I just finished Jhumpa Lahiri's book of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth. My first book review was of The Last King of Scotland and I wasn't inspired to write about any of the books I have read in between (Kitchen Confidential and Celestine Prophecy - unfinished). However, after finishing the last story I did have some things that struck me about this series of stories.
There were many common themes that resonated with me and it makes me wonder about the presence of those themes in Mrs. Lahiri's own life. She consistently addresses themes of loneliness and isolation whether within her characters' lives or in their dreams. Several of the characters live very isolated lives or gratefully seek the isolation in their otherwise busy family lives. I assume that this would be a conscious decision by Mrs. Lahiri, because I can't see her writing so many stories with this theme so obviously a central part by accident. I wonder what she is trying to say either about marriage or about isolation that she features it so prominently. She also effectively juxtaposes the "westernized" Indians (and their lives) with the "traditional" Indians (and their lives). I put both of those terms in quotes, because I don't really believe in the labeling having been labeled myself but it is the simplest way to describe the two types of characters. Unlike previous novels and stories that explore the lives of Indian-Americans this one addresses in a more forward way the topic of interracial relationships, marriages, and children. Mrs. Lahiri herself is in an interracial relationship, but I feel she understands the reason many of us gravitated towards relationships within our culture. Many of her characters also have almost grim or hopeless views on marriage, which is somewhat distressing as a sort of newlywed. Perhaps it is not the marriages that are being spoken to as much as the state of relationships.
Unlike novels I feel like short stories have very ambiguous often open ended endings, which lead the reader to interpret for themselves whether the ending is happy or sad. I did feel like many of the stories presented in Unaccustomed Earth had sad or heavy endings. There were only a few that left me feeling like something positive was happening or might happen.
Overall I think the strongest point of Mrs. Lahiri's stories is that they have a feeling of a friend just telling you a personal story or an experience of something that happened to them. The experiences and the characters have a simple realism to them that I think leaves the reader thinking about the story long after they are done reading.
There were many common themes that resonated with me and it makes me wonder about the presence of those themes in Mrs. Lahiri's own life. She consistently addresses themes of loneliness and isolation whether within her characters' lives or in their dreams. Several of the characters live very isolated lives or gratefully seek the isolation in their otherwise busy family lives. I assume that this would be a conscious decision by Mrs. Lahiri, because I can't see her writing so many stories with this theme so obviously a central part by accident. I wonder what she is trying to say either about marriage or about isolation that she features it so prominently. She also effectively juxtaposes the "westernized" Indians (and their lives) with the "traditional" Indians (and their lives). I put both of those terms in quotes, because I don't really believe in the labeling having been labeled myself but it is the simplest way to describe the two types of characters. Unlike previous novels and stories that explore the lives of Indian-Americans this one addresses in a more forward way the topic of interracial relationships, marriages, and children. Mrs. Lahiri herself is in an interracial relationship, but I feel she understands the reason many of us gravitated towards relationships within our culture. Many of her characters also have almost grim or hopeless views on marriage, which is somewhat distressing as a sort of newlywed. Perhaps it is not the marriages that are being spoken to as much as the state of relationships.
Unlike novels I feel like short stories have very ambiguous often open ended endings, which lead the reader to interpret for themselves whether the ending is happy or sad. I did feel like many of the stories presented in Unaccustomed Earth had sad or heavy endings. There were only a few that left me feeling like something positive was happening or might happen.
Overall I think the strongest point of Mrs. Lahiri's stories is that they have a feeling of a friend just telling you a personal story or an experience of something that happened to them. The experiences and the characters have a simple realism to them that I think leaves the reader thinking about the story long after they are done reading.
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