Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
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Read in July, 2008
Interpreter of Maladies, published in 1999, is Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize winning collection of nine stories. The final story, “The Third and Final Continent” was the inspiration for The Namesake, her first novel and now a major motion picture.
In this collection of stories, Lahiri explores the lives of Indian people living in America, the ways that Americans interact with Indian people, and the attitudes about heritage and culture held by those who have left India. Some stories ill...more
In this collection of stories, Lahiri explores the lives of Indian people living in America, the ways that Americans interact with Indian people, and the attitudes about heritage and culture held by those who have left India. Some stories ill...more
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Read in November, 2007
In her review in of Interpreter of Maladies in The Explicator, Jennifer Bess contrasts “Mrs. Sen’s” and “This Blessed House” with “The Third and Final Continent.” According to Bess, flawed marriage is the reason why the characters in the former two stories fail to find global and self-awareness. In “Mrs. Sen’s”, the title character “attempts to become a global citizen by maintaining her Indian identity at the same time she adapts to American culture” (Bess 125), but is un...more
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In "Interpreter of Maladies", Mrs. Sen’s is a tragic story of the immigrant struggle and an ultimate failure to adjust. Many who read this story view Mrs. Sen’s inability to assimilate solely as a result of her own short-comings, placing full blame on her. However, this incomplete reading fails to consider the external and internal social forces that buffet the immigrant body which must also be held responsible for Mrs. Sen’s end state. These forces, both external- people in soci...more
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Read in July, 2007
Regarding "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" (bear with me--this is from a paper I'm writing for class): There are two ways that Lahiri’s story suggests the full weight and particularity of South Asian American experience can be erased or otherwise ignored. The first is through a conservative and willful avoidance or fear of multicultural realities, in order to preserve an imaginary unity and monolithic stability of American identity. This is represented within the tale by Lilia’s Ame...more
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Read in September, 2006
THE INTERPRETER OF MALADIES BY JHUMPA LAHIRI: This collection of nine short stories won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1999. The author, Jhumpa Lahiri, is of Indian descent, born in London and currently lives in New York, so each story is a look into a different part of Indian culture or into Indian people and their way of life. The first three stories were great and the title story was my favorite. The man literally is an interpreter of maladies, who works at a hospital translating patie...more
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Read in August, 2005
Yup. Here's another writer I love, which means another vague review, where all I have are warm feelings of toastiness. (whatever that means)
I remember when I went to see Lahiri speak, I was slightly disappointed. She gave off the impression of being cold. But she's probably just one of those quiet and observant types, because this book is incredibly specific, and rarely, I mean, rarely do I find a short story collection where I enjoy every story, but I enjoyed every story in this Pulitzer P...more
I remember when I went to see Lahiri speak, I was slightly disappointed. She gave off the impression of being cold. But she's probably just one of those quiet and observant types, because this book is incredibly specific, and rarely, I mean, rarely do I find a short story collection where I enjoy every story, but I enjoyed every story in this Pulitzer P...more
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Read in March, 2008
Interpreter of Maladies is the first Pulitzer prize-winning work that I have read, and I've always been skeptical about the politics of award-giving, but Jhumpa Lahiri has earned her Pulitzer prize, suprisingly enough in her first published work, this debut collection of short stories. Not only the does Lahiri insightfully communicate, in decpetively simple language, Indian/Pakistani/Bengali and Indian-/Pakistani-/Bengali- American experiences, but she also evokes empathy and understandi...more
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Read in September, 2007
Once again, a very depressing storyline from yet another author of Indian origin. Remember! I am not being parochial here, I am Indian myself. Being very familiar with Indian cinematography and screenplays, I know that Indians are prone to over emphasizing on family sentiments and emotions. But what I fail to understand is how authors based out of other countries too have the same idea of applying sentiments in a very negative sense to their stories. It also beats me how this won the Pulitzer, j...more
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Read in January, 2001
Interpreter Of Maladies was my first literary journey with an Indian author. The book that caused this so-called addiction that I now have for Indian writers. This Pulitzer, New Yorker and PEN/Hemingway Award winner consists of nine short stories that delve into the lives of Indians living in a foreign land, struggling to balance between their traditional values and the demands of today’s modern ways. A beautiful descriptive insight into what goes on behind the closed doors of these people’s...more
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Read in April, 2008
Had a really hard time putting this one down ... I fell in love with Shoba and Shukumar, and with Twinkle especially.
Jhumpa Lahiri has made of herself an Interpreter of Maladies: in these stories her lovingly crafted characters, precisely chosen details, and intensely real storylines serve to describe and translate the symptoms, fears, and experiences of diaspora. As I put down the book, I felt like she had said to me, "I didn't need you to read a whole novel. I did not write out for y...more
Jhumpa Lahiri has made of herself an Interpreter of Maladies: in these stories her lovingly crafted characters, precisely chosen details, and intensely real storylines serve to describe and translate the symptoms, fears, and experiences of diaspora. As I put down the book, I felt like she had said to me, "I didn't need you to read a whole novel. I did not write out for y...more
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Read in June, 2008
recommended to Krys by:
everyone
By and large I found this collection overrated. Which is not to say that I didn't find some of the stories fantastic, the title story for example, as well as the 2nd story in the book. And nothing was really bad here, but seldom did any of these stories strike me as anything as phenomenal as Ms. Lahiri's novel The Namesake.
The collection can be sorted into two main types of stories, those in the East, and those in the West. In both cases, what separates most of these stories from the tale of...more
The collection can be sorted into two main types of stories, those in the East, and those in the West. In both cases, what separates most of these stories from the tale of...more
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كتابي كه در ايران تحت عنوان(ترجمان دردها) و يا(مترجم دردها) ترجمه شد،حاوي 8 داستان كوتاه است با نامهاي
يك مسئله موقتي
وقتي آقاي پيرزداه براي شام ميآمد
ترجمان دردها
يك دربان واقعي
خانهي خانم سَـن
خانهي تبرك شده
مداواي بيبي هلدر
سومين و آخرين قاره
بنمايهي اصلي...more
يك مسئله موقتي
وقتي آقاي پيرزداه براي شام ميآمد
ترجمان دردها
يك دربان واقعي
خانهي خانم سَـن
خانهي تبرك شده
مداواي بيبي هلدر
سومين و آخرين قاره
بنمايهي اصلي...more
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Read in July, 2008
Simple and eloquent--
I don't know how she does it. From page 1 to the last page, I was absorbed in the world she created in a style reminiscent of Chekhov, portraying the subtle emotions and sad moments of ordinary people. Although I'm not a fan of anthologies and short stories because they tend to be uneven and not very engaging, this anthology actually blew me away with its sustained narrative that is at once engaging, simple, and direct, revealing the inner struggles of the characters and...more
I don't know how she does it. From page 1 to the last page, I was absorbed in the world she created in a style reminiscent of Chekhov, portraying the subtle emotions and sad moments of ordinary people. Although I'm not a fan of anthologies and short stories because they tend to be uneven and not very engaging, this anthology actually blew me away with its sustained narrative that is at once engaging, simple, and direct, revealing the inner struggles of the characters and...more
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Read in March, 2002
This is a book of short stories written by a woman of Indian background. It is beautifully written, and in many cases, filled with emotions such as loneliness, and irony. The immigrant experience is marvelously chronicled here.
One of my favorite stories is “Mrs. Sen’s”. This is a story about the woman who does after-school baby sitting for 11 year old Eliot. Eliot’s parents have split, and his mother finds Mrs. Sen, but since Mrs. Sen does not drive (she is an immigrant, living i...more
One of my favorite stories is “Mrs. Sen’s”. This is a story about the woman who does after-school baby sitting for 11 year old Eliot. Eliot’s parents have split, and his mother finds Mrs. Sen, but since Mrs. Sen does not drive (she is an immigrant, living i...more
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Read in July, 2001
How weird that there's no cover image here. Not like Lahiri is either obscure or out of print. [Rev: Hey, somebody posted the cover! Yea!-4/12/08] Anyway, the author recently caused a mini-controversy by complaining publicly about reviewers questioning her focus on Indian-Americans. Her rhetorical-question response was, "Do people ask Updike and Roth when they're going to write about something other than WASPS and Jews?" Well, as a matter of fact, they do, and they have for probably th...more
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Read in December, 2006
"Miranda closed her eyes and saw deserts and elephants, and marble pavilions floating on lakes beneath a full moon. One Saturday, having nothing else to do, she walked all the way to Central Square, to an Indian restaurant, and ordered a plate of tandoori chicken. As she ate she tried to memorize phrases printed at the bottom of the menu, for things like "delicious" and "water" and "check, please." The phrases didn't stick in her mind, and so she began to st...more
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Read in May, 2008
I really loved The Namesake so I have been very eager to read this book. I once read part of the first chapter while sitting in a bookstore and was very intrigued, but until I opened the book to begin it yesterday I didn't realize that it was a short story collection! That was a bit of a surprise. But it was really done very well, I love the way the stories are set up. Most are not quite full stories, just a glimpse into the character's life. Yet they are complete and the characters were all ful...more
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