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The Lowland

Jhumpa Lahiri

Start date: November 15, 2014

Finish date: December 1, 2014

Discussion: Reading List

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Jan 06, 2014 Jane rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

I was disappointed at first. The writing seemed flat...a friend described it as "subdued," but gradually I got pulled into the story. By the end, I realized that the theme was war and the effect war has on families. Also, geography, particularly the geography that is wet, low, coastal. Rocks and water and mud appear throughout. And the psychological state of the characters is low/depressed/mired in regret and loss. By the end of the book, I was caught, but all along, I found words that Lahiri us ...more

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Nov 15, 2014 Melissa rated it really liked it

Shelves: constant-reader

Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Lowland tells several tangled stories of loss and displacement. Two brothers grow up in Calcutta after the Partition of India and seem headed on divergent paths, but end up with closely intertwined fates. One, the younger, joins a revolutionary cadre, the other, the dutiful one, escapes to Rhode Island for a career in environmental marine science.

The opening pages are largely devoted to setting the scene historically, geographically, and politically. Point of view shif ...more

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Nov 13, 2014 Mary Ellen rated it really liked it

Shelves: mary-ellen-s-india-shelf

This book completely absorbed me. It combined the utterly foreign - Calcutta in the 1960s and the Naxalite movement, a Mao-inspired, student-embraced, ultimately failed violent campaign to lift up poor villagers, which I'd never heard of previously - with the relatively familiar: life in a New England college town by the shore. I thought that Lahiri managed the various shifts in narrators in a masterful way and I was impressed by her ability to keep me interested in the story of so many fundamen ...more

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Apr 02, 2014 Lisa rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-on-kindle

When I heard about this book I thought "I have heard so many great things about this author. I need to read some of her books so I guess I will start with this one. " Then after beginning to read it and struggling to get through the first chapters I heard a trusted reviewer say it might not be the best Jhumpa Lahiri book to start with. I think that is probably true.

The basic plot is about two brothers who are 15 months apart and who begin life very close as most siblings that close in age might When I heard about this book I thought "I have heard so many great things about this author. I need to read some of her books so I guess I will start with this one. " Then after beginning to read it and struggling to get through the first chapters I heard a trusted reviewer say it might not be the best Jhumpa Lahiri book to start with. I think that is probably true.

The basic plot is about two brothers who are 15 months apart and who begin life very close as most siblings that close in age might be. As one brother; Udayan grows up he becomes part of the Naxalite movement in India so the brothers grow apart. The other brother moves to America. The novel is in third person; however, the point of view changes between each of the characters to show how the events of the novel played out to each of them. The novel is one in which you get to stay with the characters for a long time so you get to see how decisions made affect future generations.

I hated the characters! I suppose that was the intention but for the most part each of them is wrapped up in their own life and make decisions without considering the others around them at all. The coldness of Subbash and Udayan's mother and Guari (Udayan's wife) especially make it hard to read without throwing your book or in this case my Kindle. Udayan's involvement in the Naxalite movement is what brings out my fury for politics in all its forms. Each side has their agenda, refuses to hear any other side or work out any kind of humane solution to problems. So the only thing that is accomplished is strife, and violence.
I did like the grand scope of the story because I like to know how the characters lives play out,maybe see just a little bit of a happily ever after for some of the characters. It gives you hope. The author does give us just a few rays of hope at the end.

Overall this was not the book for me. I did not see a lot of the lyrical writing I had heard about. I found the sentence structure to be choppy at times and a lot of the author saying "He sees...." or "She sees..." telling us what to see instead of showing us what to see. I want to read more from this author however, because I don't believe I should accept one novel as the representive of someone's work.

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Jan 19, 2014 Kasia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Does wishing a book hadn't ended mean that you were disappointed with the ending or that you wish you could spend more time with the characters? ...more

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