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Unaccustomed Earth

4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 · rating details · 40,718 ratings · 5,356 reviews

From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.

In the stunning...more

Hardcover, 333 pages

Published April 1st 2008 by Knopf (first published January 1st 2008)

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Jan 24, 2010 Molly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The title of Lahiri’s latest book—Unaccustomed Earth—refers to the first story in this collection but also to a motif dominating all of the stories: tales about a world unaccustomed to the shifts and changes taking place on its surface, a world uncomfortable with the destruction and loss brought on by hurricanes and tsunamis, unfamiliar with modern diseases and traumas, and unsure about the class and cultural conflicts that dominate relationships in the lives of Lahiri’s characters. The earth th...more The title of Lahiri’s latest book—Unaccustomed Earth—refers to the first story in this collection but also to a motif dominating all of the stories: tales about a world unaccustomed to the shifts and changes taking place on its surface, a world uncomfortable with the destruction and loss brought on by hurricanes and tsunamis, unfamiliar with modern diseases and traumas, and unsure about the class and cultural conflicts that dominate relationships in the lives of Lahiri’s characters. The earth that we now inhabit, Lahiri seems to be saying, is one that our ancestors would not recognize.

Despite the uniqueness of modern society, the emotions and situations that Lahiri depicts are universal. Since reading her Pulitzer Prize-winning 1999 collection, Interpreter of Maladies, I have believed that Lahiri is one of the best writers of our generation, and—like her 2003 novel, The Namesake—Unaccustomed Earth provides only more evidence of this fact. What makes Lahiri’s work so accomplished and simultaneously riveting is that, unlike her literary peers, Lahiri is more concerned with substance than style. Her stories are about real people rather than quirky characters or odd situations. . . people we know, people we love and hate. The stories are about those we care about most letting us down because they are incapable of having healthy relationships— like Rahul in “Only Goodness” and Farouk in “Nobody’s Business.” And they are about parents who return to us or finally abandon us like the father in “Year’s End.”

There are no gimmicks in Lahiri’s prose, no writing with a capital W, the kind that so annoyingly draws more attention to itself than its characters. This is simply straightforward storytelling about issues to which we all can relate. And, in that way, every one of the eight stories in Unaccustomed Earth does exactly what Stephen King said great stories do when he was hawking the 2008 edition of Best American Short Stories in The New York Times Book Review last fall: they grab us and make us hold on tight, they come at us “full-bore, like a big, hot meteor screaming down from the Kansas sky.”

But it’s not only that Lahiri pulls us in emotionally, it’s that she makes us reconsider our choices and reflect on them by making connections between her fictional characters and our own experiences. She navigates the personal and the political, and the stories touch on a variety of issues we care about: marriage, divorce, death, disease, dislocation. As in her first collection, the stories in Unaccustomed Earth take on the contemporary question of liminality and hyphenation: Who are we when we are not one person, but not another? When we are both at the same time? What does it mean to be from a place but not of it? Why do we resist the unknown? In “Going Ashore,” she demonstrates how it is that one might find oneself without a cultural home, nomadic not by choice but by circumstance. In some ways, the difference between this collection and The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies—which both seem, in some ways, to wax nostalgic about immigration—is that Lahiri is more antagonistic about issues of diaspora, not only bringing them out of the closet and wearing them in public, but also getting them dirty, ripping the seams out, and showing us how they’re constructed.

An inherent criticism of those who resist assimilation is an underlying premise of the book. Unlike one of the most moving stories in her first collection, “The Third and Final Continent”—which, in some ways, reads like a love letter to arranged marriage—several of Lahiri’s stories in this book take aim at the practice: “Heaven-Hell” tells the story of a woman who tries to burn herself alive after falling in love with her husband’s young protégé, a man closer to her in age than her own spouse. And in the title story, the father of the protagonist falls in love with another woman after his wife’s death—the first time he has ever truly been in love—an emotional shift that allows him to connect more fully with his daughter. This theme reappears in the three outstanding stories that make up Part Two: “Hema and Kaushik.” In these connected stories, Lahiri gives the reader not one, but two marriages based on convenience rather than love.

But Lahiri never hits us over the head with these messages, and sometimes they are so subtle that we have to be on the lookout in order to see the meaning that lies under each story’s surface. Nancy Zafris, former fiction editor of The Kenyon Review, said once that great stories “must always be telling two or more stories in a way that disguises for a while the real story,” and Lahiri has learned this lesson well, layering every story with numerous complexities.

In “Nobody’s Business,” an American graduate student discovers that his Indian housemate’s boyfriend, an Egyptian, has been cheating on her for years. When the American inserts himself into this drama, he finds his help is unwanted. Even though it is the philandering boyfriend who tells him, “I didn’t invite you here,” the reader still feels violated by the American’s unwanted presence. On the one hand, we hope the American can help his Indian housemate, but at the same time, we want to tell him to get lost, raising the question of whether it is better to turn a blind eye to the problems of others or try to help them out of the messes in which they find themselves. There are other implicit criticisms of the U.S. in the book as well. According to the narrator of “Once in a Lifetime,” America is known first as a place where class “differences were irrelevant,” but as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that under the surface, the petty jealousies and judgments that affect relationships between people from different social strata still fester, a theme also echoed in “A Choice of Accommodations” earlier in the book.

The stories similarly criticize human selfishness—showing parents who put their own needs first, children who are hung up on petty resentments, partners who feel little for their spouses, individuals who use each other for their own gain. And like people who are honest about their vulnerability, their fallibility, the reader cares for these flawed characters even more deeply as a result, grieving when they grieve, loving when they love. This unyielding sense of empathy is accomplished most powerfully in the stories about Hema and Kaushik. After uncovering a row of tombstones in the woods behind young Hema’s suburban home, a sixteen-year-old Kaushik tells her that he wishes that his family wasn’t Hindu so that his mother could be buried somewhere, a place where presumably they could—like the family he has uncovered under snow and fallen leaves—all be together again. It is this scene that stays with me long after I have finished the book, calling to mind again and again the metaphor uniting the collection—earth that is not accustomed—and raising the question of how we push this world, and those who inhabit it, to accommodate our all-too human whims and desires.

This review first appeared in Cairn 43: The St. Andrews Review.(less)

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Feb 10, 2012 Barbara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, asia

I have often stated that I do not enjoy short stories, but although this is designated as such, it oversimplifies the content of this book. With understated elegance, Lahiri has drawn in the reader to become immersed in tales of families, lovers and friends. She has the unique ability to simply, but fascinatingly communicate the features of the characters' behaviors, thoughts and emotions. In addition, she is able to express such dimensions so wellthat I felt I had become acquainted with these p...more

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Jan 02, 2011 Foodie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have to admit that I was awaiting this book for many months and started reading it with a preconceived notion that the literary journey I was about to embark upon was one of immense finesse and depth. Some might argue that this mindset might cast a cloak on the negative qualities of the novel thereby making the stories more appealing. I've thought about this and beg to differ. Expectations of this height are hard to live by and many a (famous) novel have fallen short. Unaccustomed Earth did no...more I have to admit that I was awaiting this book for many months and started reading it with a preconceived notion that the literary journey I was about to embark upon was one of immense finesse and depth. Some might argue that this mindset might cast a cloak on the negative qualities of the novel thereby making the stories more appealing. I've thought about this and beg to differ. Expectations of this height are hard to live by and many a (famous) novel have fallen short. Unaccustomed Earth did not.
What attracts me to Jhumpa Lahiri's fiction is that I often find traces of myself and people I know in them. It's comforting to know that your trials and fears are not unique, that there can be meaning even in the mundane, mystery in the seemingly known. What started off with The Interpretor of Maladies, continued with The Namesake and found fruition in Unaccustomed Earth is a sensitive yet intense rendering of the intricate working of the heart and mind. perhaps the most poignant story of the 8-story collection, Only goodness is the story of a sister dealing with guilt and concern over her kid brother's alcoholism. Lahiri has a way of drawing the readers into the minds of her characters and making them a part of the thought process, both said and unsaid. It was almost as if Sudha's growing guilt and worry, embarrassment at her wedding, her longing for Rahul when he disappears, her sheer panic at finding her baby alone in the tub and her final resolve to prioritize her child and husband's needs over her brother's were all mine.
What makes Lahiri's characters so memorable is their imperfection. They don't always do or say the right things. Many among us have fallen hard for the wrong man like Sang does in Nobody's Business. Many among us have felt an attraction outside wedlock like in Hell-Heaven. Many among us have even been caught between the sense of responsibility towards parents vs wanting to hold on to our independence and known way on life as Ruma does in the tittle story. Fate, death, passion, confusion, a search for isolation and rebellion have been as much a part of our lives as they have of Hema and Kaushik's in the trio of stories at the end.
The prose is packed with emotional wisdom. The only not so positive quality that struck me is the sameness of the cultural backgrounds of the characters -- all highly educated Bengalis. Perhaps that is what Lahiri is intimately familiar with. The central theme is how these people deal with the crosscurrents of traditions and displacement of identity, how they strive to define their individuality and how they fight to cling on to the familiar. Assumptions are often negated and they are forced to deal with their new environs and new set of truths.
Yes, one might argue that "nothing happens" but how often do life altering incidents happen in our lives anyway? Isn't life woven from single treads of everyday experiences, simple joys, of innocence, attachments and fears?(less)

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Oct 02, 2012 Rajat Ubhaykar rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's been some time since I read Unaccustomed Earth. I read it as an impressionable teenager and many of the nuanced impressions that were stamped upon my mind by this book have been more or less washed away by the heavy downpour of classics that has kissed my bookshelf since.

All I can glean out of the dusty recesses of my memory about this excellent collection of Indo-nostalgic short stories is feeling an ephemeral sense of loss. I remember it leaving me in the throes of a synthesized lonelines...more

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May 12, 2008 Sonal rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As I progressed through the first four stories, I became more and more angry. I couldn't understand why Lahiri would put out another book that was almost identical to to her first. She seemed to have retreated even further into her "safe space", writing only about Bengali Americans who study at ivy league schools, have well educated albeit maladjusted parents and struggle with redefining relationships after relocation. I expected a lot more when I read the title and its reference to Nathaniel Ha...more

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Sep 13, 2008 alex rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to alex by: alyse

lahiri's writing style is beautiful. while someone once described it as "relentless detail," i like to think of it otherwise. that said, there was something nagging me while reading it that i could neither shake nor put my finger on. then i figured it out. there are two things that bothered me about this book. 1) lahiri seems to be almost obsessed with elite private universities. not a story goes by that doesn't mention harvard, mit, bryn mawr, swarthmore, etc. it's excessive. according to wikip...more

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Rachel Love her writing style too. I went to one of her readings once and she was asked about a (I believe if I remem. correctly) NYTimes criticism of her wo...more
Sep 15, 2008 07:42am

Jeni I go back and forth with her writing style....I read The Namesake before I read Interpreter of Maladies and I fell in love with it! I thought her deta...more
Mar 13, 2009 05:40am

Tensy She seems to rely too heavily on the old writing adage..."write about what you know." I like her style and her stories are engrossing, even though the...more
Sep 03, 2009 08:53am

May 26, 2008 Dixie Diamond rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, short-story, asian, 2000s, borrowed_books

I kind of liked this. The writing is good but the pace of the stories is v e r y s l o w . . . it seems to take ages to get to the ending. This would be OK except that the endings are really not that astounding; you're left with less of an "Oh, my God" feeling than a "well, duh; what did she expect?" one. The bodies of the stories would have been more in proportion to the ends if the writer had not worked so hard to draw them out. They end up feeling overwritten, and all for nothing.

One also get...more I kind of liked this. The writing is good but the pace of the stories is v e r y s l o w . . . it seems to take ages to get to the ending. This would be OK except that the endings are really not that astounding; you're left with less of an "Oh, my God" feeling than a "well, duh; what did she expect?" one. The bodies of the stories would have been more in proportion to the ends if the writer had not worked so hard to draw them out. They end up feeling overwritten, and all for nothing.

One also gets the impression that this is more an exercise of personal therapy than writing intended for an audience. The stories are all pretty similar in theme--distant, old-country parents disappointed by their first-generation Americanized children; and Americanized children trapped between two cultures--with variations that are, ultimately, trivial. All right, already; get some counseling and move on.

Finally, as a personal irritation, the protagonists of the stories are all weak, indecisive, uninteresting people who cannot stand up either to their Indian elders or the European-Americans in their lives, even European-Americans who are not out to victimize them. If you are so bland and spineless and have no identity apart from that which your unappreciative parents force on you, small wonder you're not happy in your life, no matter what your cultural background. There seems to be no middle ground between being your parents' overachieving dream child and being a grand failure (in this case, one character is an alcoholic and one is used and crushed by a worthless boyfriend).

No, I'm not Indian, but I don't think the issues at hand are really Indian-specific. Lots of children of overambitious parents have problems. My mother went through much the same thing as the only one in her blue-collar family to get an advanced degree and leave the geographical area where her entire family had lived for 300 years.

My problem with this set of stories is that the protagonists all seem so powerless and hollow. It seems more like a high-school girl's melodramatic attempt at writing adult life than a real adult's perspective.(less)

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Jul 13, 2008 Teresa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Perhaps a new term needs to be used for short stories such as these. Each one is jam-packed with details that never bog down; each one is as dense and rich as a novel. The writing never falters; it is always smooth, flowing and self-assured.

Of course the last 3 stories could be a novella, and we are lucky not to have to buy a separate book to experience them.

Wonderful characters, wonderful stories, wonderful writing.

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Dec 22, 2008 jo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, south-asia, asian-american, blew-my-mind, im-emigration-post-colonial

i think that, as short story collections go, this one is up there with the great masterpieces -- flannery o'connor, hawthorne, raymond carver, nadine gordimer, alice munro (the writers who come to mind are the ones who straightforwardly explore the torments of the human heart). the most extraordinary feeling i have about it is that i glided from story to story without having much of a sense of interruption. the stories flow into each other, having to do with people who are different (in age, gen...more

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Jun 19, 2008 Ian rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A real disappointment after her first two books. Doing away with both the emotional gut-punches of displacement and desperation found in "Interpreter of Maladies" and the elegiac generational sweep of "The Namesake," Lahiri in "Unaccustomed Earth" zeroes in on the least interesting dimension of her usual subjects: the interior monologues of fully assimilated, second-generation Indian-Americans who are ungratefully dissatisfied with their lives of privilege. Her formerly melancholic insight and p...more

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Jul 22, 2009 Foroogh added it · review of another edition

"مگر وحشتناک نبود که بعد از اینهمه این در و آن در زدن برای پیدا کردن کسی که آدم می خواهد عمرش را بااو سپری کند،بعد از تشکیل خانواده با او،حتی علی رغم دلتنگیش برای او-همانطور که آمیت هم شب به شب دلتنگ مگان می شد-این تنهایی نبود که بیشتر از همه چیز برایش جاذبه و لذت داشت ،تنها چیزی که هر قدر گذرا و کم مایه،آدم رامتعادل و معقول نگه می داشت؟"انتخاب جا ص129

"می خواست" روما" را از تیرگی روابط که در زندگی مشترک بروبرگرد نداشت حفظ کند و از نتیجه ای که گاهی نگران می شد واقعا درست باشد:این که تشکیل خانواد...more "مگر وحشتناک نبود که بعد از اینهمه این در و آن در زدن برای پیدا کردن کسی که آدم می خواهد عمرش را بااو سپری کند،بعد از تشکیل خانواده با او،حتی علی رغم دلتنگیش برای او-همانطور که آمیت هم شب به شب دلتنگ مگان می شد-این تنهایی نبود که بیشتر از همه چیز برایش جاذبه و لذت داشت ،تنها چیزی که هر قدر گذرا و کم مایه،آدم رامتعادل و معقول نگه می داشت؟"انتخاب جا ص129

"می خواست" روما" را از تیرگی روابط که در زندگی مشترک بروبرگرد نداشت حفظ کند و از نتیجه ای که گاهی نگران می شد واقعا درست باشد:این که تشکیل خانواده وبچه آوردن روی این زمین همانقدر که گاهی مایه خوشحالی است ،از همان ابتدا عملی است سرتاپا معیوب و مخدوش." خاک غریب ص 67

درباره مجموعه داستان کوتاه فکر می کنم درستش این باشد که درباره هر داستان جداگانه بنویسی ولی من چون الان حوصله اش را ندارم فقط درباره داستانی که دوستش داشتم می نویسم با این حال دو تا پاراگراف بالا را گذاشتم که اگر دوست داشتید بروید کتاب را بخوانید .داستان مورد علاقه من بخش دوم کتاب بود به نام هما و کاشیک : نقش تصادف در زندگی ، اینکه اگر یک جاهایی تصمیم دیگری می گرفتیم چه اتفاقی می افتاد،و چقدر از اتفاقهایی که ما اسم تقدیر رویش می گذاریم نتیجه تصمیم و تفکرات ماست ؟ چطور گاهی آدمهایی که سالها کنار ما هستند تاثیرشان در زندگی ما به مراتب کمتر از کسانی است که فقط لحظه ای در زندگی ما درنگ کرده اند.ومهمتر اینکه انتخاب ما در زندگی بین عشق و آرامش کدام است؟ و کسی که انتخاب می کند آیا هرگز به آن رسیده است؟ (less)

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May 08, 2008 Danica rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To begin, I must disclose that I am a huge Jhumpa Lahiri fan. To me, she is one of the only authors who comes even close to articulating my experience as a child born and raised in the U.S. by immigrant parents, constantly straddling two worlds. I really enjoyed this book -- not nearly as much as I adored "The Namesake" (one of my all-time favorite books!), but more than her collection of short stories, "The Interpreter of Maladies."

This book is a collection of short stories. The first half is c...more

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Apr 25, 2008 Leanna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After weeks of waiting anxiously, of reading about how good the book is, I finally got my hands on Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth.

The beauty of Lahiri’s writing is in the ordinariness of it. She has an elegant style but does nothing to draw undue attention to the writing itself; she employs no tricks that distract from her narrative. The stories are also about ordinary topics, about regular people. It is in the simplicity of the scenarios that universal truths resound.

“Unaccustomed Earth,” t...more

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Apr 25, 2008 Kristen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ever since I read Lahiri's first collection of stories, "Interpreter of Maladies," when it was published some years ago, I've had a hard time figuring out just why I find her fiction so incredibly appealing and moving and memorable. Her writing style isn't particularly innovative, and she sticks to a fairly narrow set of themes: the impact of immigration on those who immigrate and their children, generally viewed through the experiences of Indians who move to the U.S., specifically New England....more

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Jul 15, 2008 Lena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

In Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri returns to the short story format of her Pulitzer prize-winning first book, Interpreter of Maladies. Like IoM, the stories in UE explore the experiences of Bengali immigrants in America, and the ways in which the intersection of cultures plays out in the lives of those who do not fully belong to either land.

Each story focuses a lens on a different aspect of the Indian immigrant experience. In the title piece, the fully Americanized daughter of a widower strug...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Sue rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011, short-stories, favorite-authors, favorites

Having just finished Unaccustomed Earth, I have to say I thought it was fantastic how Lahiri manages to catch the edge of human interactions--all that we don't say to each other throughout our lives. I really was close to tears at the end of the final story. This is my first experience with her writing other than reading one story. That previous story gave me a glimpse of her skill but now I have the full blown view of a writer who appears to be at a peak of ability.

This has broadened my view of...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Navin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone who loves short stories

Shelves: short-stories, lick-them-up

Unaccustomed Earth is a short story collection about Bengali immigration in America. Eight stories, divided in two parts. The second part could have well formed a novella. The stories are lush with controlled prose of the emphatic. For me the author’s art lay in exalting the ordinary, letting us know that we too are heroes of our own ordinary lives.
The first story of Ruma is an example of Jumpa’s observatory powers. Although it is the second part of the book that enthralled me with a kind of...more

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Apr 09, 2009 Lucy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Many classical composers were masters in the art of variation on a theme in music. Mozart showed off just how many things you could do with the tune "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Jhumpa Lahiri has applied the same principle to the short story and produced a brilliant work of art.

I am not a particular fan of the short story, but Lahiri has convinced me once again that I could be. Her genius, I believe, is that she doesn't waste her time recreating the wheel. She has her story and it is an expe...more

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Sep 27, 2008 Ben Babcock rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: from-library, anthologies, favourites, 2008-read, indian-fiction, 2008-best10, postcolonial

I went into this book not knowing what to expect, and I loved it. Jhumpa Lahiri creates timeless families that straddle the cultural divide between America and India. She captures the conflict of growing up as one tries to balance one's parent's wishes with the influence of one's heritage and the culture of one's surroundings.

Of the first part of the book, I loved "Unaccustomed Earth", "Hell-Heaven", and "Only Goodness." The other two stories were great, but those three are my favourite--particu...more

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Jul 12, 2008 Ami rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who liked The Namesake and people who enjoy reading about Indian-American culture

What I like about this book from Lahiri's other works is she's begun to branch out into new themes and even new settings (her title story takes place in Seattle, rather than the Boston/New York area). I'm not much of a person to be able to comment on her stories objectively: most of them are written for people of Indian descent (like myself), who were born and raised in the States. Like many of her characters, I've felt exiled between the two cultures and unsure as to where I fit in with both of...more What I like about this book from Lahiri's other works is she's begun to branch out into new themes and even new settings (her title story takes place in Seattle, rather than the Boston/New York area). I'm not much of a person to be able to comment on her stories objectively: most of them are written for people of Indian descent (like myself), who were born and raised in the States. Like many of her characters, I've felt exiled between the two cultures and unsure as to where I fit in with both of them, sometimes wondering which was the dominant culture. It's somewhat odd to think that almost every story I have read in this book so far contains a theme that has related to some point of my life: a childhood rejection of the Indian culture and values my parents tried to hard to instill in me, only to later embrace those values as my parents became more American; a girl's awkward relationship with her father that she loves dearly but cannot talk to because of cultural and gender gaps; being the only Indian person around and having people tell me the accent on my English is very good because of the assumption that I was also born in India (that's why I look Indian, right?); an older sister realizing the limits of her responsibility to her much younger, selfish brother; learning as I grow older that my mother is not all that different from me, despite being a world apart.

The long-awaited discovery has been seeing Lahiri grow as a writer and explore new boundaries. She's certainly no Salman Rushdie when it comes to talking about isolation and cross-cultural frustrations, but she is able to delve deep into the problems faced by immigrants and their children who always wonder if they ever truly "fit in" to the strange land they live in. However, she falls short in venturing out too much - she's still sticking to that she which knows best. I can understand a writer wanting to write about things they know about, but I sometimes wonder how boring it would be to have Lahiri at a dinner party. Every story in this book concerns a Bengali, who is grappling in some form with their higher education (whether by facing the choice of dropping out of an Ivy League school or rejecting their parents' desires for them to become a doctor) and marrying a non-Indian. After finding similarities between "Interpreter of Maladies" and "The Namesake", the themes in "Unaccustomed Earth" are refreshingly new, but the characters that explore those themes remain consistent throughout. Perhaps by keeping the characters static, Lahiri is hoping her readers may delve deeper into the themes. Or perhaps I'm being a bit generous with this review.(less)

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Dec 04, 2008 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoy Lahiri's works. Every word, every image.
Yet, when I read Goodreads Reviews written by Bengali
(? maybe, maybe not) readers, I can understand their criticisms. There does seem to be a formula. The issue of conflict in 1st generation parents with their Westernized children, the fact that almost all of these characters have attended the very best Ivy League and 1st tier universities in the US and have performed exceptionally. (no mention of summer jobs, no mention of student loans o...more I really enjoy Lahiri's works. Every word, every image.
Yet, when I read Goodreads Reviews written by Bengali
(? maybe, maybe not) readers, I can understand their criticisms. There does seem to be a formula. The issue of conflict in 1st generation parents with their Westernized children, the fact that almost all of these characters have attended the very best Ivy League and 1st tier universities in the US and have performed exceptionally. (no mention of summer jobs, no mention of student loans or how this education was financed) They all live in the Eastern US.( NY and New England) like the author. They become graduate students, phD students studying and excelling in their academic lives, yet struggling within their individual personal life.
In this work, in the short story with the cover title, 'Unaccustomed Earth' , the "father" more or less advises his daughter not to "give up" her professional life for the child she has, and the one she now carries, because she has worked so long for this. For what? The career? Or being a mother? Or both? This has become a classic struggle hasn't it?
One reviewer suggested that Lahiri is popular to "Non-Indians" because she gives us a glimpse into a life that has been shrouded, one that we Westerners know so little about. True enough. I will agree that my appreciation of her writing includes that component. Has her writing contributed enough information about that life that we can now suggest "stereotype"?
It is a discussable point.
I will leave it at this. The short story form is one in which there are few Masters. Lahiri is at that gate. She is an excellent writer, one who creates a sense of scene and smell, with visual, auditory and olfactory images that stay with you long after the book has been closed.
Nonetheless, this is work #3. She needs to broaden her scope in her next work so she does not become "the Indian writer", something i expect she would view as a personal failure. She has unveiled the mysteries of food, family and tradition in her works...she does not need to define them again next time, but just assume, that we know. And we do, we know more, thanks to her.

(less)

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Apr 14, 2008 Molly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lahiri’s new stories, like the Victorian naturalist novels she read while working on them, are all about what her characters do not do and say, how they ultimately, tragically fail to connect with their parents, spouses, children, and soulmates. In other words, these stories lack the scope and the finely drawn class politics of her first collection: like many giants of the short story world, Lahiri brings our attention more than once to the problem of alcoholism in the Ivy League, and deals some...more

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Nov 19, 2012 Diane D. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Ximena

Shelves: short-stories, own-already, favorites

It's been so long since I have read Jhumpa Lahiri and I've had this book since it was published in 2008. And just as I remember, her writing is exquisite, particularly when she writes short stories. I think it takes a very special writer to be able to write short stories well; they have a very limited amount of pages in which to get their readers 'hooked' into the story. Mission accomplished here!

I am going to do synopsis reviews of some of the stories as I read them.

#1 - Unaccustomed Earth - Th...more

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Jan 04, 2008 Tanya Tanya Tanya! rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I feel completely gutted and need to go back and read this again.

Lahiri always leaves me feeling too emotional for my own good and I love it. She takes you to this place of discomfort and displacement within relationships with other people and relationships with culture.

The short stories in the first half of the book leave me wanting more of the characters lives. I simultaneously devoured them and didn't want them to end. They were as good, if not better than her previous published short stori...more

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Jul 02, 2008 Danielle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I haven't been a huge Jhumpa Lahiri fan in the past-- her stories were going to merit an entire chapter in my imaginary work of cultural criticism "Ethnicity is Not a Plot," but this collection totally won me over. I'm not sure I can put a finger on what was so compelling about it, but things were just working. The last section of linked stories, which could have easily devolved into movie of the week territory was utterly compelling, and I am sort of embarassed to say, made me a little weepy. (...more

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Jun 03, 2008 Hannah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read it in one afternoon. Not because it was enjoyable; I was simply hoping that if I kept reading, I would eventually reach a story that reminded me why I was so infatuated with Lahiri's writing a few years ago.

To my disappointment [truly, for I tried so hard to like UE], I found it utterly lacking and full of cliches. And her overdone characterization? It was almost painful to read; every unsatisfying story was a reminder of what could have been.

Is it me? or Lahiri? Perhaps, like all failed...more

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Apr 04, 2010 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-reads, short-stories

A superb collection of short stories. The first five stories are not connected in any way, the last three stories have the same characters and are time ordered. The author has given us her inspiration by quoting Nathaniel Hawthorne in his The Custom-House:

"Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my con...more

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Dec 28, 2008 Dorothy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone who has an interest in the human condition man, woman

Recommended to Dorothy by: I picked it up after seeing a video of her book, The Namsake.

Lahiri has the art of telling tales about life in a very honest, forthright way. Each of her eight stories takes the reader on an imaginary voyage into the world of her characters and their unique situations. It is a trip worth taking no matter the cost.
The title story, Unaccustomed Earth, truly captures the plight and the promise of Ruma's elderly and widowed father who finds joy in his newly developed relationship with his grandson, Akash. Even so, Ruma is ambivalent about asking her father...more

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Jun 04, 2008 Jean rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jean by: Popular reviews

Shelves: gave-up

I just never really get into her books...they seem heavy, tedious and plodding to me. After a few hundred pages, I returned this new one to the library. I guess I am just not a fan of this writer. I know she is very popular and you would think I would relate to the culture, but...I'm just not into it. I thought the short stories were predictable and trite to tell the truth.

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Jan 01, 2009 Kathy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although I write short stories myself, I don't usually like other writers' short stories. They usually seem either silly or too slight to me. But I really liked these stories, perhaps because they were longer than most and provide an opportunity to really get to know the characters deeply. Lahiri is an excellent writer and really brings her characters to life. I think my favorite was either Year's End or the title story Unaccustomed Earth. These stories seemed to have universal themes; the other...more

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About Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London and brought up in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. Brought up in America by a mother who wanted to raise her children to be Indian, she learned about her Bengali heritage from an early age.

Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and later received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989. She then received multiple degrees from Boston Un...more

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The Namesake: A Portrait of the Film Based on the Novel by Jhumpa Lahiri (Newmarket Pictorial Moviebooks)

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Quotes from Unaccustomed Earth

“He owned an expensive camera that required thought before you pressed the shutter, and I quickly became his favorite subject, round-faced, missing teeth, my thick bangs in need of a trim. They are still the pictures of myself I like best, for they convey that confidence of youth I no longer possess, especially in front of a camera.” — 63 people liked it

“And wasn't it terrible, how much he looked forward to those moments, so much so that sometimes even a ride by himself on the subway was the best part of the day? Wasn't it terrible that after all the work one put into finding a person to spend one's life with, after making a family with that person, even in spite of missing that person...that solitude was what one relished the most, the only thing that, even in fleeting, diminished doses, kept one sane?” — 35 people liked it

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