Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6861 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-15
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Synopsis
Pulitzer-winning, scintillating studies in yearning and exile from a Bengali Bostonian woman of immense promise. A couple exchange unprecedented confessions during nightly blackouts in their Boston apartment as they struggle to cope with a heartbreaking loss; a student arrives in new lodgings in a mystifying new land and, while he awaits the arrival of his arranged-marriage wife from Bengal, he finds his first bearings with the aid of the curious evening rituals that his centenarian landlady orchestrates; a schoolboy looks on while his childminder finds that the smallest dislocation can unbalance her new American life all too easily and send her spiralling into nostalgia for her homeland...Jhumpa Lahiri's prose is beautifully measured, subtle and sober, and she is a writer who leaves a lot unsaid, but this work is rich in observational detail, evocative of the yearnings of the exile (mostly Indians in Boston here), and full of emotional pull and reverberation.

From the Publisher
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE 2000
"Jhumpha Lahiri is the kind of writer who makes you want to grab the first person you see and say 'Read this!' She's a dazzling storyteller with a distinctive voice , an eye for nuance , an ear for irony. She is one of the finest short story writers I've read." AMY TAN

"Another side of India emerges when Lahiri sets her stories solely in Calcutta - where her protaganists are not Harvard academics but stair sweepers and outcasts. The nostalgic mist of homesickness lifted, India emerges raw, chaotic and often harsh...After reading three of these stories, I found myself rationing the remaining six, to try to make the book last longer. A lovely collection." Victoria Miller, SCOTSMAN

"The genius of Jhumpha Lahiri's storytelling lies in her restrained drollery, her eye for details, and her tone of wise consolation." Anthony Quinn, HARPERS & QUEEN

"Dazzling writing...Simply put, Lahiri displays a remarkable maturity and ability to imagine other lives. Each story offers something special." USA TODAY

"Strong, subtle...a debut to relish." GUARDIAN

"Jhumpa Lahiri's strength as a writer stems partly from her ability to delineate in telling detail the mores of bith societies... There are at the moment many good writers of Indian origin who recall with troubled nostalgia a past they do not want to return to but somehow hope to resolve by explaining it in fictional form. Lahiri joind the ranks of those whose work goes further and illuminates human nature in general." TLS

Customer Reviews

Undistinctly mediocre...
This collection of short stories is a fairly insipid group of overly-similar tales, which neither present an interesting snapshot, nor constitute mini-stories in themselves. As such, it is a disappointment.

First, the good news. Lahiri has a gentle, fairly soft literary style which doesn't grate, and sits fairly easily on the page. It is not going to offend. Neither will it excite, outrage, drive you to drink or euphoria, agitate, or thrill. It simply sits there, like wallpaper.

The subject matter of the stories becomes repetitive very quickly. Indian person arrives in New York/New England. Finds it odd. Feels dislocated. The end. Okay - one or two stories might conceivably cover that concept with something fresh or insightful. Five or six just gets tedious. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the tales set in India, but to this reader it read like a collection of clichés, and could have been compiled by anyone, using Wikipedia and some pictures on Google. Where are the Indian middle classes? Where is the sense of a subcontinent exploding outwards, taking on the world? No, we have the poor women living on the roof.

Ultimately, Lahiri appears to be writing the same basic story over and over. As a result, the stories have no resonance or impact. When you finish one you merely think "oh yeah, that was just like the last one." For the past few years, it has been the fashion to laud just about any book about India, China or Islam that was written by a photogenic woman. This is clearly just another in that sad trend. Lahiri will have to write a fine novel to raise her level up from this mediocrity.

Over-Rated and Over-Feted Lahiri
Unlike most readers and reviewers, I am not gaga over this collection. In fact, I am amazed that several of the stories even saw the light of day. I'm going to puke if I read one thing more about "exotic" Indians, with their fish and meat curries, and mustard. And the urban characters she writes about seem like cardboard cutouts (like the guy in the first story who is depressed because his wife has bought him a sweater as a gift) and somewhat snooty. From the literary perspective, it seems that Lahiri has neither had enough experience of real pain or sorrow, nor does she possess the empathy needed for imagining it.

And she should stick to writing about people in America - she simply has no depth to write about India, a country she knows little about (not that I would fault her for that - she is an American).

The last story in the book is the only story that moved me and that is the only one that makes me think Lahiri has genuine glimmers of talent. But the collection, was by no means, deserving of any major award.

Discerning readers should keep in mind that something need not be good simply because it got an award. Especially in the case of the Pulitzer. Please, ...if Thomas Friedman, the Emperor of hacks and jerks, can get one, then why not anyone else?

Over-rated, unbelievable and trite
Sorry, I disagree with all the reviews (and the Pulitzer prize panel!) - I found these stories dull and just not credible. The dialogue, the things people did, the things they thought - just none of it worked for me. I also found the writing passionless and forced, with oddly jarring words and images that made me think of the author at her computer rather than drawing me further into the story.

There's an odd sense of dislocated time that I don't think was deliberate, for example a girl in present day New York having an affair with an Indian had never heard of Bengal and thought India was somewhere myserious that didn't really exist, like Atlantis. Really?

I also have a major problem with a writer who describes someone as 'polishing off' their drink. How this won the Pulitzer is beyond me and a sad indictment on the state of literature today.