Jhumpa Lahiri

A beautifully written collection of short stories about the experience of immigrant Bengalis to America. The book fully deserves the multiple prizes it won: the Pulitzer Prize 2000, Pen/Hemingway Award (2000), New Yorker’s Debut Book of the Year (2000) and the Puddly Award for Short Stories (2001).

The author is of Bengali heritage, was born in England and brought up in America. There are about 250 million Bengalis in the subcontinent, about 2/3 making up the Muslim nation of Bangladesh and about 1/3, mostly Hindus, in West Bengal, a state in India with Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) its major city. The stories mention the Partition of India when Pakistan was separated off from India by the departing British to create a Muslim homeland. Later when West Pakistan began to insist on Urdu as its official language and to oppress the Bengali people and their language, East Pakistan broke off and became the independent country of Bangladesh.

The stories are a poignant collection of loss, longing, and trying to come to terms with the unfamiliar.

A Temporary Matter: A married couple, Shukumar and Shoba, have drifted apart and begun to live separate lives until a four night power outage brings them together again.

When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine: Mr. Pirzada is a botany professor from Dhaka studying in America who is befriended by an Indian family and their young daughter. Together they watch the news every night about the Bangladesh Independence War and worry about the wife and seven daughters he has left behind.

Interpreter of Maladies: An American born couple of Indian heritage visit India with their family and hire Mr. Kapasi, a tour guide and Gujurati interpreter for the day. Their self absorbed ways and offhanded parenting style shock him somewhat and illustrates the differences between the two countries.

A Real Durwan: Boori Ma is a 64-year-old woman from Calcutta who is the stairsweeper, of an old brick building, who the residents allow to sleep in front of the gates leading into the tenement.

Sexy: Miranda meets regularly with her Indian colleague, and hears her outrage about her cousin’s husband leaving her for a white woman. She is afraid to admit that she herself is having an affair with a married Indian man named Dev. After a while the affair loses some of its sparkle.

Mrs. Sen's: 11-year-old Eliot begins being babysat after school by Mrs. Sen, a lonely Indian university professor's wife. As she chops and prepares food she tells Eliot stories of her past life in Calcutta and shares her homesickness.

This Blessed House: Sanjeev and Twinkle have moved into a new house in Connecticut. They keep finding religious icons hidden throughout the house. Sanjeev seems to find Twinkle and her simple delight in life irritating although everyone else finds her charming.

The Treatment of Bibi Haldar: 29-year-old Bibi Haldar has an incurable mysterious ailment and so remains shunned by society. Her greatest longing is to be married with children.

The Third and Final Continent: The narrator lives in India, then moves to London, then finally to America. While awaiting the arrival of his new wife from India, his first home in America is boarding with a cantankerous 103 year old woman who unknowingly changes their lives and perceptions of each other.

This is an insightful book that I would highly recommend.… (plus d'informations)

Consequences

Media: Audio
Read by: Deepti Gupta, Carlotta Brentan, Cassandra Campbell, Ari Fliakos, Michael Obiora
Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins

Lahiri is such an adept story-teller, and it’s always a delight to read her collections. There are eight stories ranging in listening length from 20 minutes to almost one hour. If there’s any commonality between the stories it is that they were all written in Italian - not Lahiri’s main language - and translated by her, to her primary language of English. It was because of this that I put off reading the book, not seeing the point, and fearing something’s may have been lost in translation.

There are several themes that reappear in the stories, the main one being that they all involve people moving continents for major slabs of their lives. Some for professional reasons, others for reasons of life or death.

She describes an aspect of expat life in her last story of the book, mysteriously entitled, “Dante Alighieri”. In it one of the characters travels twice yearly between the East coast of America to Italy and back, twice yearly. She’s so blasé about this long air flight that she doesn’t even look at the scenery from the cab window as she leaves the airport to travel to her homes. I know the feeling, having split my life between Australia and America for over ten years.

Most of the short stories are set in Rome, but I didn’t get much feel of Italian life coming through. The stories could have been set in any Western European country experiencing mass migration from Africa and Asia.

Many of the stories, “The Steps” in particular, hinge upon individuals doing innocuous acts that end up having severe and unexpected consequences. Set on the Steps in Rome, where young people lark around as in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, we get the feel of the ancient city and the unchanging nature of the human condition. “The Steps” and “The Well-lit House” which quietly describes the bigotry and poverty that refugees can be subject to in western countries, were my favorite stories.

Roman Stories is a quiet and gentle read that packs its punches when least expected. Recommended.… (plus d'informations)