Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
individualism is going to kill us all, and miss jhumpa lahiri told us in her literary debut….. every story was stunning and beautiful and evocative. i will be thinking about them all for many years to come
These short stories are amazingly beautifully written. The author has a gift for developing characters with great depth and humanity. She writes about ordinary people, poor people and sick people, with such compassion, respect, and grace. Although the stories are often about loneliness and sorrow, they are also very real and relatable. The final story ends the volume on a quietly happier note.
3.5?4? This book was lovingly gifted to me by my Lottie! The first two short stories of the collective were very strikingly written, incredibly moving and unusual in a way I cannot quite put my finger on (i cried on a plane to Dubrovnik reading the first one and then again, on a beach in a Dubrovnik reading the second). Quite a few of the other short stories weren’t to my liking so I think it was hard to feel conclusive about the compilation as a whole. Having said that, there were definitely a number of them that I really enjoyed. Lahiri is particularly gifted at crafting/breathing life into characters and their narratives, but perhaps the plots sometimes left me confused or wanting more?
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
re-reading because i love it, even though 99% of the stories make me cry
Read this one for class. Not sure what it was exactly but there was a certain haunting feel about each story and honesty with the characters that made it sort of uncomfortable to read? There was so much irony not only within a story but also between adjacent ones in the collection.. The woman who cheats but listens to her best friend lament about her cousin's cheating husband, the American in India vs the Indian in America... Although each story was short, it was pretty cool how there was always an element of time and change within the characters. Overall 4.5 stars.
(Review first appeared at http://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.com/2013/11/jhumpa-lahiris-interpeter-of-maladies.html)
The first story in Jhumpa Lahiri's first published work, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Interpreter of Maladies, absolutely killed me. Talk about announcing your presence with authority, this story, titled "A Temporary Matter," is absolutely heart-wrenching — a theme-setter for most of the rest of the collection.
The story is about a young-ish married couple in the midst of one of those long lulls that plagues every relationship — but this one is a result of a tragedy. They'd recently had a child die soon after birth, and now both have retreated into themselves and their routines. Then, a breakthrough: A nightly hour-long power outage gives them occasion to talk again, to reconnect, and they begin sharing secrets they'd never revealed before. At first, these are harmless, mundane, almost humorous — but they soon become more consequential. Ostensibly, this secret-sharing brings them closer — but we soon learn the wife had a very different reason for re-building her ability to share than the husband does. And, as I said, the conclusion is just numbing. It really laid me out.
And again, this story sets the tone for many of the other stories about marital problems and the consequences of not communicating, or of keeping secrets. The title story is about a wife who shares a sordid secret with a tour guide while on vacation in India. Another story "Sexy" is about a young woman who has an affair with a married Indian man, all the while hearing one of her co-workers complaining about her cousin whose husband left her to take up with a younger woman. It's an incredible story about how difficult empathy is sometimes, and how we often willfully ignore consequences of bad things we do until we have full and terrible understanding of how they affect others.
Another of my favorites in the collection is titled "This Blessed House." I'm not sure if this story is supposed to be funny, but I thought it was. It's about a newly married couple who move into a new house. As they clean and paint, they keep finding Christian relics — like posters and prayer cards — hidden (or just forgotten about) all over the house. The wife — whose name is Twinkle — is a bit flighty, and loves the novelty of the items, and wants to display them prominently (in some sense, ironically) all over the house. But the straight-laced husband hates this idea, and starts to wonder — especially during the couple's housewarming party — whether he's made the right decision with this marriage.
Again, this collection was Lahiri's first book, published in 1999. And, sadly for me, it's the last of her published work I've gotten to read. I won't cliche and say I saved the best for last (I'm still sorting it all out, but I think The Lowland is my favorite of her four published works), but I really loved most of this collection. These are stories that hit you right in the feelings.
The first story in Jhumpa Lahiri's first published work, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Interpreter of Maladies, absolutely killed me. Talk about announcing your presence with authority, this story, titled "A Temporary Matter," is absolutely heart-wrenching — a theme-setter for most of the rest of the collection.
The story is about a young-ish married couple in the midst of one of those long lulls that plagues every relationship — but this one is a result of a tragedy. They'd recently had a child die soon after birth, and now both have retreated into themselves and their routines. Then, a breakthrough: A nightly hour-long power outage gives them occasion to talk again, to reconnect, and they begin sharing secrets they'd never revealed before. At first, these are harmless, mundane, almost humorous — but they soon become more consequential. Ostensibly, this secret-sharing brings them closer — but we soon learn the wife had a very different reason for re-building her ability to share than the husband does. And, as I said, the conclusion is just numbing. It really laid me out.
And again, this story sets the tone for many of the other stories about marital problems and the consequences of not communicating, or of keeping secrets. The title story is about a wife who shares a sordid secret with a tour guide while on vacation in India. Another story "Sexy" is about a young woman who has an affair with a married Indian man, all the while hearing one of her co-workers complaining about her cousin whose husband left her to take up with a younger woman. It's an incredible story about how difficult empathy is sometimes, and how we often willfully ignore consequences of bad things we do until we have full and terrible understanding of how they affect others.
Another of my favorites in the collection is titled "This Blessed House." I'm not sure if this story is supposed to be funny, but I thought it was. It's about a newly married couple who move into a new house. As they clean and paint, they keep finding Christian relics — like posters and prayer cards — hidden (or just forgotten about) all over the house. The wife — whose name is Twinkle — is a bit flighty, and loves the novelty of the items, and wants to display them prominently (in some sense, ironically) all over the house. But the straight-laced husband hates this idea, and starts to wonder — especially during the couple's housewarming party — whether he's made the right decision with this marriage.
Again, this collection was Lahiri's first book, published in 1999. And, sadly for me, it's the last of her published work I've gotten to read. I won't cliche and say I saved the best for last (I'm still sorting it all out, but I think The Lowland is my favorite of her four published works), but I really loved most of this collection. These are stories that hit you right in the feelings.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
The writing is great, but the collection as a whole became a little tedious.
Collection of short stories. The last one may be my favorite. Or maybe Mrs Sen's.