Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

It took me only a few pages to really buy into this one.  The first story, A Temporary Matter, is beautiful, and had me hooked right away and kept me that way to the end of the book.

There is a common conflict you can draw a line straight through all of these stories, the conflict of Old World vs New World, Indian vs Indian-American.  It is not necessarily a person to person conflict, but more culture against culture, and the gulf between American, and traditional Indian ways of life.  Lahiri, being born and raised in London and Rhode Island respectively, to Indian parents, clearly understands the subject matter she writes about.

People are constantly out of place and uncomfortable in their surroundings.  In the second story, Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, we meet a man who has been given a grant to travel to America and write a book about American foliage, yet on Halloween, he has no idea what a pumpkin is, “What are these large orange vegetables on people’s doorsteps?  A type of squash?”.  She creates a feeling in almost every story that someone has been scooped up and dropped in a place they don’t belong.  We get to see how they deal with it all.

This is a beautifully written book…actually, as I say that, my wife has just come into the room with tears in her eyes after reading the first story.  Uh, well, can’t argue with that.  Give it a chance if you haven’t already.