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Unaccustomed Earth
Canada is proud to welcome this bestselling, Pulitzer Prize winning author with eight dazzling stories that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life.
In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father who carefully tends her garden where she later unearths evidence of a love affair he is keeping to himself.
In "A Choice of Accommodations," a couple's romantic getaway weekend takes a dark turn at a party that lasts deep into the night.
In "Only Goodness," a woman eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family.
And in "Hema and Kaushik," a trio of linked stories a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love and fate we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one fateful winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.
Unaccustomed Earth is rich with the author's signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is the work of a writer at the peak of her powers.
In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father who carefully tends her garden where she later unearths evidence of a love affair he is keeping to himself.
In "A Choice of Accommodations," a couple's romantic getaway weekend takes a dark turn at a party that lasts deep into the night.
In "Only Goodness," a woman eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family.
And in "Hema and Kaushik," a trio of linked stories a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love and fate we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one fateful winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.
Unaccustomed Earth is rich with the author's signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is the work of a writer at the peak of her powers.
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First published April 1, 2008
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About the author
Jhumpa Lahiri
107 books14.6k followersNilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.
Her debut collection of short-stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture.
Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013) was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.
On January 22, 2015, Lahiri won the US$50,000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland. In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America.
In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome, Italy and has since then published two books of essays, and began writing in Italian, first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo, then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories. She also compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English.
In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022. In 2022, she became the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Barnard College of Columbia University.
Her debut collection of short-stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture.
Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013) was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.
On January 22, 2015, Lahiri won the US$50,000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland. In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America.
In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome, Italy and has since then published two books of essays, and began writing in Italian, first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo, then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories. She also compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English.
In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022. In 2022, she became the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Barnard College of Columbia University.
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February 22, 2016
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.
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.
December 4, 2013
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 Hawthorne's quote. I expected she'd do justice to the idea, but nope! The themes are repetitive and hackneyed, the female characters are extremely weak (which bothered my feminist sentimentality no end) and alcohol abuse seems to have become her chosen metaphor for all inner turmoil. In fact, she doesn't even do justice to the same "hackneyed themes" - she addresses relationships (father-daughter, brother-sister etc) but doesn't address any of the other usual suspects when it comes to immigrant struggles - race, sexuality, discrimination, social-cultural identity ... etc. On the other hand, the writing was fluid and at some points, I found her flair for tragedy quite impressive. She does address some of the darker aspects of loneliness, human awkwardness and tragedy especially delicately and manages to bring across her idea without unnecessarily complicating and cluttering her writing.
November 28, 2025
These short stories are about Bengali immigrants from the Bengal area of India, around Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). But these folks are not urban slumdogs or even rural slumdogs, arriving with manure on their shoes. These are high-end folks with PhDs and MDs who grew up speaking English in India and who came to the USA to be doctors, professors and engineers in the high-tech beltway bandit firms around Boston. (The author grew up in the US where her father worked at the University of Rhode Island.)
There is a lot of local color of the modern Boston suburbs. The Bengalis live in upscale suburbs like Lexington in modern glass houses with acreage overlooking the Massachusetts woods and coastline. Their children will go to prep academies and then on to Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr as a prelude to rounding out their pedigree with a graduate degree from an Ivy.
And these high-achievers do indeed expect their children to follow in their path. In fact, one story is about a family's shame when a son becomes an alcoholic and a dropout. There's a twist to saying these stories are about "immigrants" because these folks were fully assimilated into the global upper class before they even arrived in the USA.
Still, there are ethnic ties that persist. They return to India each summer with the kids and some return to India to live or to retire. They bear the stigma of being identifiably Indian in the context of American culture. The book is made up of interconnected stories that we assume are quasi-autobiographical for the female author. They vary from the classic immigrant saga to those in which the ethnic factor is attenuated and incidental to the story.
One of these stories is about little girls whose mothers drag them to American birthday parties in their saris and yet they grow up to have affairs with married men. In another story a woman married to an American man wrestles with the dilemma of the Indian expectation of having her father come to live with her after the death of her mother.
Another story gives us a daughter's reflections on her mother's romance with a male immigrant. A sister makes the mistake of letting her alcoholic brother babysit for her in London. A young man is so devastated by his mother's early death and his father's remarriage that he becomes a global nomad, wandering and essentially homeless.
In another story a young woman learns her boyfriend is a philanderer and in another a woman turns away from her married lover after ten years of promises that he will leave his wife. Ten years. Is that a record?
With the head start they had, these Bengali immigrants became Americanized very quickly and how that happens is a fascinating saga.
The title is from a quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne that is worth repeating: "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 control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth."
The author is best known for her novel The Namesake, and for another collection of short stories: The Interpreter of Maladies.
I have read several other of Lahiri’s novels and collections of short stories. Below are links to my reviews of other books of hers:
The Lowland
Namesake
Whereabouts
Interpreter of Maladies – short stories
Top photo of the Immigrant Grandmothers Mural in East Boston from boston.gov
The author (b. 1967) from theguardian.com
December 10, 2024
RACCONTARE UN RACCONTO
”The Namesake – Il destino nel nome”, regia di Mira Nair, dal romanzo omonimo di Jhumpa Lahiri. 2006.
Sono racconti lunghi mai meno di 30 pagine. I primi cinque sono ispirati allo stesso tema e sembrano comporre una sezione a se stante; gli ultimi tre compongono un tutto unico, la storia di Hema e Kaushik, e confermano la sensazione di essere davanti a romanzi brevi, più che a classici racconti: Lahiri racconta storie che vanno avanti negli anni, a volte vite intere, e descrive molti personaggi, famiglie, amici.
”The Namesake – Il destino nel nome”, regia di Mira Nair, dal romanzo omonimo di Jhumpa Lahiri. 2006.
Emigranti, tanti indiani, ma non solo. Gente che cambia paese, casa, spesso anche lavoro, in cerca di fortuna, di un nuovo stile di vita, di una situazione diversa.
Nella “nuova terra” allargano la famiglia, generano figli: che crescendo saranno per forza di cose meno legati al paese d’origine, si adatteranno e integreranno meglio della prima generazione.
La “nuova terra” è il Nuovo Continente, in particolare gli Stati Uniti: terra che seduce, che ingloba ma soprattutto fagocita.
”The Namesake – Il destino nel nome”, regia di Mira Nair, dal romanzo omonimo di Jhumpa Lahiri. 2006.
Poca se non nessuna azione: Lahiri sembra concentrata sugli stati interiori, pensieri riflessioni sentimenti. E lo scorrere del tempo.
Una bella scrittura che cattura con uno stile piacevolmente classico, con l'umanità profonda contenuta in dettagli insignificanti e in personaggi all'apparenza piatti, con l'incrocio di razze e culture, con la facilità di immedesimazione e compartecipazione offerta al lettore.
”The Namesake – Il destino nel nome”, regia di Mira Nair, dal romanzo omonimo di Jhumpa Lahiri. 2006.
Lahiri appare perfettamente a suo agio in questi racconti lunghi, o romanzi brevi (novelle?), sia quando ci porta in US, sia quando invece ci trasporta in Inghilterra, a Roma, in India, in Thailandia. Senza mai scadere nel folklorico, nel pittoresco, nel fastidiosamente 'etnico'
E, pure se il primo racconto, quello che da il titolo all'intera raccolta, è insuperabile, il fascino della lettura cresce pagina dopo pagina.
E alla fine, non ci si vorrebbe separare da queste storie, da queste vite, così lontane, così vicine. Così nostre.
”The Namesake – Il destino nel nome”, regia di Mira Nair, dal romanzo omonimo di Jhumpa Lahiri. 2006.
Sono racconti lunghi mai meno di 30 pagine. I primi cinque sono ispirati allo stesso tema e sembrano comporre una sezione a se stante; gli ultimi tre compongono un tutto unico, la storia di Hema e Kaushik, e confermano la sensazione di essere davanti a romanzi brevi, più che a classici racconti: Lahiri racconta storie che vanno avanti negli anni, a volte vite intere, e descrive molti personaggi, famiglie, amici.
”The Namesake – Il destino nel nome”, regia di Mira Nair, dal romanzo omonimo di Jhumpa Lahiri. 2006.
Emigranti, tanti indiani, ma non solo. Gente che cambia paese, casa, spesso anche lavoro, in cerca di fortuna, di un nuovo stile di vita, di una situazione diversa.
Nella “nuova terra” allargano la famiglia, generano figli: che crescendo saranno per forza di cose meno legati al paese d’origine, si adatteranno e integreranno meglio della prima generazione.
La “nuova terra” è il Nuovo Continente, in particolare gli Stati Uniti: terra che seduce, che ingloba ma soprattutto fagocita.
”The Namesake – Il destino nel nome”, regia di Mira Nair, dal romanzo omonimo di Jhumpa Lahiri. 2006.
Poca se non nessuna azione: Lahiri sembra concentrata sugli stati interiori, pensieri riflessioni sentimenti. E lo scorrere del tempo.
Una bella scrittura che cattura con uno stile piacevolmente classico, con l'umanità profonda contenuta in dettagli insignificanti e in personaggi all'apparenza piatti, con l'incrocio di razze e culture, con la facilità di immedesimazione e compartecipazione offerta al lettore.
”The Namesake – Il destino nel nome”, regia di Mira Nair, dal romanzo omonimo di Jhumpa Lahiri. 2006.
Lahiri appare perfettamente a suo agio in questi racconti lunghi, o romanzi brevi (novelle?), sia quando ci porta in US, sia quando invece ci trasporta in Inghilterra, a Roma, in India, in Thailandia. Senza mai scadere nel folklorico, nel pittoresco, nel fastidiosamente 'etnico'
E, pure se il primo racconto, quello che da il titolo all'intera raccolta, è insuperabile, il fascino della lettura cresce pagina dopo pagina.
E alla fine, non ci si vorrebbe separare da queste storie, da queste vite, così lontane, così vicine. Così nostre.
January 25, 2016
These eight short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri are quiet, penetrating, and meticulously written. The first five stories are distinct, while the last three are interrelated. Lahiri's prose seems so clean and precise that it is very easy to turn page after page despite the fact that her stories are not really plot-driven. Rather, each story delves into the psyche of each character with such skill that the reader can't help but feel extremely intimate with each one, whether male or female, likable or otherwise.
Lahiri's characters are predominantly Bengalis that have moved from India to America. Some of her protagonists are the children of these Bengalis and themes may focus on the struggle to assimilate and the conflicts between the values of the parent and the desires of the children to pave their own way. These and other themes feel far-reaching, however, and the reader may recognize and understand many of the feelings, battles and tensions quite personally. Mother-daughter relationships as well as other parent-child connections, alcoholism, illness, raising children, love, marriage, separations, and death are all deftly scrutinized. Overwhelmingly, however, I recognized a sense of melancholy and loneliness in these characters as they sought to belong and to pursue their dreams.
One of my favorite stories in the collection was the title story "Unaccustomed Earth", one about a young mother, Ruma, who renews her relationship with her father after her mother's death (not a spoiler). Ruma sets aside her career to move across the country to raise her young family. She craves a sense of happiness that seems always out of reach. A visit from her previously aloof father sheds a different light on this parent as the daughter watches him form a strong and loving bond with his grandson.
"Growing up, her mother's example – moving to a foreign place for the sake of marriage, caring exclusively for children and a household – had served as a warning, a path to avoid. Yet this was Ruma's life now."
"He wanted to shield her from the deterioration that inevitably took place in the course of a marriage, and from the conclusion he sometimes feared was true: that the entire enterprise of having a family, of putting children on this earth, as gratifying as it sometimes felt, was flawed from the start."
The last three, interrelated stories are probably the most poignant of all. "Hema and Kaushik", also the names of the two protagonists, covers an expanse of time from when the two meet as children until their paths cross once again later in life on another continent. As children, Hema and Kaushik are forced together by circumstances and a friendship between parents which develops more out of a sense of a need to belong than to a true sense of affinity. Kaushik has a strong attachment to his mother and this will affect his choices and his feelings right into and through adulthood. A chance encounter brings Hema and Kaushik back together after many years. What draws one person to another? Is it destiny or some link to one's past that can't be severed?
"Their parents had liked one another only for the sake of their origins, for the sake of a time and place to which they'd lost access. Hema had never been drawn to a person for that reason, until now."
I highly recommend this book if you enjoy short stories that have a wealth of depth despite their length, characters that are superbly drawn, and wonderful writing. Based on the first story and last set of stories, I would rate this book with 5 stars. However, as not all stories within the collection were right at the 5 star mark, although certainly worthy in their own right, I am giving this 4 stars. This is not my first Lahiri work and will most certainly not be my last!
Lahiri's characters are predominantly Bengalis that have moved from India to America. Some of her protagonists are the children of these Bengalis and themes may focus on the struggle to assimilate and the conflicts between the values of the parent and the desires of the children to pave their own way. These and other themes feel far-reaching, however, and the reader may recognize and understand many of the feelings, battles and tensions quite personally. Mother-daughter relationships as well as other parent-child connections, alcoholism, illness, raising children, love, marriage, separations, and death are all deftly scrutinized. Overwhelmingly, however, I recognized a sense of melancholy and loneliness in these characters as they sought to belong and to pursue their dreams.
One of my favorite stories in the collection was the title story "Unaccustomed Earth", one about a young mother, Ruma, who renews her relationship with her father after her mother's death (not a spoiler). Ruma sets aside her career to move across the country to raise her young family. She craves a sense of happiness that seems always out of reach. A visit from her previously aloof father sheds a different light on this parent as the daughter watches him form a strong and loving bond with his grandson.
"Growing up, her mother's example – moving to a foreign place for the sake of marriage, caring exclusively for children and a household – had served as a warning, a path to avoid. Yet this was Ruma's life now."
"He wanted to shield her from the deterioration that inevitably took place in the course of a marriage, and from the conclusion he sometimes feared was true: that the entire enterprise of having a family, of putting children on this earth, as gratifying as it sometimes felt, was flawed from the start."
The last three, interrelated stories are probably the most poignant of all. "Hema and Kaushik", also the names of the two protagonists, covers an expanse of time from when the two meet as children until their paths cross once again later in life on another continent. As children, Hema and Kaushik are forced together by circumstances and a friendship between parents which develops more out of a sense of a need to belong than to a true sense of affinity. Kaushik has a strong attachment to his mother and this will affect his choices and his feelings right into and through adulthood. A chance encounter brings Hema and Kaushik back together after many years. What draws one person to another? Is it destiny or some link to one's past that can't be severed?
"Their parents had liked one another only for the sake of their origins, for the sake of a time and place to which they'd lost access. Hema had never been drawn to a person for that reason, until now."
I highly recommend this book if you enjoy short stories that have a wealth of depth despite their length, characters that are superbly drawn, and wonderful writing. Based on the first story and last set of stories, I would rate this book with 5 stars. However, as not all stories within the collection were right at the 5 star mark, although certainly worthy in their own right, I am giving this 4 stars. This is not my first Lahiri work and will most certainly not be my last!
November 10, 2021
I’m gonna make this review lopsided right out the gate because I want to say the short story “Hell-Heaven” in this collection blew me away, gave me hope to live, and reminded me of the power of fiction at its finest. In the story, we follow a Bengali family living in the United States and what happens when the mother within the family falls in love with a fellow Bengali man who inserts himself into their dynamic, all through the perspective of the young daughter within the family. I think “Hell-Heaven” exemplifies what makes Jhumpa Lahiri a remarkable writer; she describes relational and familial dynamics in an understated way that somehow feels so emotionally visceral and poignant. The daughter’s relationship with her mother strained by issues of culture, the mother’s infatuation and then fallout with this new man Pranab, and the ways the characters heal and grow over time – I loved it all. I read the story this past Saturday and felt awestruck by the end. Feelings from and thoughts about the story came to me all throughout Sunday, then I reread the story Sunday evening and cried and felt such catharsis. I genuinely thought to myself “wow, I’m so glad I decided to keep living even through difficult times so I could experience the bliss of reading this story.”
Fanboying “Hell-Heaven” aside, I felt so impressed by Lahiri’s rendering of human emotions and relationships. She has an impeccable eye for detail both in relation to setting and capturing small mannerisms and reactions that underlie the ways we connect to one another. Whether writing about an older sister who feels complicit in her younger brother’s substance use disorder, or a graduate student caught up in his roommate’s unhealthy relationship, or parents’ feelings of entanglement with and separation from their children, Lahiri manages to capture it all through writing that feels realistic and immersive. Themes of South Asian culture and immigration pervade these stories in both subtle and powerful ways. Beyond “Hell-Heaven,” I felt stunned by “Year’s End,” a short story about grief that literally made me roll around on my couch and scream “omg Jhumpa Lahiri step on me” because of how beautifully and painfully she portrays the main character’s emotions of loss, as well as the first story “Unaccustomed Earth,” about the push and pull of family ties.
Other reviewers have critiqued how Lahiri focuses on the experiences of highly-educated, upper middle class South Asian immigrants. I personally didn’t have as much of an issue with that given that I think classism is an oppressive force that the publishing industry as a whole should confront. However, I did find the almost cynical leaning of some of these stories a bit much at times, like the emphasis on intrapersonal wounds or trust issues and how they affect relationships negatively. I don’t think Lahiri’s necessarily at fault for portraying these dynamics given that people do avoid intimacy or mess up intimacy because of their past unresolved issues; it’s my personal taste that prevents me from giving this collection five stars. Still, I would highly recommend Unaccustomed Earth and I commend Lahiri for her talent and ambition.
Fanboying “Hell-Heaven” aside, I felt so impressed by Lahiri’s rendering of human emotions and relationships. She has an impeccable eye for detail both in relation to setting and capturing small mannerisms and reactions that underlie the ways we connect to one another. Whether writing about an older sister who feels complicit in her younger brother’s substance use disorder, or a graduate student caught up in his roommate’s unhealthy relationship, or parents’ feelings of entanglement with and separation from their children, Lahiri manages to capture it all through writing that feels realistic and immersive. Themes of South Asian culture and immigration pervade these stories in both subtle and powerful ways. Beyond “Hell-Heaven,” I felt stunned by “Year’s End,” a short story about grief that literally made me roll around on my couch and scream “omg Jhumpa Lahiri step on me” because of how beautifully and painfully she portrays the main character’s emotions of loss, as well as the first story “Unaccustomed Earth,” about the push and pull of family ties.
Other reviewers have critiqued how Lahiri focuses on the experiences of highly-educated, upper middle class South Asian immigrants. I personally didn’t have as much of an issue with that given that I think classism is an oppressive force that the publishing industry as a whole should confront. However, I did find the almost cynical leaning of some of these stories a bit much at times, like the emphasis on intrapersonal wounds or trust issues and how they affect relationships negatively. I don’t think Lahiri’s necessarily at fault for portraying these dynamics given that people do avoid intimacy or mess up intimacy because of their past unresolved issues; it’s my personal taste that prevents me from giving this collection five stars. Still, I would highly recommend Unaccustomed Earth and I commend Lahiri for her talent and ambition.
April 6, 2020
میتونم روزها و ماهها و سالها داستانهای جومپا لاهیری رو بخونم و خسته نشم. خسته نشم از این مشترکات همیشگی، از آدمهایی که اهل کلکته اند و ساکن ایالت ماساچوست، از تنهایی و غم تلمبار شده لابهلای لحظههای زندگی، از جزئیاتی که باحوصله روایت میشن و قلبتو تسخیر میکنن.
فکر میکنم بعدها هر از چندگاهی یکی از داستانها رو مرور کنم و اندازهی خوردن یه فنجون قهوه وسط شلوغیای روز باهاش کیف کنم و یادم بندازه زندگی ما آدمها، همین روزمرگیهاست، همین اتفاقات کوچیک و بزرگ بی اهمیت که احساساتمون رو شکل میدن و ما هر روز کمتر از قبل بهشون اهمیت میدیم ...
فکر میکنم بعدها هر از چندگاهی یکی از داستانها رو مرور کنم و اندازهی خوردن یه فنجون قهوه وسط شلوغیای روز باهاش کیف کنم و یادم بندازه زندگی ما آدمها، همین روزمرگیهاست، همین اتفاقات کوچیک و بزرگ بی اهمیت که احساساتمون رو شکل میدن و ما هر روز کمتر از قبل بهشون اهمیت میدیم ...
December 18, 2019
Todos los que amamos la literatura somos conscientes de esa magia que en ciertas ocasiones surge de las palabras sin que podamos pillar el truco que hay detrás, sin que podamos identificar ese ingrediente que hace que ese texto, nada singular en apariencia, nos altere de una forma especial. Quizás sea justo esa incapacidad la respuesta al enigma —descubrir el truco desvanece la magia— o, simplemente, que esa forma de combinar las palabras encierra un abracadabra capaz de provocárnosla. Sea como sea, es magia, no cabe duda.
En Lahiri, la magia es muy similar a la que siempre encuentro en Alice Munro, relaciones humanas complejas contadas de una forma sencilla, directa y sugerente, sin melodramas, solo personas que se relacionan con otras personas, muy frecuentemente de la misma familia, y entre las que surgen conflictos que la autora nos hace sentir muy cercanos. No hay moralinas, ni juicios, Lahiri conmueve sin sentimentalismos, es sutil, contenida y muy hábil en la elección de esos detalles que conforman la atmósfera adecuada.
“A Amit lo distrajo una araña gris pálido que ascendió por el costado del mantel y luego hasta el espacio entre el puño de la camisa de Jared y su americana. Se sintió tentado de decir algo, pero Jared no se había dado cuenta, sino que seguía como si nada, la misma tenue sonrisa fija en el rostro, previendo sin duda el día en que la gente se levantaría y brindarían con ocasión de su propia boda.”Los relatos son independientes unos de otros, excepto los tres últimos que conforman algo así como una nouvelle, pero todos podrían ser capítulos de una misma novela. Todos ellos reflejan un choque cultural e intergeneracional en personas de ascendencia bengalí, aunque esto es solo el contexto, la tierra desacostumbrada en la que se desarrollan conflictos vitales que van más allá del desarraigo o de la búsqueda de una identidad perdida que, no obstante, también afecta a algunos de los personajes. En el centro de estos cuentos se encuentran los complejos lazos que se establecen entre los miembros de una misma familia o en la pareja, una temática universal que no sabe de barreras étnicas. Familia y pareja aparecen como cárcel o como refugio y frecuentemente ambas cosas a un tiempo.
Aunque no hay acción —prácticamente todo pasa en la cabeza de los personajes—, sí hay una sensación de peligro inminente, de que algo saltará por los aires, de que alguien estallará por fin. Sentimientos que escapan a nuestro control y que son muchas veces rechazados se imponen en las relaciones que mantenemos con personas a las que realmente nunca llegamos a conocer y a los que nunca nos atrevemos a mostrarnos tasl y como realmente somos.
“— Entonces, ¿por qué vas a casarte con él?
Ella le contó la verdad, una verdad que no le había contado a nadie.
— Porque tal vez lo arregle todo.”
December 6, 2024
خاک غریب نوشته جومپا لاهیری نویسنده سرشناس هندی شامل مجموعه داستان هایی ایست که نویسنده تلاش کرده به تفاوت نسل ها و فرهنگ ها و نگاه ها و دید گاه ها بپردازد . کتاب او دو بخش را شامل می شود : بخش اول 5 داستانی که گرچه جدا از هم هستند اما محیط و فضای یکسانی دارند . شخصیتهای داستان خانم لاهپری مهاجرانی هندی هستند که تلاش می کنند که خود را با کشور جدید – آمریکا وفق دهند . آنچه از آنان شاهد هستیم سردرگمی نسل اول در تطبیق دادن خود با سنت و فرهنگ آمریکا و غالبا فراموش کردن زبان و سنت کشور مادر توسط نسل دوم است .
افراد داستان او را نه می توان هندی ، نه آمریکایی و نه هندی – آمریکایی دانست . آنان به معنی کامل مهاجر هستند ، ریشه در جایی ندارند اگرچه سالهای زیادی هم در آن زندگی کنند . داستان های آنان نقطه اوجی ندارد ، زندگی روزمره و تقابل احساسات آنها ست است که داستان را به جلو می برد . جامعه مورد علاقه خانم لاهیری از افراد طبقه متوسط رو به بالا تشکیل شده ، بیشتر آنان تحصیلات دانشگاهی داشته و در شغل خود موفق بوده و چندان به فکر پول نیستند . گویا آنان دغدغه بقا و یا امنیت دیگر ندارند و تنها به فکر پیشرفت هستند .
بخش دوم داستان حکایت متفاوتی از عشق میان هما و کاشیک است . لاهیری داستان را در سه بخش و هر بار با راوی های مختلف بیان کرده . بخش اول توصیف کاشیک از زبان هما ، بخش دوم وصف هما از نگاه کاشیک در چند سال بعد و داستان سوم از دید دانای کل روایت شده که البته هما آن را به پایان رسانده است .
توصیفات نویسنده از افراد و روحیه آنها ، شهرهای مختلف مانند بوستون ، سیاتل و یا حتی رم بی نظیر است . او با مهارت وارد حریم خانوادگی افراد شده و روابط بین پدر با دختر ، خواهر با برادر ، پدر با پسر و رابطه میان همسرها را به چالش می کشد . راوی داستان های لاهیری چه زن باشد و یا مرد ، در هر حال نویسنده شخصیت و جزییات فرد را با قدرت بیان کرده است .
خاک غریب را باید خواند ، از آن جا که یا مهاجر و ساکن خاک غریب هستیم و یا در فکر و سودای آن . خاک غریب نه در ستایش رفتن است و نه در مدح ماندن . خاک غریب روایت قدرتمندی ایست از حال و احوال انسانها . آنان که از نگاه ناتالی هاثورن مانند سیب زمینی می مانند ، اگر نسل اندر نسل در همان خاک بیقوت بکارندش خوب رشد نمیکند. بچه های من هر کدامشان جایی به دنیا آمدهاند و اگر سرنوشتشان دست من باشد، باید در خاک غریب ریشه بدوانند .
افراد داستان او را نه می توان هندی ، نه آمریکایی و نه هندی – آمریکایی دانست . آنان به معنی کامل مهاجر هستند ، ریشه در جایی ندارند اگرچه سالهای زیادی هم در آن زندگی کنند . داستان های آنان نقطه اوجی ندارد ، زندگی روزمره و تقابل احساسات آنها ست است که داستان را به جلو می برد . جامعه مورد علاقه خانم لاهیری از افراد طبقه متوسط رو به بالا تشکیل شده ، بیشتر آنان تحصیلات دانشگاهی داشته و در شغل خود موفق بوده و چندان به فکر پول نیستند . گویا آنان دغدغه بقا و یا امنیت دیگر ندارند و تنها به فکر پیشرفت هستند .
بخش دوم داستان حکایت متفاوتی از عشق میان هما و کاشیک است . لاهیری داستان را در سه بخش و هر بار با راوی های مختلف بیان کرده . بخش اول توصیف کاشیک از زبان هما ، بخش دوم وصف هما از نگاه کاشیک در چند سال بعد و داستان سوم از دید دانای کل روایت شده که البته هما آن را به پایان رسانده است .
توصیفات نویسنده از افراد و روحیه آنها ، شهرهای مختلف مانند بوستون ، سیاتل و یا حتی رم بی نظیر است . او با مهارت وارد حریم خانوادگی افراد شده و روابط بین پدر با دختر ، خواهر با برادر ، پدر با پسر و رابطه میان همسرها را به چالش می کشد . راوی داستان های لاهیری چه زن باشد و یا مرد ، در هر حال نویسنده شخصیت و جزییات فرد را با قدرت بیان کرده است .
خاک غریب را باید خواند ، از آن جا که یا مهاجر و ساکن خاک غریب هستیم و یا در فکر و سودای آن . خاک غریب نه در ستایش رفتن است و نه در مدح ماندن . خاک غریب روایت قدرتمندی ایست از حال و احوال انسانها . آنان که از نگاه ناتالی هاثورن مانند سیب زمینی می مانند ، اگر نسل اندر نسل در همان خاک بیقوت بکارندش خوب رشد نمیکند. بچه های من هر کدامشان جایی به دنیا آمدهاند و اگر سرنوشتشان دست من باشد، باید در خاک غریب ریشه بدوانند .
April 9, 2021
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 people. I was immediately captivated by her style and the tales that she wove. It was an emotional experience for me to read each story, from sheer delight, or humor, to grief and regret.
Jhumpa Lahiri has written a beautiful book which I did not want to end.
Jhumpa Lahiri has written a beautiful book which I did not want to end.
July 13, 2008
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.
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.
March 3, 2021
Mysterious are the paths that our readings take.
I was not planning to read this, having read three books by Lahiri already. But then I learnt about a literary association that offers writing workshops as well as a Reading Book Club. Even if I felt I was stepping out of the reading directions I had chartered in my mind for my short term bookish future, my curiosity took the upper hand and I signed up for the Book Club. And this was the February choice.
Lahiri’s writing is so pristine and so flowing that one’s reading easily hastens as if one were going down a hill – just too fast. I had to bridle myself so that I could pay closer attention to the subtleties – the stories are so full of them. The minds of the characters, close and remote, and the abundance of details that could seem superfluous but that are determinant --those are the texture of the stories. Lahiri has a particular eye for those details that historians would call ‘material life’ and the moderator of the Book Club called “escenografía” (stage setting).
The first five stories and distinct and yet they form a whole. They could even be considered a “continuum” from other earlier books by Lahiri. They are like various illustrations of the same human concerns – family relations, conflicting generations, the individual versus his/her culture, life choices versus inevitability. Identity searching becomes more complicated if one is uprooted, if the earth where one settles is unaccustomed. Uprooting however can find a rehabilitating ground. In the division and the conflicting poles of India and the US, Italy – and Rome in particular – presents itself as a place where its traditions and its art are so strong, while at the same time not centripetal, that emancipation can be found – for Lahiri’s characters and for herself.
In Lahiri's world, characters can easily feel that life leads them on, that they are not living the lives they would have chosen. Studying abroad, arranged marriages, being dragged by addictions, career demands, and the most unmanageable factor of all: Death. We discussed how the theme of Mourning runs through all these stories. Deep distress.
The last three stories are a triptych, and these for me brought the fifth star. Stories or situations narrated from various viewpoints fascinate me. The whole polyptych was heart-wrenching and offers a very interesting structure since the narrative is episodic but includes flashbacks that can be partly looked over if one reads them too fast. My sliding down the pages invited me to go back up and slacken in my descend. We discussed in the Reading Club whether the point of view, in spite of switching from Hema to Kaushik and then back to Hema, remained female. Kaushik remains incomprehensible, even to himself. His egotism comes across as patriarchal and self-enclosed. Concentrating on a man's inability to communicate is may be a female concern. And sadly for Hema, one suspects that Kaushik’s infatuation with her begins when he realizes that what unites them is that she also has memories of his deceased mother . Mourning runs through and seals a beautiful love story that, incidentally, blossoms in Rome – where else?.
The Group is moderated by a writer, and one of his novels is in my recalculated future reading path, although next stop, the March book, is Sukkwan Island
June 19, 2008
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 pungent descriptions have given way to stale, distant whiffs of unpleasantness that lack gravity and empathy. Nothing but an elegantly written snooze.
February 11, 2016
Eight short stories of remarkable depth, richness and resonance. Part one consists of five stand-alone stories, some of which have the density of novellas; part two consists of three stories that chronicle several decades in the lives of two characters whose lives have been fatefully intertwined.
Lahiri's protagonists might all be Bengalis from India taking root in America and then often abroad, but their secrets, hopes and dreams are universal. The stories' endings are particularly powerful, full of surprises that never feel gimmicky.
Stylistically, these are old-fashioned stories; you can see and feel Lahiri's debt to writers like William Trevor and Mavis Gallant in her clear, concise, insightful prose. There's little experimentation with form, and there's a certain sameness to settings and backgrounds (New England or New York City, ivy league colleages). She's equally good getting into the skin of men or women, young or old.
Like priceless gems, though, these stories seem simple and lovely on the surface but are carefully cut, chosen and polished, hiding layers of mystery.
Lahiri's protagonists might all be Bengalis from India taking root in America and then often abroad, but their secrets, hopes and dreams are universal. The stories' endings are particularly powerful, full of surprises that never feel gimmicky.
Stylistically, these are old-fashioned stories; you can see and feel Lahiri's debt to writers like William Trevor and Mavis Gallant in her clear, concise, insightful prose. There's little experimentation with form, and there's a certain sameness to settings and backgrounds (New England or New York City, ivy league colleages). She's equally good getting into the skin of men or women, young or old.
Like priceless gems, though, these stories seem simple and lovely on the surface but are carefully cut, chosen and polished, hiding layers of mystery.
December 4, 2010
Lahiri's always going to write beautiful, dense stories but many of the stories felt very similar, same settings, same cultural clashes, same upper middle class, exclusive college educated people angst. Nonetheless, I quite enjoyed the book. I would read it again.
November 8, 2016
"It didn't matter where she was in the world, or whether or not she was dying; she had always given everything to make her homes beautiful, always drawn strength from her things, her walls. But Kaushik never fully trusted the places he'd lived, never turned to them for refuge. From childhood, he realized now, he was always happiest to be outside, away from the private detritus of life."
In each of the eight stories in this collection by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, the characters are displaced. Whether physically, moving from one country to another—mostly looking at the Indian immigrant's experiences in America—or figuratively, in a relationship torn asunder or strained by life's difficulties. And in each of them Lahiri expertly captures the emotions these characters go through, from jealousy and outrage to sorrow and desperation. In all of them she conveys so pointedly the irony of life: that even in painful moments, there's a sort of joy in knowing you at least feel something. It's this human experience, a sort of self-inflicted suffering, that Lahiri is encapsulate in words what so many authors try yet fail to do.
The title story sees a daughter, now a mother and new resident of Seattle, welcoming her globetrotting father into her home. It explores the complexities of growing up and cleaving from your family to form your own.
"Only Goodness" explores the responsibility of siblinghood, of past actions and their present consequences. And "Nobody's Business" takes on the commitment two people have for one another—romantic or otherwise—when choosing to share life together.
The final three stories of the collection, in Part Two: Hema and Kaushik, look at the decades and unfolding events in the lives of two immigrant children. These were my personal favorite. Lahiri allows the reader into intimate moments, even unflattering ones, in a way that makes them so profoundly real. I am nearly convinced these characters have walked off the page into the world. Not since Adichie's Americanah have I felt so strongly.
Needless to say, Lahiri has made her way onto my favorites shelf with this collection. If you read and loved Interpreter of Maladies, this is a must read. Not questions asked: 5 stars.
In each of the eight stories in this collection by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, the characters are displaced. Whether physically, moving from one country to another—mostly looking at the Indian immigrant's experiences in America—or figuratively, in a relationship torn asunder or strained by life's difficulties. And in each of them Lahiri expertly captures the emotions these characters go through, from jealousy and outrage to sorrow and desperation. In all of them she conveys so pointedly the irony of life: that even in painful moments, there's a sort of joy in knowing you at least feel something. It's this human experience, a sort of self-inflicted suffering, that Lahiri is encapsulate in words what so many authors try yet fail to do.
The title story sees a daughter, now a mother and new resident of Seattle, welcoming her globetrotting father into her home. It explores the complexities of growing up and cleaving from your family to form your own.
"Only Goodness" explores the responsibility of siblinghood, of past actions and their present consequences. And "Nobody's Business" takes on the commitment two people have for one another—romantic or otherwise—when choosing to share life together.
The final three stories of the collection, in Part Two: Hema and Kaushik, look at the decades and unfolding events in the lives of two immigrant children. These were my personal favorite. Lahiri allows the reader into intimate moments, even unflattering ones, in a way that makes them so profoundly real. I am nearly convinced these characters have walked off the page into the world. Not since Adichie's Americanah have I felt so strongly.
Needless to say, Lahiri has made her way onto my favorites shelf with this collection. If you read and loved Interpreter of Maladies, this is a must read. Not questions asked: 5 stars.
November 14, 2024
Just the book for my old soul…
If you miss amazing writing on solitude and life in general, give this book a try. Specially for the ones like myself who misses the genuine Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing.
This is a collection of eight short stories which are well written focusing on the lives of second generation immigrants trying to make their lives in a new environment.
I wouldn’t say much about the plot of each story as we know how it is with the author’s writing - it is to be read and felt, not enough to be told otherwise.
I can feel the melancholy, the loneliness and the pain the characters felt. However, I can also relate with their decisions they have to make as adults.
I would say the author’s books will be more relevant and enjoyable if you read them as an adult.
If you haven’t picked up this book yet, please do this year.
If you miss amazing writing on solitude and life in general, give this book a try. Specially for the ones like myself who misses the genuine Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing.
This is a collection of eight short stories which are well written focusing on the lives of second generation immigrants trying to make their lives in a new environment.
I wouldn’t say much about the plot of each story as we know how it is with the author’s writing - it is to be read and felt, not enough to be told otherwise.
I can feel the melancholy, the loneliness and the pain the characters felt. However, I can also relate with their decisions they have to make as adults.
I would say the author’s books will be more relevant and enjoyable if you read them as an adult.
If you haven’t picked up this book yet, please do this year.
October 9, 2022
هرچقدر بگم عالی بود کم گفتم
این کتاب مجموعه ای از داستان های کوتاه هست اما سه داستان آخر به هم مرتبط هستند که خیلی جذابن من واقعا دوستش داشتم
حتما بخونین.
این کتاب مجموعه ای از داستان های کوتاه هست اما سه داستان آخر به هم مرتبط هستند که خیلی جذابن من واقعا دوستش داشتم
حتما بخونین.
July 30, 2013
Unaccustomed Earth is Jhumpa Lahiri's yet another collection of most dazzling short-stories of all times making it evident the umpteenth time the kind of prodigious skills she portrays with her art of putting together in words the distressed hearts and confused minds of her characters that are struggling in unknown lands, striving to accept outlandish ways while clutching the bag of their traditional ways close to their hearts and ending up in those neverlands where they find themselves still slightly apart in the lands where they now belong.
Lahiri is an expert at writing about immigrant experiences, of people from Indian origin who have settled since some countable generations in America which I believe stems out from her personal life experience.
Unaccustomed Earth is a book put together with eight short stories, each of them rich with imagination and the light tug and pull that you experience in your heart as you read through the pages so efficiently written.
The stories:
Unaccustomed Earth
Nobody's Business
Only Goodness
Hell and Heaven
A Choice of Accommodations
Once in a Lifetime
Year's End
Going Ashore
are all bounty rich with experiences and emphatic emotions and characters are so well developed.
The last three stories are inter-linked and form one whole story of Hema and Kaushik and by far my most favorite of all the stories – about love lost and found and lost again. This comes from this story and is one of my favorites,
There is almost always a sweet-sad human touch to Lahiri’s prose and stories which one cannot stop but admire. Her writing style is utmost evocative, you almost go through the world she so carefully portrays. She is so apt with an innate caliber to put life in her characters that you aren’t just reading about them but you are in their heads, in their homes, in their lives, in all of those awkward and nostalgic situations, that you are almost living their private lives.
I absolutely love the way she points out raw unsaid emotions in myriad of situations that are otherwise missed by most writers of the genre. She kind of explores that void that exists in all of us of which we never talk and that is precisely what makes the reader connect with her writing as it leaves you a little raw and empty inside, provoking the most immaculately sensitive emotions in her readers.
Each word, each line is almost always soaked in her exemplary style which is simple yet most striking. The endings of her books are not explosively great or anything too grand like the perfectly happy endings type, and yet somehow, what this book offers, remains subtly in your memories longer than you can imagine.
Lastly, I feel it incomplete to have ended the review without sharing this piece of her writing which is going to remain in my memories,
When do I get to read her next book, is a question I ask?
Lahiri is an expert at writing about immigrant experiences, of people from Indian origin who have settled since some countable generations in America which I believe stems out from her personal life experience.
Unaccustomed Earth is a book put together with eight short stories, each of them rich with imagination and the light tug and pull that you experience in your heart as you read through the pages so efficiently written.
The stories:
Unaccustomed Earth
Nobody's Business
Only Goodness
Hell and Heaven
A Choice of Accommodations
Once in a Lifetime
Year's End
Going Ashore
are all bounty rich with experiences and emphatic emotions and characters are so well developed.
The last three stories are inter-linked and form one whole story of Hema and Kaushik and by far my most favorite of all the stories – about love lost and found and lost again. This comes from this story and is one of my favorites,
“That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.”
There is almost always a sweet-sad human touch to Lahiri’s prose and stories which one cannot stop but admire. Her writing style is utmost evocative, you almost go through the world she so carefully portrays. She is so apt with an innate caliber to put life in her characters that you aren’t just reading about them but you are in their heads, in their homes, in their lives, in all of those awkward and nostalgic situations, that you are almost living their private lives.
I absolutely love the way she points out raw unsaid emotions in myriad of situations that are otherwise missed by most writers of the genre. She kind of explores that void that exists in all of us of which we never talk and that is precisely what makes the reader connect with her writing as it leaves you a little raw and empty inside, provoking the most immaculately sensitive emotions in her readers.
Each word, each line is almost always soaked in her exemplary style which is simple yet most striking. The endings of her books are not explosively great or anything too grand like the perfectly happy endings type, and yet somehow, what this book offers, remains subtly in your memories longer than you can imagine.
Lastly, I feel it incomplete to have ended the review without sharing this piece of her writing which is going to remain in my memories,
“The sky was different, without color, taut and unforgiving. But the water was the most unforgiving thing, nearly black at times, cold enough, I knew, to kill me, violent enough to break me apart. The waves were immense, battering rocky beaches without sand. The farther I went, the more desolate it became, more than any place I’d been, but for this very reason the landscape drew me, claimed me as nothing had in a long time.”
When do I get to read her next book, is a question I ask?
January 5, 2025
Note: This is a 2008 review updated in 2024.
Like “Interpreter of Maladies”, Lahiri raises the stakes in continuing the stories of assimilation that many Indians and Indian Americans feel in an American society that seems ambivalent towards their presence.
The stories “Nobody’s Business” about Sang, a young woman who seems to have gentleman callers, but in actually is in love with an Egyptian man who has another love.
“Only Goodness” about an estranged brother and sister, Sudha and Rahul who try to connect after years of not speaking. It’s Rahul’s alcoholism that has driven a wedge between them.
The masterful novella, “Hema and Kaushik” is one of the most gorgeous and haunting works of fiction I’ve read. It’s a story about grief, and losing and gaining ties, and a finale so devastating that it’s breathtaking.
Their love story is one for the books that really shows how magical Lahiri can write- only if she went with her heart more.
This is an unabashedly romantic story spanning time and space from America, to Italy and finally Thailand where Lahiri builds a plot that ends with the infamous Tsunami of 2004.
Truly mournful, elegiac and emotional- both Hema and Kaushik have remained with me since reading this in 2008. It begins in grief. It ends in grief. There is love between.
I found that this novella in three parts have remained in my head as a young reader and consider her to be a formative author that I’ve followed.
Postscript- Read The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant, which Lahiri absolutely was influenced by.
Like “Interpreter of Maladies”, Lahiri raises the stakes in continuing the stories of assimilation that many Indians and Indian Americans feel in an American society that seems ambivalent towards their presence.
The stories “Nobody’s Business” about Sang, a young woman who seems to have gentleman callers, but in actually is in love with an Egyptian man who has another love.
“Only Goodness” about an estranged brother and sister, Sudha and Rahul who try to connect after years of not speaking. It’s Rahul’s alcoholism that has driven a wedge between them.
The masterful novella, “Hema and Kaushik” is one of the most gorgeous and haunting works of fiction I’ve read. It’s a story about grief, and losing and gaining ties, and a finale so devastating that it’s breathtaking.
Their love story is one for the books that really shows how magical Lahiri can write- only if she went with her heart more.
This is an unabashedly romantic story spanning time and space from America, to Italy and finally Thailand where Lahiri builds a plot that ends with the infamous Tsunami of 2004.
Truly mournful, elegiac and emotional- both Hema and Kaushik have remained with me since reading this in 2008. It begins in grief. It ends in grief. There is love between.
I found that this novella in three parts have remained in my head as a young reader and consider her to be a formative author that I’ve followed.
Postscript- Read The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant, which Lahiri absolutely was influenced by.
June 12, 2021
About one month ago I read her “Interpreter of Maladies” and gave it 5 stars, and I was singing its praises.
Fast forward a month – I kept on thinking while reading this collection (yes while reading it because my mind was ½ on the book, ¼ wishing I was doing something else, and ¼ thinking about what to say about this book given I had sung my praises on the previous short story collection of hers).
Reading these stories was, to me, the equivalent of watching paint dry. In each story she went into minute detail on things that really had no bearing on the story. Maybe it was intended to put us into the characters’ setting but to me it was just exasperating …like “why did I need to know this?” It’s OK to throw in meaningless details every now and then into a story so long as there is a plot or some sort of movement in the story…but the needless mind-numbing details she divulged in these stories flummoxed me.
Quite often stories just droned on and on with the clincher or the plot or something halfway interesting told in the last page or several paragraphs of a story. Again, maybe if the story was short, the story itself might be halfway interesting in that the reader could remember several pages back why something in the end happened, but these stories were 40 pages or longer. Did not work for me. 😐 ☹
Here are the stories and my ratings.
• Unaccustomed Earth (59 pages) – 3 stars.
• Hell-Bent (24 pages) – 1.5 stars. (Previously published in the New Yorker}
• Only Goodness (46 pages) – 2 stars
• Nobody’s Business (49 pages) – 1.5 stars. (Previously published in the New Yorker)
• Once in a Lifetime (29 pages) – 1.5 stars. (Previously published in the New Yorker)
• Year’s End (42 pages) – 3 stars. (Previously published in the New Yorker)
• Going Ashore (39 pages) – 2 stars
Note:
• The hardcover version of the book was already through a fourth printing in the same month it was originally issued (April of 2008) so I can only think that the reviews were glowing. Let me see…
Reviews (three of the four reviews below were glowing, so it looks like the literary world begs to differ with my assessment!):
• https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/bo...
• https://dallaslibrary2.org/blogs/book...
• https://bookpage.com/reviews/5673-jhu...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
Fast forward a month – I kept on thinking while reading this collection (yes while reading it because my mind was ½ on the book, ¼ wishing I was doing something else, and ¼ thinking about what to say about this book given I had sung my praises on the previous short story collection of hers).
Reading these stories was, to me, the equivalent of watching paint dry. In each story she went into minute detail on things that really had no bearing on the story. Maybe it was intended to put us into the characters’ setting but to me it was just exasperating …like “why did I need to know this?” It’s OK to throw in meaningless details every now and then into a story so long as there is a plot or some sort of movement in the story…but the needless mind-numbing details she divulged in these stories flummoxed me.
Quite often stories just droned on and on with the clincher or the plot or something halfway interesting told in the last page or several paragraphs of a story. Again, maybe if the story was short, the story itself might be halfway interesting in that the reader could remember several pages back why something in the end happened, but these stories were 40 pages or longer. Did not work for me. 😐 ☹
Here are the stories and my ratings.
• Unaccustomed Earth (59 pages) – 3 stars.
• Hell-Bent (24 pages) – 1.5 stars. (Previously published in the New Yorker}
• Only Goodness (46 pages) – 2 stars
• Nobody’s Business (49 pages) – 1.5 stars. (Previously published in the New Yorker)
• Once in a Lifetime (29 pages) – 1.5 stars. (Previously published in the New Yorker)
• Year’s End (42 pages) – 3 stars. (Previously published in the New Yorker)
• Going Ashore (39 pages) – 2 stars
Note:
• The hardcover version of the book was already through a fourth printing in the same month it was originally issued (April of 2008) so I can only think that the reviews were glowing. Let me see…
Reviews (three of the four reviews below were glowing, so it looks like the literary world begs to differ with my assessment!):
• https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/bo...
• https://dallaslibrary2.org/blogs/book...
• https://bookpage.com/reviews/5673-jhu...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
September 15, 2013
This won't be a usual review but more of a personal reflection. The reason is that I recently read some reviews and comments of a GR friend ( Aubrey ) who recently read 'The Namesake' by Lahiri and found it to be nothing special and she cited some pretty good reasons to support her case. Then I thought about the two books of Lahiri that I have - both short story collections - and why I had rated them 5 stars each. This is what happens when you feel in sync with such GR friends that they can make you question your own assessment and analysis... and this is the reason I love GR and spend way too much time on it.
I have often held a copy of 'The Namesake' in my hands at bookstores when it was on sale or available cheaply as a secondhand book, yet I never felt compelled to buy it. Especially after I sifted through it and read a few passages at random. It felt no different than her short stories in terms of style and voice, that I then thought why would I read a book of almost 300 pages when I can read a short story of 25 pages with an even better impact. And this got me thinking as to why I've been wanting to change my rating for Unaccustomed Earth for a while now. You see, I needed to justify my reasoning changing it from 5 stars to 4 and from 4 to 3, and here's why.
Lahiri comes across as a master of the short story craft... focus on the last word: craft. This, to me, is both her blessing and her curse. There is no doubt her style is that of someone who has completed an MFA in the USA (funny, that rhymes!) and is most likely why the technical aspects of her short stories are more or less flawless. But that's the technical aspect, which most MFA graduates from good programs in the USA seem to accomplish equally well, but what about the creative aspect?
Sure the 'Interpreter of Maladies' was 'new', at least for my generation at the time it was published, and it was a fantastic compilation of well-crafted stories and the immigrant's tale who's trying to fit in in a new host country. It was a theme done often but represented in a fresh new package. 'Unaccustomed Earth' unfortunately just repeats more of the same, with one difference, the stories are longer. And that is not a good thing. Repetition all round, from one collection to another and, within each collection. The same themes, the same style, the same voices. Nothing new, nothing creative, no experimentation, no out-of-the-box thinking.
It is for this reason that I have downgraded this book from 5 to 3 stars. The stories themselves - I repeat - are really well executed, but that's all the praise they'll get from me. I still keep my 5 star rating for 'Interpreter of Maladies' because (despite the repetition in it), it was fresh and it was her first collection (which is quite impressive) and the stories there were 'tight' - the right length with all aspects of each story well-rounded and finely written. However, playing it safe isn't for me and one book of the same is enough, two is overkill.
I have often held a copy of 'The Namesake' in my hands at bookstores when it was on sale or available cheaply as a secondhand book, yet I never felt compelled to buy it. Especially after I sifted through it and read a few passages at random. It felt no different than her short stories in terms of style and voice, that I then thought why would I read a book of almost 300 pages when I can read a short story of 25 pages with an even better impact. And this got me thinking as to why I've been wanting to change my rating for Unaccustomed Earth for a while now. You see, I needed to justify my reasoning changing it from 5 stars to 4 and from 4 to 3, and here's why.
Lahiri comes across as a master of the short story craft... focus on the last word: craft. This, to me, is both her blessing and her curse. There is no doubt her style is that of someone who has completed an MFA in the USA (funny, that rhymes!) and is most likely why the technical aspects of her short stories are more or less flawless. But that's the technical aspect, which most MFA graduates from good programs in the USA seem to accomplish equally well, but what about the creative aspect?
Sure the 'Interpreter of Maladies' was 'new', at least for my generation at the time it was published, and it was a fantastic compilation of well-crafted stories and the immigrant's tale who's trying to fit in in a new host country. It was a theme done often but represented in a fresh new package. 'Unaccustomed Earth' unfortunately just repeats more of the same, with one difference, the stories are longer. And that is not a good thing. Repetition all round, from one collection to another and, within each collection. The same themes, the same style, the same voices. Nothing new, nothing creative, no experimentation, no out-of-the-box thinking.
It is for this reason that I have downgraded this book from 5 to 3 stars. The stories themselves - I repeat - are really well executed, but that's all the praise they'll get from me. I still keep my 5 star rating for 'Interpreter of Maladies' because (despite the repetition in it), it was fresh and it was her first collection (which is quite impressive) and the stories there were 'tight' - the right length with all aspects of each story well-rounded and finely written. However, playing it safe isn't for me and one book of the same is enough, two is overkill.
July 8, 2022
کتاب مجموعهای از داستان های کوتاه درباره مهاجران بنگالی از منطقه بنگال هند بود.
کتابی خوب، پر از نثر شیوا و جزئیات، پر از احساس.
کتابی خوب، پر از نثر شیوا و جزئیات، پر از احساس.
January 2, 2011
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?
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?
December 22, 2008
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, gender, lifestyle) but also similar in some deep way, so that you have a sense that you are reading about the same group of folks, people who share a profound connection. the last three stories are interconnected, yet i felt no difference. they all felt interconnected to me.
part of it is that all these characters are locked inside, deeply alone. they are remote from others and also from themselves. i feel it would be extremely hard to have a relationship with them, and i wouldn't want to. yet, they seem so incredibly human, so easy to identify with. this is lahiri's sleight of hand, to make you feel both very close and infinitely distant from these people.
these characters are also intensely self-contained, though not in an assured, relaxed way. they feel to me as if they were tightly wound up, and held themselves together with great care, aware that a sudden movement can make the tightly wound edifice of their lives spring into chaos.
there is of course the theme of immigration, of living in a place that is not yours, and you don't feel as yours. this is always true in the book for the first-generation immigrants, the parents. most of the kids were born here -- hence the tragic, portentous intergenerational strife. all of the children seem married to people with anglo names, some of them clearly identified as white. it's strange how race doesn't seem to be much of a concern for lahiri. apart from one egyptian character, everyone is either bengali or assumed to be a white american. race-based discrimination never comes up. if anything, class is more of a concern. everyone is highly educated and well-off. so, oddly for a book that is so much about cultural and ethnic displacement, this reads to me more like an investigation of a particularly isolated section of the middle/upper middle class than as an investigation of race. in this sense, it is similar to... oh, who writes about the dislocation of the upper middle class in america? i feel i should be able to rattle off authors, yet can think only of movies: the ice storm, ordinary people, six degrees of separation (i guess they need to have donald sutherland in them!).
writers love to probe the dissatisfactions and, ultimately, hidden horrors of the orderly middle/upper-middle class life (see michael haneke's funny games, which is supposed to be about voyeurism instead seems to me to be about class). this is what lahiri does here. is she suggesting that behind wealthy living lies some sort of cultural displacement, that being an immigrant is just one way to be out of place and out of touch?
***
some more stray comments. this is not a cheerful book. it is, in fact, deeply sad. in one way or another, everyone is unhappy, and unhappiness is offered to you matter-of-fact, the way life is. there is no search for happiness, no pursuit of the american dream. at most, these characters seek tranquility and a quiet contentment. right now, actually, i can think only of the father of the first story... another father later on...
like their parents and their arranged marriages, the second-generation children land in their lives rather than choosing them. there is a story in which a young man "chooses" his life and it is a quiet train wreck. even their jobs and their ph.ds seem to have been handed to them, rather than resulting from passion or aspiration or desire. this is not to say that they are not satisfied with their lives. rather, it's as if happiness, this all-american pursuit, were irrelevant, a foreign concept that doesn't apply.
this book relentless focus is relationships, but they are portrayed as if each member lived in profound insularity. the story's protagonists, whose point of view we adopt, see others as if from inside a fish tank. a lot of time is spent being away from others rather than being with them. love, this other american obsession, is unstated and taken for granted, even when it's not there. same with the loss of love, and, ultimately, even death.
one might be tempted to say that lahiri critiques our american obsession with the pursuit of intimacy -- gently mocks this country that, perhaps more than any other, has so much trouble with intimacy that it needs to keep circling around it, fantasizing about it, obsessing about it. but i don't think lahiri is after critiquing anything. i think she describes life as she sees it, the quiet grinding of it, with a sort of melancholy acceptance that appeals to me tremendously.
one last word about language. this book could not be written in a simpler, plainer language. yet the language is gorgeous and the structure of the stories deep and dreamy and enchanting. the language matches the themes: there is no striving, no pulling, so thrashing. instead, lives are built with simplicity and respect, as if they were handed to the author the same way as they are handed to the characters, already formed, like an arranged marriage.
part of it is that all these characters are locked inside, deeply alone. they are remote from others and also from themselves. i feel it would be extremely hard to have a relationship with them, and i wouldn't want to. yet, they seem so incredibly human, so easy to identify with. this is lahiri's sleight of hand, to make you feel both very close and infinitely distant from these people.
these characters are also intensely self-contained, though not in an assured, relaxed way. they feel to me as if they were tightly wound up, and held themselves together with great care, aware that a sudden movement can make the tightly wound edifice of their lives spring into chaos.
there is of course the theme of immigration, of living in a place that is not yours, and you don't feel as yours. this is always true in the book for the first-generation immigrants, the parents. most of the kids were born here -- hence the tragic, portentous intergenerational strife. all of the children seem married to people with anglo names, some of them clearly identified as white. it's strange how race doesn't seem to be much of a concern for lahiri. apart from one egyptian character, everyone is either bengali or assumed to be a white american. race-based discrimination never comes up. if anything, class is more of a concern. everyone is highly educated and well-off. so, oddly for a book that is so much about cultural and ethnic displacement, this reads to me more like an investigation of a particularly isolated section of the middle/upper middle class than as an investigation of race. in this sense, it is similar to... oh, who writes about the dislocation of the upper middle class in america? i feel i should be able to rattle off authors, yet can think only of movies: the ice storm, ordinary people, six degrees of separation (i guess they need to have donald sutherland in them!).
writers love to probe the dissatisfactions and, ultimately, hidden horrors of the orderly middle/upper-middle class life (see michael haneke's funny games, which is supposed to be about voyeurism instead seems to me to be about class). this is what lahiri does here. is she suggesting that behind wealthy living lies some sort of cultural displacement, that being an immigrant is just one way to be out of place and out of touch?
***
some more stray comments. this is not a cheerful book. it is, in fact, deeply sad. in one way or another, everyone is unhappy, and unhappiness is offered to you matter-of-fact, the way life is. there is no search for happiness, no pursuit of the american dream. at most, these characters seek tranquility and a quiet contentment. right now, actually, i can think only of the father of the first story... another father later on...
like their parents and their arranged marriages, the second-generation children land in their lives rather than choosing them. there is a story in which a young man "chooses" his life and it is a quiet train wreck. even their jobs and their ph.ds seem to have been handed to them, rather than resulting from passion or aspiration or desire. this is not to say that they are not satisfied with their lives. rather, it's as if happiness, this all-american pursuit, were irrelevant, a foreign concept that doesn't apply.
this book relentless focus is relationships, but they are portrayed as if each member lived in profound insularity. the story's protagonists, whose point of view we adopt, see others as if from inside a fish tank. a lot of time is spent being away from others rather than being with them. love, this other american obsession, is unstated and taken for granted, even when it's not there. same with the loss of love, and, ultimately, even death.
one might be tempted to say that lahiri critiques our american obsession with the pursuit of intimacy -- gently mocks this country that, perhaps more than any other, has so much trouble with intimacy that it needs to keep circling around it, fantasizing about it, obsessing about it. but i don't think lahiri is after critiquing anything. i think she describes life as she sees it, the quiet grinding of it, with a sort of melancholy acceptance that appeals to me tremendously.
one last word about language. this book could not be written in a simpler, plainer language. yet the language is gorgeous and the structure of the stories deep and dreamy and enchanting. the language matches the themes: there is no striving, no pulling, so thrashing. instead, lives are built with simplicity and respect, as if they were handed to the author the same way as they are handed to the characters, already formed, like an arranged marriage.
July 12, 2015
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 loneliness, the kind which does not spring from the aftermath of a personal tragedy, but from a reconciliation with the transience and melancholy of life. I recall that it felt agreeable to be sad and lonely then, sitting with my elbow on the window sill, watching the grey clouds darken the horizon, listening to the drip-drip of the rain.
I hope to read this book again. I'm sure it'll make me feel all right, just the way I like it.
P.S: To those who haven't read it yet, Unaccustomed Earth and the monsoon go hand in hand. So try getting a copy before the chill sets in.
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 loneliness, the kind which does not spring from the aftermath of a personal tragedy, but from a reconciliation with the transience and melancholy of life. I recall that it felt agreeable to be sad and lonely then, sitting with my elbow on the window sill, watching the grey clouds darken the horizon, listening to the drip-drip of the rain.
I hope to read this book again. I'm sure it'll make me feel all right, just the way I like it.
P.S: To those who haven't read it yet, Unaccustomed Earth and the monsoon go hand in hand. So try getting a copy before the chill sets in.
June 14, 2015
I don't know why I never wrote a review on this before. It's terrific!!!
I was comparing books with a new friend - whom I just connected with- and came to this book -
It deserved the Pulitzer in my opinion!!!
I was comparing books with a new friend - whom I just connected with- and came to this book -
It deserved the Pulitzer in my opinion!!!
December 1, 2017
اولاً بوس بر ذهن و دست توانای آقای حقیقت که من همیشه عاشق انتخابهاشون میشم. :)) و یحتمل ترجمههاشون.
ثانیاً من از جومپا لاهیری فقط چندتا داستانکوتاه خوندم. ینی رسماً این اولین کتابی هست که ازش خوندم. قبلاً هم دوستش داشتم، الان هم بیشتر دوستش دارم. در نگاه اول، موضوع داستانها شبیه بههمن. همهشون سادهن و هیچ تکنیکی خودشو به رخ مخاطب نمیکشه. و این عالیه، برای ادبیات ما که نمونه تمام قد ادابازیه، داستانهای جومپا لاهیری یه زبوندرازیِ جانانهست بهشون. سادگیِ داستانها باعث میشه به عمقشون بریم و درگیر زیرلایهها بشیم که شاید مهمترین وظیفه نویسنده باشه. اینکه ما رو به عمق ببره، از نمایشهای سطحی و تکنیکی دست برداره و درعوض تعلیق رو توی محتوا، شخصیتپردازیها، سیر داستان و پایانبندی نشون بده. تکتک داستانها جای واکاوی دارن و موقع خوندن کُند میخوندم. چون نمیتونستم فقط با چشم دنبال کنم. یه کتاب بستسلر معمولی و پرزرق و برق نیست که یه ضرب بخونی و تموم شه و بیای گودریدز فنگرلبازی دربیاری و بعد چندماه که یادش بیفتی، فقط هیجان خوندنش برات مونده باشه. نه اثری که روی تو گذاشت. نه ساختارش، بافتارش، داستانش. و بهقول عباس معروفی، دنیا پُر از کتاب بستسلره. کتابهای تندتند بخون و تموم کنِ هیجانانگیزی که تاریخ انقضا دارن.
خب از منبر بیام پایین. :همر: *میکروفون را پرت میکند و لخلخ از صندلی بلند میشود* پایانبندی این داستانها شاید معرکهترین بخششون باشن. جدا از شخصیتپردازیهای واقعی، دیالوگهای واقعی، داستانهای واقعی و رئالی که واقعیبودن رو به نهایت رسونده. پایانبندیها هم یه آشناییزداییان دربرابر تمام اونچه که همیشه از پایانبندی انتظار داریم، همم حرفهای و پختهن، هم در نوع خودش... خاص خود نویسنده. پایانهای کاملاً رئالیستی و درعین حال، غیرمنتظره. جومپا لاهیری توی داستانهاش با روانکاوی شخصیتها، ما رو هم درمان میکنه. و جلسه درمانش رو با موفقیت به پایان میبره.
خاک غریب رو که خوندم، فهمیدم همهچیزهایی که از داستانکوتاه میدونستم، همراه با تمام داستانهایی که نوشتم، به زبالهدونی باید بپیوندن.
ثانیاً من از جومپا لاهیری فقط چندتا داستانکوتاه خوندم. ینی رسماً این اولین کتابی هست که ازش خوندم. قبلاً هم دوستش داشتم، الان هم بیشتر دوستش دارم. در نگاه اول، موضوع داستانها شبیه بههمن. همهشون سادهن و هیچ تکنیکی خودشو به رخ مخاطب نمیکشه. و این عالیه، برای ادبیات ما که نمونه تمام قد ادابازیه، داستانهای جومپا لاهیری یه زبوندرازیِ جانانهست بهشون. سادگیِ داستانها باعث میشه به عمقشون بریم و درگیر زیرلایهها بشیم که شاید مهمترین وظیفه نویسنده باشه. اینکه ما رو به عمق ببره، از نمایشهای سطحی و تکنیکی دست برداره و درعوض تعلیق رو توی محتوا، شخصیتپردازیها، سیر داستان و پایانبندی نشون بده. تکتک داستانها جای واکاوی دارن و موقع خوندن کُند میخوندم. چون نمیتونستم فقط با چشم دنبال کنم. یه کتاب بستسلر معمولی و پرزرق و برق نیست که یه ضرب بخونی و تموم شه و بیای گودریدز فنگرلبازی دربیاری و بعد چندماه که یادش بیفتی، فقط هیجان خوندنش برات مونده باشه. نه اثری که روی تو گذاشت. نه ساختارش، بافتارش، داستانش. و بهقول عباس معروفی، دنیا پُر از کتاب بستسلره. کتابهای تندتند بخون و تموم کنِ هیجانانگیزی که تاریخ انقضا دارن.
خب از منبر بیام پایین. :همر: *میکروفون را پرت میکند و لخلخ از صندلی بلند میشود* پایانبندی این داستانها شاید معرکهترین بخششون باشن. جدا از شخصیتپردازیهای واقعی، دیالوگهای واقعی، داستانهای واقعی و رئالی که واقعیبودن رو به نهایت رسونده. پایانبندیها هم یه آشناییزداییان دربرابر تمام اونچه که همیشه از پایانبندی انتظار داریم، همم حرفهای و پختهن، هم در نوع خودش... خاص خود نویسنده. پایانهای کاملاً رئالیستی و درعین حال، غیرمنتظره. جومپا لاهیری توی داستانهاش با روانکاوی شخصیتها، ما رو هم درمان میکنه. و جلسه درمانش رو با موفقیت به پایان میبره.
خاک غریب رو که خوندم، فهمیدم همهچیزهایی که از داستانکوتاه میدونستم، همراه با تمام داستانهایی که نوشتم، به زبالهدونی باید بپیوندن.
April 8, 2011
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 the short story itself in terms of what to expect of it--and of me as I read and experience it. So much richness can be there. I will continue seeking this experience more often in this format. And I will definitely read all of Lahiri.
This has broadened my view of the short story itself in terms of what to expect of it--and of me as I read and experience it. So much richness can be there. I will continue seeking this experience more often in this format. And I will definitely read all of Lahiri.
June 8, 2022
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3 ¾ stars
Written in Lahiri's characteristically understated prose Unaccustomed Earth is a bittersweet and minutely observed collection of short stories. Set in America, India, and even Thailand, these stories focus on relationships between siblings, parents and their children, grandparents and their grandchildren, married couples, and friends. They are also characterized by a strong sense of nostalgia, partly due to their 'historical' settings, partly due to the nature of the relationships, Lahiri is writing of. Characters misunderstand each other, they fall out of love, they don't reciprocate each other's feelings (be romantic or otherwise), or fail themselves and their loved ones. Lahiri's characters are often unable or unwilling to make amends, recover, and or forgive the people closest to them. In these stories, Lahiri presents us with vividly rendered scenarios that give us crystal-clear glimpses into the lives of the people she is writing of. As with Lahiri's other works, in Unaccustomed Earth quotidian spaces and conversations take the foreground, cementing the everyday realities of these characters.
Lahiri's prose is as elegant and subtle as ever. Without wasting a single word Lahiri conveys the often incongruous feelings and thoughts that people experience, as well as presenting us with some piercing insights into love, loss, family, and belonging. Definitely, a must-read for fans of the short-story medium.
3 ¾ stars
Written in Lahiri's characteristically understated prose Unaccustomed Earth is a bittersweet and minutely observed collection of short stories. Set in America, India, and even Thailand, these stories focus on relationships between siblings, parents and their children, grandparents and their grandchildren, married couples, and friends. They are also characterized by a strong sense of nostalgia, partly due to their 'historical' settings, partly due to the nature of the relationships, Lahiri is writing of. Characters misunderstand each other, they fall out of love, they don't reciprocate each other's feelings (be romantic or otherwise), or fail themselves and their loved ones. Lahiri's characters are often unable or unwilling to make amends, recover, and or forgive the people closest to them. In these stories, Lahiri presents us with vividly rendered scenarios that give us crystal-clear glimpses into the lives of the people she is writing of. As with Lahiri's other works, in Unaccustomed Earth quotidian spaces and conversations take the foreground, cementing the everyday realities of these characters.
Lahiri's prose is as elegant and subtle as ever. Without wasting a single word Lahiri conveys the often incongruous feelings and thoughts that people experience, as well as presenting us with some piercing insights into love, loss, family, and belonging. Definitely, a must-read for fans of the short-story medium.
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