Monday, February 2, 2009

Lahiri

I really enjoyed reading the Interpreter of Maladies. Although the themes were complex they were easily identified which made the book that much better.

In particular I noticed that most of Lahiri’s stories in some way had to do with marriage, and loveless marriages at that. This really hit home while I was reading the story titled “The Intepreter of Maladies.” Although I was looking for some sort of significance, I really think that when Mr. Kapasi said “The Chandrabhaga River once flowed one mile north of here. It is dry now,” was a symbolism for the love in a marriage drying up. In addition to loveless marriage I think the more general theme we could take with us is that all humans, whether Indian, American, or any race, need compassion and reassure of their existence through a partner or even just any other human. The compassion in the last story the main character had toward Mrs. Croft really emphasized that. I was curious as to whether the irregular age of Mrs. Croft was emphasized for a purpose or just mere detai?

Another thing I noticed in most of the stories was the element of food and the roled it played for that family. Most of the families in the stories could not completely let go of the culture of their past even though they were in America. I found that more than anything they clung to food as a comfort. For example, the egg curry in the last story and the seafood in Mrs. Sen’s story were often repeated over and over to emphasize the longing they still had for their life in India and the hard time they had adapting.

These short stories were comparable to Drown in the sense that they also touched on the American dreams. In Mrs. Sen’s Lahiri wrote, “Send me pictures they write.’ ‘Send pictures of your new life.’ What picture can I send?” She sat exhausted on the edge of the bed where there was now barely any room for her. “They think I live the life of a queen.” She looked around the blank walls of the room. “They think I press a button and the house is clean. They think I live in a palace." Although in some stories they came to America and made a great life for themselves, in at least two of the stories the characters actually claimed life in India was better. Most of the characters seemed to endure hardships and troubles no matter where they were .


For me this was definitely the best book we've read so far.

9 comments:

  1. I agree with this post. I just wanted to comment about something we discussed in class....the idea of American education being portrayed badly in the book. I wonder if this was the intention of the author. Although I agree international issues are not largely a part of elementary education, I think that I received a lot of education about other countries and religion as a young student. I thought the scene with the teacher taking the book away from the girl was not a completely fair representation of American schools. For all the teacher knew the girl was just misbehaving and not doing her assignment. The child's reasoning for reading the book was never explained to the teacher. Although I enjoyed the book very much and think that cultural pride is a very important part of life, I just was a little concerned about the way some of it was portrayed. Overall, I loved the story though.

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  2. As a response to the opening post, I too enjoyed reading this book a lot. I liked in particular, the ease of the reading, especially as each story flows really quick, and without having much to ponder on about. Though, as I finished the book, I was a bit disappointed that it had won the Pulitzer Prize. No doubt it is a good read, but it seemed too simplistic (maybe that’s what they are looking for?) and too straight-forward for such a huge award. I kept comparing the book to Arundathi Roy’s “God of Small Things”, and I felt it came a bit short of achieving its effects.

    For example, I agree with the above post about some degree of exaggeration in the stories, such as the American teacher not allowing a child to read a particular book. Also, it might help build a stereotypical belief of Indian food habits such fish, egg curry etc., whereas the whole book for the most part deals with only one area of India (West Bengal). West Bengal (including Calcutta) has its own deep cultural roots and is significantly different from rest of India. It also seemed to portray that Westernized women (whether they were British, American, or Indian Americans), seemed to have very loose morale, and are more sexualized than a traditional Indian woman would be.

    Still, given its short comings in my opinion, the stories had some really good points. For example, in “Sexy”, Miranda was trying to spell the first part of her name in Bengali, and wasn’t sure if she had just wrote “Mira” or “Mara”. Now “Mara” in this foreign language means “to hurt someone or even kill”, which I thought was very cleverly portrayed, but hard to decipher. I also liked the wide range of the stories, as they weren’t particularly alike each other. They ranged from a couple having lost the love in their marriage, to a poor mistreated woman in the streets of Calcutta, to a story of a lonely woman and cheating in a relationship, and of course, story of immigrants longing for the comforts of “home”. In particular, the last story was simply excellent and very moving. Almost every little detail was mentioned, such as an immigrant’s life in a new country, an uncomfortable start to the “arranged” marriage, behavior of the old woman, attaining the American dream. It just felt like a complete story.

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  3. I too enjoyed reading this collection but I was disturbed by her portrayal of women. I am really tired of reading stories where women are always weak and somehow inadequate. In almost all of the stories that featured women, these characters were either sexualized or childlike. While the weakened character traits were, in some instances, attempting to show the difficulty of immigrant life, most of the time Lahiri was primarily creating simple female characters who were dull, or self involved, or just annoying. None of the women had any energy or power and I was just left craving something more from these characters. I may be on a feminist rant but I just felt she could have empowered some women in her work.

    I found it interesting that she did create strong female character who was a young child. The little girl in "When Mr Prizada Came to Dine" was, for me, he most interesting and complex character that Lahiri created. She was young and innocent but yet seemed very mature. She listened and really thought about what he father told her and she really cared for Mr Prizada and his well being.

    Overall I would say the collection was very well written with great descriptions. I also liked the way she layered different meanings into her stories. But I was put off by the fact that I disliked almost every character Lahiri created in her work.

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  4. I agree with Rahul's statement that I didn't necessarily find this Pulitzer Prize worthy. I'm no expert and it was a beautiful set of short stories, but for the most part I didn't find this collection astonishingly original or deep. I, too, am curious if I'm missing something or if there is some special element in this book that makes it worthy of such a distinguished award.

    The theme I found to be the most prominent personally was identity. The idea of identity doesn't just refer to the Indian and American cultures that are juxtaposed throughout, but the idea of who a person really is. In some stories, this identity is cultural--or the discovery in culture as in "When Mr. Pirzanda came to Dine." In others this identity refers to marital identity (or the lack there of), sexual identity, socio-economic identity, etc. Overall, in each story I saw the main characters in an internal struggle that related to Indian culture in some aspect and usually reflected the conflict of the story,

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  5. Oh, the Pulitzer for literature is notoriously capricious! Indeed, this is a beautiful collection, but every year brings many beautiful collections. It serves to reminds us of the fact that these committees are made up of human beings with their own preferences and agendas.

    Returning to Alyse's post, I think that Mrs. Croft's age is really essential to what Lahiri is trying to do with the generational issues that pervade the collection. Her portrayals of the elderly are nearly as fraught as her portrayals of women. Thank you for bringing that up, Marissa! I've often wondered about how conscious Lahiri is about her female characters--at least the adults--who seem to be defined by their sexual identities in some very destructive ways. Even Mrs. Sen is more or less distinguished by her lack thereof--the knife blade destroying the fruit, etc.

    Finally, Rahul, your perceptions of these stories are absolutely invaluable in our discussions, since you're able to give us first-hand insights into the cultural framework of the text. Keep them coming!

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  6. I agree with Alyse that this was the best book we have read to date. Its plots were simple and after each story I was anxious to figure out how it may have continued.

    I felt that Lahiri was able to engage the reader in each individual story. Someone mentioned that after a while they all seemed to run together, for me this style of writing had a different effect. I felt as if each story, although similar in regards to the reoccurrences of food, loveless marriages, and the strong ties of one of the characters to his culture, had something unique.

    Through Mrs. Sen’s aversion to driving to the Das family’s “need” for an air-conditioned car each story had its own purpose. I am not exactly sure whether or not the author was criticizing the American lifestyle and culture and how quickly people may forget about their heritage, or whether she was just displaying what one may experience moving into a foreign country, leaving everything he once knew behind. I think it was more of a view from the other side, not a critical nor an offensive piece of literature.

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  7. People have mentioned that they don't understand why this book won the Pulitzer Prize. Well I have the opinion that the committee looks for a book that is special, unique, entertaining, and thought provoking. I think that this book met all those requirements. While a book that is divided into several short stories creates a since of discontinuity, it also allows for comparsisons between characters and events.

    I found myself constantly analyzing and looking for similarities as I read from one chapter to the next. Each story had a theme of longing and hope that highlighted an emotion that everyone feels and could relate to. It also seemed like each story contained some sort of surprise that kept me interested and thinking. With a book that is divided up like this, there are a lot more climaxes and excitement, compared to a traditional book with rising action, one climax, and an ending.

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  8. I completely agree with Alyse in that what made this book such a powerful read were the complex yet easily identifiable themes. I feel like a lot of the time when I read a book in which I know I'm supposed to be searching for a deeper underlying meaning I tend to go crazy with analyzing and come up with some pretty "interesting" interpretations. This leaves me questioning what exactly the author wanted me to get from the book. However, in this novel the themes, such as the way culture affects us and our desire for someone besides ourselves to appreciate our existence on this earth, were unmistakable; leaving me as a reader fully satiated.

    My favorite motif in the book though, by far, is the food. I love food. The constant references to different Indian dishes over and over again gives you a true sense of the huge role food plays in Indian culture. It seems to be the one thing that kept the characters connected to their heritage despite how far they had distanced themselves from it. Reading I redesigned a popular phrase - "You can take the Indian out of India, but you can't take India out of the Indian." What I do wonder though is why would food be the one thing Lahiri chose for her characters to hold on to? (Probably because it's so delicious.)

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  9. Just to add to Marissa"s comment, I too thought it was interesting that all the female characters that were immigrants from India were weak. But honestly I think that it is an Americanized way of looking at these women. Its my understanding that in most non-American cultures the man is the stereotypical breadwinner while the woman takes on the role of raising a household and in some of the stories like Mrs. Sen she simply is just playing her role. I also think that these women are portrayed as the weaker of the sexes to show their complete assimilation to American culture. For instance Mrs. Daas refusing to act as a mother should and just be self absorbed indicates that the author believes that women in America are materialistic and unaware of their role as women.

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