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Books : Interpreter of Maladies
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List Price: $24.00Amazon.com's Price: $15.60 You Save: $8.40 (35%)Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780618101368
ISBN: 0618101365
Label: Houghton Mifflin
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: May 22, 2000
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Studio: Houghton Mifflin
Sales Rank: 9246
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant. She is an important and powerful new voice.
Amazon.com Review:
Mr. Kapasi, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri's title story, would certainly have his work cut out for him if he were forced to interpret the maladies of all the characters in this eloquent debut collection. Take, for example, Shoba and Shukumar, the young couple in "A Temporary Matter" whose marriage is crumbling in the wake of a stillborn child. Or Miranda in "Sexy," who is involved in a hopeless affair with a married man. But Mr. Kapasi has problems enough of his own; in addition to his regular job working as an interpreter for a doctor who does not speak his patients' language, he also drives tourists to local sites of interest. His fare on this particular day is Mr. and Mrs. Das--first-generation Americans of Indian descent--and their children. During the course of the afternoon, Mr. Kapasi becomes enamored of Mrs. Das and then becomes her unwilling confidant when she reads too much into his profession. "I told you because of your talents," she informs him after divulging a startling secret. I'm tired of feeling so terrible all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I've been in pain eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better; say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy. Of course, Mr. Kapasi has no cure for what ails Mrs. Das--or himself. Lahiri's subtle, bittersweet ending is characteristic of the collection as a whole. Some of these nine tales are set in India, others in the United States, and most concern characters of Indian heritage. Yet the situations Lahiri's people face, from unhappy marriages to civil war, transcend ethnicity. As the narrator of the last story, "The Third and Final Continent," comments: "There are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept." In that single line Jhumpa Lahiri sums up a universal experience, one that applies to all who have grown up, left home, fallen in or out of love, and, above all, experienced what it means to be a foreigner, even within one's own family. --Alix Wilber
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Interpreter of Maladies
As I read the book I begin to discover myself in many of the characters.
This is obviously the power of the writing. It is a difficult task particularly when a writer portrays the character of an opposite sex. It makes me wonder though: Is the author a woman who in a previous life was a man or am I a man who in a previous life was a woman. Or, am I a character brought to life that would disappear when the reading is finished?
Rating:  -
One of the reviews of this book called the stories, "bland." I prefer to think of them as "subtle." To make a food analogy, these stories are each lovely, lightly, but delicately spiced, appetizers. Each story presents its characters in a straightforward, clear and precise manner, with little inserted point of view; thus, allowing the reader to deeply feel the thoughts and emotions of each character. I was particularly moved by This Blessed House, which tells the story of Sanjeev and Twinkle, ... Read More
Rating:  -
I had been practicing speed reading over the course of a few books. Simultaneously reading Dickens's "David Copperfield" and Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago," there were moments in those books when my pace halted to a screech in the presence of a crystalline line. With Lahiri's book, I decided I could take my time with such a slim volume, after all Raymond Carver (and Gordon Lish) were able to pack so much punch into 2-3 pages. Remarkably, I trudged from one paragraph to another in Lahiri's ... Read More
Rating: -
First off, I can't believe that I have never read this before. Maybe because the Pulitzer Prize was won, I figured that the stories would be too difficult to read or understand. Even though I really loved only 5 of the stories, the other 4 were enjoyable, I just didn't like them as much as the former.
My favorities were: A Temporary Matter, about a young couple who happened to have electricity disconnected for one hour each day, to repair the lines after a snowstorm. The couple also ... Read More
Rating: -
Early on in the book I was reminded of Eric Berne's work of forty years ago...which he titled Games People Play in an attempt to describe both functional and dysfunctional social interactions.
Berne described the types of social interactions. Now comes Jhumpa Lahiri with her extraordinary talent which allows her to describe how these people communicate with each other and more amazingly, what they say when they communicate with themselves.
She is truly an Interpreter of Maladies ... Read More
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