to memphis"? my major problem with Lahiri's book, and with the acclaim afforded it, is that in every one of the stories you feel, overwhelmingly, that Lahiri was conscious that she was TELLING A STORY; i.e., here is the opening scene; here is a bit of background; here is more of that scene; here is the conflict; here is the resolution, perhaps unfriendly, perhaps friendly, always leaving a spate of unanswered questions. this book reminded me of nothing so much as "Stories from the New Yorker told from an Indian background." there was little, if any, organic matter within them; the detachment of voice, in the sense that i got the feeling that Lahiri was doing nothing but observing, served to deaden the stories for me, and coat them with a sheen of sediment. for that, however, they ARE extremely well-constructed and written wonderfully. but i wonder where all of the passion was.
Rating:
Summary: styleless and generic
Review: Her characters are Indian, but ignorant about India. This is not necessarily a flaw, but when not only the main characters (living in the U.S.), but natives to India speak using Americanized terms, it destroys the reality of the location. Distances described in miles, Indian foods described in english instead of using itallics and an overall stubborn outlook on life in India, pulled the book downhill for me.
Rating:
Summary: A great read
Review: The worst thing about the short stories in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies is that all of her stories eventually come to an end. In Interpreter of Maladies Lahiri lets the reader in on one small moment in the lives of a person, family or town. Her narrative style is simple and her imagery is subtle. It lacks the complexity that literary critics seem to find so valuable in the works of other contempory Indian writers. But it is this simplicity that makes her work so engrossing. In the small space of a short story Lahiri creates characters that are so real you feel as though you have known them all your life. Lahiri was raised in America by Bengali parents. She obviously writes about what she knows. All of her short stories intertwine the Western and the Eastern world. In one story an American boy, of Indian heritage, observes an Indian man who is visiting his family. In between the young boys descriptions of his favorite toys,and his favorite lollies the story of the Indian man gently unfolds. He is running away from the war between India and Pakistan. He is an outcast from his own country. As a foreigner he is an outcast in America too. All the characters in Lahiri's collection of stories are outcasts and exiles. On one level they are outcasts from the American or Indian society they live in. On another level they are outcasts from the people and the things that are important to them. In America an Indian man feels like an outcast from his wife and her family after their child dies. In India a poor woman is outcast from the building she cleans once the values of the its residents change. All this talk of outcasts makes Interpreter of Maladies seem like a rather depressing book. I can assure you it is not. Lahiri may write about sad people, but she doesn't implore the reader to feel sad themselves. Oddly enough most of her characters inspire hope through their sad situations. It is no wonder Interpreter of Maladies has won the 2000 Pulitzer prize. Lahiri deserves it.
Rating:
Summary: An Exquisite Collection
Review: Jhumpa Lahiri shows mastery of the short story genre in her "Interpreter of Maladies." These nine stories narrate the experiences of brief encounters with displaced persons. The narrator maintains distance from the characters and does not pass judgment on them. But the reader is drawn into their lives through everyday details which appeal to the senses. It is in this way that the narrator is the interpreter of maladies of arranged marriages, loveless marriages, and the lives of the lovelorn and marginalized. Anyone who has lived in a university town or in a country not one's own will be familiar with the feelings of alienation and loneliness that affect Lahiri's characters. Her debut collection is being compared to other authors of Indian descent. But, in my opinion, her work has echoes of Shirley Jackson.
Rating:
Summary: Impersonal and Melancholy
Review: I was eager to read more on Indian culture, and found this book lacking. If you enjoy the melancholy or are searching for a read to make your troubles seem minimal, this might be the book for you. It may be that the author is too Westernized. The closest to culture that I found was "The Real Durwan" - one of two stories that wasn't focused on Western influence on Indian life. One reader previously indicated this book was in the line of Roy's "God of Small Things" - which is true, but not something to boast about, and at least this book comes in smaller doses. I had a hard time liking any of the characters - which may be because the stories were never written in true first person even when written from the storyteller's perspective. The only story I found truly entertaining was "This Blessed House" just because it was extremely absurd and Twinkle - so likable. In response to the "Gentle Breeze" review - I found a few mixed up facts. Lillia is a little girl in "When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dine". Most of the stories were not centered around "insignificant" circumstances - unless you call leaving your spouse, being torn from your family, adultery, poverty, and severe illnesses "insignificant". And I am pretty sure Mr. Kapasi was pretty relieved when his address fluttered away - since Mrs. Das didn't want him sexually, just wanted him to "Interpret" her sorry life and make her feel better - which is the only thing Mr. Kapasi gained from the incident - a realization that he had the ability as an interpreter for a doctor to have a significant impact on others' lives.
Rating:
Summary: poolside reading
Review: Even as an American of Indian bengali descent (like Ms Lahiri), I found it hard identify much with some of her characters - they behaved in such peculiar ways as to stretch credibility. I'll admit the stories did engage me enough to keep reading to the end, but once finished I was disappointed and unsatisfied - left hanging too soon. I'm sure she is better as a novelist as her writing style is very reader friendly.
Rating: 
Summary: What a first effort!
Review: I remember reading that this book had won the Pulitzer and being rather uninterested from the initial description. 200 pages later and I'm thinking this is one of the best short story collections I have ever read. Jhumpa Lahiri has written a beautiful collection of stories that take place in India and America. Her gift is to write weightless prose with a deceptively simple feel. Whether dealing with a young American woman's feelings toward her married Indian lover, the unexpected, sometimes unwanted, discoveries when newlyweds really get to know one another (unfolded in a clever analogy), or the title story about a tour guide's revelatory afternoon with an American family these tales amuse, enchant, and touch your heart. Brilliantly conceived from start to finish.
Rating:
Summary: A promising new voice
Review: I read Interpreter of Maladies to understand better what all the fuss was about. I finished still wondering. The reviews all point out that the author is a talented new voice: I couldn't agree more. Amy Tan thinks she walks on water. Lahiri's style is clean, traditional and she employs a straight-ahead narrative technique. Her portrait work of eccentric characters is highly vivid and the characters do come alive. The sentences flow together beautifully and she shows great promise. But this work lacks depth of perspective: it appears highly autobiographical and seems to occur on her home turf: both marks of first novelists. Furthermore, the scope we expect of a Pulitzer Prize winner just isn't there in this work. After all, she must be the very best writer that America has to offer. Right? There must be innovation in the technique. There must be evidence of real genius. Americans expect, and have a right to expect, genius of writers who win this award. They are the literary voices of our nation, after all. Read Saul Bellow. Read Annie Proulx. Or V.S. Naipaul. And then tell me this author belongs in their league. A promising new voice? Absolutely. A Pulitzer Prize winner? I can't imagine what they were thinking.
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