The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Fun fact: The first book I ever reviewed on The Story Girl was Unaccustomed Earth, the book Jhumpa Lahiri wrote before The Lowland. I have been a longtime fan of Jhumpa Lahiri, and The Lowland continued to solidify my positive relationship with her works.

The Lowland begins with two brothers, Udayan and Subhash, who are only 15 months apart. For most of their lives, they have very few differences from each other. Subhash can't remember the first fifteen months of his life, and he feels he has always orbited around the vibrant, insatiable Udayan. However, as they grow older, Udayan becomes immersed in politics as Subhash's studies take him away from India to America. When Udayan's death brings Subhash back to Calcutta and the lowland near their childhood home, Subhash must learn to exist separately from the life Udayan left behind -- a task that may prove impossible for him.

Here's the thing about Jhumpa Lahiri's writing: It is stunningly sharp and beautiful. She writes artistically but with clarity, never letting her imagery overpower the sense of what she is writing. Here's the other thing, though: it is frequently somewhat depressing. Her stories do not shrink from the sadness and regret that can permeate life. There were moments in The Lowland where I felt stifled by the sameness of Subhash's life, the loneliness that stretches on for years. There were moments when I wasn't sure that I wanted to finish it, because it seemed impossible to reach a happy ending.

In some ways, it didn't reach a happy ending. The Lowland is not a fairy tale, and issues are not magically resolved by the perfect lover or a fairy godmother. The characters do not change the sticky, difficult parts of their personalities. However, the book does settle into a satisfying place. It takes time for the issues to settle, to become livable, and they never become easy, but they do become bearable. While I've never been one to actively seek out realism (you'll never find me arguing against escapism in reading) I appreciate the fact that The Lowland doesn't take the easy way out. The characters don't get out of their unimaginably difficult situations, but they find ways to live with them, ways to redeem them, albeit in an imperfect way.

All this to say, The Lowland is, as expected, another masterpiece from an author that is an auto-read for me. It is full of contradictions -- difficult to read the issues, pleasurable to read the words, not always satisfying, but coming to its own place of redemption.

4 stars

Warnings: Some language, 2 brief sexual scenes, violence

Unaccustomed Earth

Yup, two reviews in one day. It's hard for me to blog during the week, so Sunday is my blogging catch-up day.

I LOVE Indian culture. I love the food (you should probably go get some takeout samosas right now and then finish reading), I love the movies (and then go rent Lagaan) and I LOVE the books. My grandma gave me Jhumpa Lahiri's first two books, Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake, after discovering this fact, and I loved them both, so I was excited to find Jhumpa's (pronunced "joompa") third book waiting for me on the library shelf.

Unaccustomed Earth is a book of eight short stories. Five of them are unconnected, and the last three involve the same two characters. The title comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Custom-House:" (Read "The Custom House" here. I am going to once I finish writing this post - I can't remember what it was about - 11th grade seems like a long time ago).

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generation, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and so far as their fortunes may be in my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth."

This book (and honestly, Lahiri's other two books) are about the lives of immigrants from India to the United States - their experiences in "unaccustomed earth." They must learn to adjust, for better or for worse, to their new surroundings, and those adjustments are always rocky.

Lahiri's stories are not just about immigrants, however - they are about laying bare the unanticipated moments that manage to change the course of the rest of your life. Lahiri manages to catch the precise moments when things start to fall apart, particularly in relationships - "She clipped the ribbon with scissors and stuffed the whole thing into the garbage, surprised at how easily it fit, thinking of the husband who no longer trusted her, of the son whose cry now interrupted her, of the fledgling family that had cracked open that morning, as typical and as terrifying as any other" (173).

That is the end of one of the stories, by the way - cheerful, isn't it? Sometimes Lahiri is too sad and too real - some of the stories stopped at places so tragic it made me feel like I was watching a frightening scene, even though nothing truly horrifying was occurring, just the mistakes that are possible in our lives. She takes small moments and magnifies them for all their potential ramifications, which isn't always uplifting.

However, part of Jhumpa's skill is that even though sometimes I didn't like her story, I couldn't stop reading until I finished, even skipping ahead to skim random pages and scattered sentences and then going back to finish the story anyway. Her stories are compelling and believable. There is a reason this lady won the Pulitzer. Her characters are flawed but endearing. (My favorite part is when a man is told not to color his rapidly graying hair - "it was distinguished, women would be drawn do it. He hadn't believed her but she was right; every woman he'd ever been involved with had confessed, at one point or another, that they found his gray hair sexy" (101). As the wife of a twenty-something going gray, I couldn't agree more!)

All things considered, this is a good book. Jhumpa Lahiri is a phenomenal writer. I didn't always love it, and sometimes it left me in a somewhat depressed mood, but I am glad I read it and would recommend it with a grain of salt.* 3.5

*I always wondered what that phrase meant, so I looked it up for you in case you were wondering too.