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Title: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri ISBN: 0-395-92720-X Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.24 (324 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant new voice in Immigrant writing
Comment: Out and Out
Mr Kapasi, whose father was from Gujarat, lives in Puri. His gift for languages hasn't got him very far in life: he works during the week at a clinic, interpreting for the doctor's many Gujarati patients. At weekends, he acts as a driver cum tour guide. Today, his clients are the youthful Mr and Mrs Das, born and raised in America, and their three kids. It's been a long, hot and tiring day visiting the Sun Temple, even so the family agrees to Mr Kapasi's suggestion for a detour via Udaygiri and Khandagiri, hills where Jain monks of yore meditated in caves carved out of the rockface.
Interpreter of Maladies is the title story of Jhumpa Lahiri's first collection of short stories. Lahiri, born in London to Bengali parents, and raised in Rhode Island, is a remarkable new voice in immigrant writing. Controlled, never shrill, she nevertheless fleshes out her characters in vivid detail, a potpourri of smells, sounds, colours, and emotions. She has a sure eye for nuance, a sharp ear for cadence - whether in Calcutta, Boston and Beyond, the sub-title of her book.
For Lahiri, being on the outside, both culturally and in terms of open spaces, are keys to understanding the human condition and the inner world. Hardly a new concept, in Ms Lahiri's deft hands it acquires an original level rarely encountered in contemporary writing. In her stories, complete strangers are in reality soul-mates - their empathy facilitated by the outdoors. Not surprisingly, most of her main characters are women.
Mr Kapasi is an outsider twice removed: a Gujarati in Orissa, and a mere tour guide. But, as Mrs Das says, her interest lies in his other job. '"As an interpreter."' Perhaps a one-night stand can only be confessed to a one-day tour guide. For, tourism, like its elevated cousin anthropology, tells us at least as much about Us as it does about Them.
Back to Ms Lahiri. The lady is a foodie, undoubtedly! Almost all the stories set in America have Indian - nay, Bengali - food as a second helping to the main course. Meats, fish, vegetables, condiments, confection, wines, recipes, preparation, mealtimes - these are detailed so finely as to make one's mouth water. The aromas - redolent with spice and flavouring - linger long after the stories are over. Strangely, none of the three stories set in India are treated in quite this manner. It is as if for the immigrant food is the key to her patrimony, whilst in one's native land, it is just an everyday unremarked reality.
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine is surely autobiographical, from the viewpoint of Lilia, a 10-year old girl, in 1971, her father a professor at a small university north of Vermont. Mr. Pirzada is from Dacca, in the US on a grant to study the foliage of New England. He's left his wife and seven daughters behind, and comes each evening to dine with her family, and watch the evening news. With no news from Dacca, the TV is Mr Pirzada's only connection with home, at a time when civil war is rending Pakistan asunder.
Kindly Mr Pirzada, never forgets to bring Lilia some confectionery or the other, taking a gentle interest in her well-being, with an affection that he cannot give to his children. Her concerns are more mundane, such as preparing for Halloween. Nevertheless, she worries about Mr Pirzada's family. One night she prays for their safekeeping. "That night when I went to bed, I only pretended to brush my teeth, for I feared that I would somehow rinse the prayer out as well."
Lahiri's Calcutta stories, continue with the theme of the outsider - literally as well - in that Boori Ma (in A Real Durwan) lives underneath the staircase, whilst Bibi (in The Treatment of Bibi Haldar) is banished by her family to the storage room on the roof of the building. In both stories, situations, which occur when the women step out of their worlds, lead to inescapable and drastic consequences. However, neither story rings entirely true. They are too like stories a child might hear on her grandparent's knees - stories from 'the Old Home Town'.
That and her occasional misspelling of Indian / Bengali names are the only jarring notes of an otherwise masterfully crafted collection. Although her prose quality is starkly restrained, it has the ability to take the mundane and infuse it with so much meaning that we are forced to confront and see our Self in the Other. Lahiri's storytelling totally lacks the need to construct artificial worlds to bring home the truth.
The final, resounding, narrative, Across Three Continents, tells of the relationship between a newly arrived young man from India and his octogenarian (or so he thinks!) Boston landlady. She's finicky, old-fashioned and ordered in her ways; he's nervous, doesn't quite know the right thing to do, the right thing to say. And so she instructs him, and when finally put to the test, he does not fail her. After the arrival of Mala, his new bride, from Calcutta, Mrs Croft becomes their guide to a New World, teaching them to admire their new country, both for its past traditions and its present achievements.
"Still," our young friend tells us after 30 moons in America, "there are times when I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, every person I have known, every room I have slept in."
And so it is with Lahiri - who takes us intimately into the lives of ordinary people everywhere, with so much candour and compassion. By doing so, she acts, like Mr Kapasi, as the interpreter of our maladies.
Rating: 5
Summary: Timeless fiction about immigrant Indians in foreign lands
Comment: Jhumpa Lahiri reminds us what good fictional writing is all about. It's about simplicity, clarity and integrity in conveying some essential truth about our human condition. "Interpreter of Maladies", Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize winning short story collection, embodies all these qualities. The stories are mostly though not exclusively about immigrant Indians who have settled overseas and the cultural displacement they experience in their adopted homeland. Sometimes, the perspective is reversed, the location shifts back to the Indian subcontinent and we observe how second generation Americans of Indian origin are regarded when they return as tourists to their motherland. The stories are varied and thoroughly enchanting but the ones that work best are those that capture the absurdity of ordinary situations. There are no heroes and villains in these stories, just people who are vaguely discontent in their relationships due to disharmony with their new environment. "Interpreter of Maladies", the collection's centrepiece, is absolutely brilliant. It is poignant, yet humourous and the ultimate comedy of errors. "A Temporary Matter", "When Mr Pirzada Came To Dine", "A Real Durwan" and "Mrs Sen" are also memorable and deeply affecting for the little truths they reveal. It's great to see that the award committees are finally getting back to basics and recognising the virtues of good writing. Far too often, the splashier titles hog the headlines when it is timeless books like "Interpreter of Maladies" that are the more enduring and enjoy the longest shelf life. I'd be willing to bet that a decade from now, people would still be reading Lahiri's collection when other more showy titles have lost their shine.
Rating: 4
Summary: Like a song you hum long after hearing it...
Comment: Though written from an immigrant viewpoint, Jhumpa Lahiri tells stories that stir feelings and stay with you long after you have read them. Little details and beautiful expressions of Indian habits and attitudes depict truly a picture u can visualize immediately. Enjoyable especially to immigrant Indians but also to anyone who has a taste for sensitive writing.
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