I found Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies" to be a subtle yet layered and detailed collection of short stories. Lahiri's extensive attention to the idiosyncrasies of her characters gives the stories an intimate and personal feel. The juxtaposition between Indian/Pakastani and American culture is the central theme of the work, and the way Lahiri depicts it through the eyes of several different types of characters helped my understanding of and identification with the work. I particularly liked her usage of understatement and subtle repitition to distinguish her characters and help to illuminate their emotions and motivations.
The story "Interpreter of Maladies" was one which i felt was very representative of the collection as a whole. The way in which Mrs. Das view Mr. Kapasi as an Indian elder figure, while he views her as a young American object of a sort of lust, exemplifies the "clash" between the two cultures which Lahiri herself seems to be a product of and which the work's characters deal with constantly. I liked the way that the entire family seemed detached from their experience, and even the parents act like older siblings, begrudging and unwilling to assume responsibility for their own children. Another strong suit of the stories was the way that Lahiri left many of them unresolved, perhaps to a stopping point, but never brings her works to fruition. This gives the collection a very open-ended sense about it, and speaks to the vulnerability and sense of loss which many of her characters experience.
Overall, i very much enjoyed Lahiri's work. I thought that a few of the plotlines grew tired, and some pof the characters ran together, but the work accomplished just what it seemed to set out to accomplish. It is an intriguing summary of the foreign experience.
The comparison and juxtaposition of American and Indian/Pakistani culture also helped me to better understand the novel. I felt that the relationship between the three cultures was one of the main themes in Lahiri's collection. She deals with the clash that exists between American and Indian culture and also highlights people's inabilities to fit into American culture once immersed in it. Lahiri also highlights characters who are Indian but seem to have lost their roots because they have been raised in American culture. She seems to critique these characters heavily.
ReplyDeleteWhat most struck me about the novel in regards to this theme was how Lahiri handled India/Pakistan relations was in the story "When Mr. Prizada Came to Dine". She made a huge statement about the conflict between the two nations by highlighting the little girl's inability to see differences between her parents, who are Indian, and Mr.Prizada, who is Pakistani. The little girl's father is trying to explain how Mr. Prizada is different from them, but she fails to fully grasp the concept because she is unable to see and recognize the differences her father is explaining to her. She is especially confused because, according to her father, Mr. Prizada would have been considered Indian until the Partition. Then his nationality changed in a day's time. He still maintains the customs and characteristics that made him Indian before the partition, but because of politics, he is no longer Indian. He is now considered Pakistani and for that he must be seen as different. This is a statement that the differences between Pakistanis and Indians are merely social constructions that have become seemingly common knowledge to those in the respective cultures, but when one really sits down and examine the two nations, they see how intertwined they really are. This analysis makes the divide between the two groups seem superficial and unnecessary.
I want to expand upon what we talked about today in class with the overarching themes of the books.
ReplyDeleteAs Rahul pointed out, the back of the book does identify one of the major themes of all the short stories "this collection charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations." Based off the outcomes of the stories, Lahiri indicates that love and relationships between people from other countries or generations either completely fails, or at the least faces many obstacles. In "Mrs. Sen's," we see the tension in the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Sen as Mrs. Sen struggles to adapt to life in the USA. In “Sexy,” Lahiri details the deterioration of the love between a married man and his mistress.
Along with the theme of love, the theme of infidelity also pervades in the stories. This infidelity does not always come in the form of betrayal in relationships. In “This Blessed House,” for example, Twinkle betrays her Hindu religion as she collects and treasures the Christian art and items that she finds in her house. In “The Interpreter of Maladies,” Mrs. Das’s is constantly reminded of her infidelity to her husband through her love child.
What other overarching themes did we talk about in class that people noticed?
It's so interesting that more than one of you has mentioned that the plotlines and characters seemed to blend together in Lahiri's work. It's true that she does seem to be working with a pretty tight palette of "types" or characters. Henry also alludes to the power of repetition. I wonder where the line is crossed between this useful and powerful repetition and the blurring and running together that some of you have noticed?
ReplyDeleteI agree that this book helped me understand the Indian culture a little better but I would have to disagree that by her leaving the stories so open at the end and not totally explaining details throughout certain stories left me somewhat annoyed. Like in "The treatment of Bibi Haldar" Lahiri never told us how Bibi got pregnant which made me slightly pity her cause I believed she had been raped but then made me look at it as a symbol of God finally giving her the cure she really needed.
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