In my opinion, Lahiri's
Interpreter of maladies was thought provoking and detailed, but I did not enjoy reading it as much as the previous compilations. I feel that this is because I could not really find a connection between each of the short stories. There were several overarching themes that continued to present themselves in each story, but each short story seemed to be a completely separate entity from the previous. Some themes that popped up throughout the stories were infidelity, cross-cultural roles, and the search for belonging (with someone or in a particular place). I feel that the notion of wanting to belong to a particular group or place is an important theme that should be considered. From experience and stories of friends, it is common to feel out of place or uneasy in a new setting, such as moving from India to America or any other country. Therefore, it is important to notice how this plays into each short story, and how the characters handle themselves in these situations.
I found it interesting that even though each short story focused on narrower factors such as infidelity or love relations, almost all of the short stories revolved around or included some notion of cross-cultural differences between the Indian culture and the American culture. It seemed as though it was extremely important to layout and clearly define the lines that separated each culture. By doing so, this helped the readers understand how important culture is in different societies, and how different they can be interpreted amongst socially diverse groups.
Overall, Lahiri's compilation of short stories was interesting, but the it did not keep me fully engaged throughout the entire book. After a while, some of the plot lines began to run together, which made it difficult for me to stay alert and attached to the reading.
It's interesting that you mention that the stories seemed to "run together" for you--that the overlap between themes and situations in these stories served to confuse rather than to engage. I agree that these stories are far less cohesive as a unit than "Drown." I wonder if you would have reacted differently to the stories had you encountered them one at a time in journals or magazines?
ReplyDeleteI agree that Lahiri seems to make a point of outlining the differences between American and Indian cultures, as well as providing other overarching themes throughotu the book. Once clear instance was in the story about Mr. Pirzada, when the girl tries to reconcile her parents' and Mr. Pirzada's clear connection to the events happening in Daccur with the fact that ordinary American life goes on. On the one hand, the three adults watch the news every night and stay up all night trying to contact relatives, but on the other hand the girl celebrates Halloween like nothing is wrong. Another instance that stuck out to me was in the story about Mrs. Sen. After Lahiri sets the scene about how isolated Mrs. Sen is, and how she stays in the apartment all day chopping vegetables, the scene where she plays the tape her family made for her is very poignant.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the reoccuring themes in the plots of the stories, such as infidelity and the search for a place to belong, helped to tie the stories together, rather than make the plot lines run rogether. The common problems made it easier for me to accept the constantly changing point of view from story to story, from an American woman attracted to the exotic feel of an Indian man she meets in a store, to an Indian man who as a Hindu wants nothing to do with the Christian pieces his wife keeps finding around the house. Without common plot devices, the stories would be too different to function together in one novel.
Personally, I liked this book better than Drown, because at least one of the stories, "The Third and Final Continent," had an uplifiting ending. While Lahiri does emphasize the cultural gap between India and America, in the end she leaves the reader with the hope for finding a balance between the two.
I think there is something extremely important to be said about the way the stories seem to almost flow into one another. It could be that Lahiri just decided to use very similar characters often with very similar situations to deal with, and there is nothing else to it. Obviously love, the lack thereof, and cultural dissolutions play a prominent role throughout the stories. This of course would mean that there would be no real reason for Lahiri to put a lot of variety in her starting line up. The stories all deal with similar themes, thus the characters, the players driving the stories, really dont need to represent anything other than what is in jive with the theme.
ReplyDeleteNow the question is, does this similarity of stories create a compressing effect, lumping all stories together. I would argue that it doesn't matter. In DROWN Diaz jumps around in his stories enough to create stark contrasts within themselves. It is interesting though because Diaz kept essentially the same characters but there was little overlap in the stories, each one seemed to jump out. With Lahiri, she created new characters for every story, but yet the stories ran together. You Diaz uses the jumping back and forth between stories with the same characters as a way to personify the immigrant experience in that there are many different stories to tell but they are all essentially the same at the core. With Lahiri she takes the opposite approach and arrives at a similar conclusion about Indian culture and American culture and the marriage of the two in terms of people's relationships to one another. I dont believe it matters that after a while her stories begin to lose distinctiveness, because the ideas and themes she wanted to get across in this work were illustrated one way or another through the blurring of her stories
Interpreter of Maladies, was by far my favorite book of the year, which is one of the reasons that I chose to do my term paper on it. I love the fact that it is a collection of short-stories that individually say a lot, but as one unit it says a lot as well.
ReplyDeleteIndividually my favorite story definitely had to be “Sexy” just because I think that it was a complex story constrained by its short story genre, but it still says so much. From the parallel from the main characters coworker’s cousin’s cheating husband to herself, is so coincidental that it stays in the back of your mind though out the entire story; which I am pretty sure is the intent of the author. But I think that the biggest part of the story is when the little boy and his mom enter the plot. It is more so through the young boy, the effects of infidelity.
The use of the word sex y is so important in the story, not only is it the name of the short story; but the author presents it in two different situations. When she first hears the word sexy it gives her a completely different feeling, then from when she hears it from the little boy all though the word meant the same thing. But once she heard it from him, the meaning of the word changed personally to her. But before it was good thing to be complimented as sexy, but to be categorized with the “other woman,” takes away the special feeling.
I still can’t understand why she actually tried the dress on, but the results helped to end her relationship with the married man.