Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 09:54:08 -0800
From: "C. J. S. Wallia" <cjwallia-AT-indiastar.com>
Subject: Jhumpa Lahiri
Tue, 11 Apr 2000
A review of Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies" for which she
won this year's Pulitzer prize for fiction.
C. J. Wallia
*****************
C. J. S. Wallia, Ph.D.
Editor, IndiaStar Review of Books
http://www.indiastar.com
Phone & Fax: (510) 848-8200; cjwallia-AT-slip.net
P.O. Box 5582, Berkeley, CA 94705, U.S.A.
**************************************
==========
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)
198 pages; $12
Reviewed by C. J. S. Wallia
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, a
collection of
nine stories, marks the debut of a remarkable
Indian-American writer. Her title story
has been selected
for both the O'Henry award and the annual Best
American Short Stories.
Born in London of Indian parents and raised in Rhode
Island, Jhumpa Lahiri studied at Boston University,
receiving a Ph. D. in English. The stories
in her first book
focus on the intercultural
miscommunications and conflicts
experienced by Indian immigrants and
second generation
Indian-Americans.
"Interpreter of Maladies," at 27 pages the
longest in the
collection, is a multi-layered story about a
second-generation Indian-American couple, who along
with their three children are visiting
India and hire a
tour-guide to see the famous Sun Temple at Konarak.
The opening sentence announces the "bickering"
symptomatic of this failing marriage.
Their guide, Mr.
Kapasi, becomes curious about the couple who look
Indian, yet dress like American tourists
and speak with an
American accent he had heard many times on American
TV shows.
Early on, Mr. Kapasi (we never learn his
first name) tells
them that he works as a tour guide only on
weekends, and
has another job during the weekdays as an
interpreter in a
doctor's office- - translating the
Gujarati spoken by some
of his patients. Mina Das, the wife, says
she finds Mr.
Kapasi's job as an interpreter of maladies
"romantic."
Surprised by her response, Mr. Kapasi,
from whose point
of view the whole story is told, looks at
her more closely:
" . . . it flattered Mr. Kapasi that Mrs. Das was so
intrigued by his job. Unlike his wife, she
had reminded
him of its intellectual challenges. She
had also used the
word 'romantic.' She did not behave in a
romantic way
toward her husband, and yet she had used the word to
describe him. He wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Das were a
bad match, just as he and his wife were.
Perhaps they,
too, had little in common apart from three
children and a
decade of their lives. The signs he
recognized from his
own marriage were there -- the bickering,
the indifference,
the protracted silences. Her sudden
interest in him, an
interest she did not express in either her
husband or her
children, was mildly intoxicating. When Mr. Kapasi
thought once again about how she had said
"romantic,"
the feeling of intoxication grew."
The couple invite Mr. Kapasi to be included in the
photographs they take and Mrs. Das asks
him to give her
his address so they can send him copies
after their return
to America. This further encourages Mr. Kapasi, who
begins to fantasize a romantic future with Mina.
At the crisis point of the story, when the
two of them are
in the car, Mina discloses (although the
author uses the
word "confesses") to Mr. Kapasi that one
of the couple's
two boys was clandestinely fathered by her husband's
Punjabi-Indian friend during a brief
visit. This is the
malady which she hopes Mr. Kapasi will provide a
remedy for:
"Don't you see? For eight years I haven't been
able to express this to anybody, not friends,
certainly not to Raj. He doesn't
even suspect it.
He thinks I'm still in love with
him. Well, don't
you have anything to say?"
"About what?"
"About what I've just told you.
About my secret,
and about how terrible it makes me
feel. I feel
terrible looking at my children, and at Raj,
always terrible. I have terrible
urges, Mr. Kapasi,
to throw things away. One day I had
the urge to
throw everything I own out the window, the
television, the children,
everything. Don't you
think it's unhealthy?"
He was silent.
"Mr. Kapasi, don't you have anything to say? I
thought that was your job."
"My job is to give tours, Mrs. Das."
"Not that. Your other job. As an interpreter."
"But we do not face a language barrier. What
need is there for an interpreter?"
"That's not what I mean. I would
never have told
you otherwise. Don't you realize what it means
for me to tell you?
"What does it mean?"
"It means that I'm tired of feeling
so terrible all
the time. Eight yars, Mr. Kapasi, I've been in
pain years. I was hoping you could
help me feel
better, say the right thing. Suggest
some kind of
remedy."
All Mr. Kapasi can come up with is: "Is it
really pain you
feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?"
In the closing paragraph, Mr. Kapasi
observes the little
paper, on which he had so carefully
written his address,
slip out of Mina's handbag. "No one but Mr. Kapasi
noticed. He watched as it rose, carried
higher and higher
by the breeze, into the trees where the
monkeys now sat,
solemnly observing the scene below. Mr. Kapasi
observed it too, knowing that this was the
picture of the
Das family he would preserve forever in his mind."
"The Third and Final Continent" is a
first-person story of
the first few weeks of an Indian immigrant
in America
thirty years ago. At age thirty-six, in
the late 1960s, he
arrives to work as a librarian at the
Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, after studying in London
for four years.
Just before coming to America, he takes a
trip to Calcutta
to "attend" his arranged marriage, staying
there for only a
week, barely getting acquainted with his
bride. Before she
can join him in America, she has to obtain
a visa for which
she has to wait six weeks.
On arrival in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the narrator
checks into the local YMCA and later rents
a room in the
home of a 103-year-old widow, Mrs. Croft,
who lives by
herself. She is a stay-at-home eccentric mother of a
68-year-old daughter, who thinks it
improper that her
visiting daughter wears a dress high above
her ankle.
"For your information, Mother, it's 1969. What would
you do if you actually left the house one
day and saw a
girl in a miniskirt?"
Mrs. Croft sniffed. "I'd have her arrested."
When the narrator's wife, Mala, arrives
from Calcutta,
Mrs. Croft scrutinizes her "from top to
toe with what
seemed to be placid disdain. I wondered if
Mrs. Croft had
ever seen a woman in a sari, with a dot
painted on her
forehead and bracelets stacked on her
wrists. I wondered
what she would object to. I wondered if
she could see the
red dye still vivid on Mala's feet, all
but obscured by the
bottom edge of her sari. At last Mrs.
Croft declared, with
equal measure of disbelief and delight I know well":
"She is a perfect lady!"
It is during this scrutiny that the
narrator begins to
empathize with his bride for it reminds
him of his own
earlier experiences as a bewildered
stranger in London.
Looking back, "I like to think of that
moment in Mrs.
Croft's parlor as the moment when the
distance between
Mala and me began to lessen."
All nine of the stories are very well crafted.
Tue, 11 Apr 2000
A review of Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies" for which she won
this year's Pulitzer prize for fiction.
C. J. Wallia
<fontfamily><param>Times</param><smaller><smaller><smaller>*****************
</smaller></smaller></smaller></fontfamily><smaller><smaller><smaller>C.
J. S. Wallia, Ph.D.
Editor, IndiaStar Review of Books
http://www.indiastar.com
Phone & Fax: (510) 848-8200; cjwallia-AT-slip.net
P.O. Box 5582, Berkeley, CA 94705, U.S.A.
<fontfamily><param>Times</param>**************************************
</fontfamily></smaller></smaller></smaller>==========
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)
198 pages; $12
Reviewed by C. J. S. Wallia
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, a
collection of
nine stories, marks the debut of a
remarkable
Indian-American writer. Her title story has
been selected
for both the O'Henry award and the annual
Best
American Short Stories.
Born in London of Indian parents and raised
in Rhode
Island, Jhumpa Lahiri studied at Boston
University,
receiving a Ph. D. in English. The stories
in her first book
focus on the intercultural miscommunications
and conflicts
experienced by Indian immigrants and second
generation
Indian-Americans.
"Interpreter of Maladies," at 27 pages the
longest in the
collection, is a multi-layered story about
a
second-generation Indian-American couple,
who along
with their three children are visiting India
and hire a
tour-guide to see the famous Sun Temple at
Konarak.
The opening sentence announces the
"bickering"
symptomatic of this failing marriage. Their
guide, Mr.
Kapasi, becomes curious about the couple who
look
Indian, yet dress like American tourists and
speak with an
American accent he had heard many times on
American
TV shows.
Early on, Mr. Kapasi (we never learn his
first name) tells
them that he works as a tour guide only on
weekends, and
has another job during the weekdays as an
interpreter in a
doctor's office- - translating the Gujarati
spoken by some
of his patients. Mina Das, the wife, says
she finds Mr.
Kapasi's job as an interpreter of maladies
"romantic."
Surprised by her response, Mr. Kapasi, from
whose point
of view the whole story is told, looks at
her more closely:
" . . . it flattered Mr. Kapasi that Mrs.
Das was so
intrigued by his job. Unlike his wife, she
had reminded
him of its intellectual challenges. She had
also used the
word 'romantic.' She did not behave in a
romantic way
toward her husband, and yet she had used the
word to
describe him. He wondered if Mr. and Mrs.
Das were a
bad match, just as he and his wife were.
Perhaps they,
too, had little in common apart from three
children and a
decade of their lives. The signs he
recognized from his
own marriage were there -- the bickering,
the indifference,
the protracted silences. Her sudden interest
in him, an
interest she did not express in either her
husband or her
children, was mildly intoxicating. When Mr.
Kapasi
thought once again about how she had said
"romantic,"
the feeling of intoxication grew."
The couple invite Mr. Kapasi to be included
in the
photographs they take and Mrs. Das asks him
to give her
his address so they can send him copies
after their return
to America. This further encourages Mr.
Kapasi, who
begins to fantasize a romantic future with
Mina.
At the crisis point of the story, when the
two of them are
in the car, Mina discloses (although the
author uses the
word "confesses") to Mr. Kapasi that one of
the couple's
two boys was clandestinely fathered by her
husband's
Punjabi-Indian friend during a brief visit.
This is the
malady which she hopes Mr. Kapasi will
provide a
remedy for:
<smaller> "Don't you see? For eight
years I haven't been
able to express this to anybody, not
friends,
certainly not to Raj. He doesn't even
suspect it.
He thinks I'm still in love with him.
Well, don't
you have anything to say?"
"About what?"
"About what I've just told you. About
my secret,
and about how terrible it makes me
feel. I feel
terrible looking at my children, and
at Raj,
always terrible. I have terrible
urges, Mr. Kapasi,
to throw things away. One day I had
the urge to
throw everything I own out the window,
the
television, the children, everything.
Don't you
think it's unhealthy?"
He was silent.
"Mr. Kapasi, don't you have anything
to say? I
thought that was your job."
"My job is to give tours, Mrs. Das."
"Not that. Your other job. As an
interpreter."
"But we do not face a language
barrier. What
need is there for an interpreter?"
"That's not what I mean. I would never
have told
you otherwise. Don't you realize what
it means
for me to tell you?
"What does it mean?"
"It means that I'm tired of feeling so
terrible all
the time. Eight yars, Mr. Kapasi, I've
been in
pain years. I was hoping you could
help me feel
better, say the right thing. Suggest
some kind of
remedy."
</smaller> All Mr. Kapasi can come up with
is: "Is it really pain you
feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?"
In the closing paragraph, Mr. Kapasi
observes the little
paper, on which he had so carefully written
his address,
slip out of Mina's handbag. "No one but Mr.
Kapasi
noticed. He watched as it rose, carried
higher and higher
by the breeze, into the trees where the
monkeys now sat,
solemnly observing the scene below. Mr.
Kapasi
observed it too, knowing that this was the
picture of the
Das family he would preserve forever in his
mind."
"The Third and Final Continent" is a
first-person story of
the first few weeks of an Indian immigrant
in America
thirty years ago. At age thirty-six, in the
late 1960s, he
arrives to work as a librarian at the
Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, after studying in London for
four years.
Just before coming to America, he takes a
trip to Calcutta
to "attend" his arranged marriage, staying
there for only a
week, barely getting acquainted with his
bride. Before she
can join him in America, she has to obtain a
visa for which
she has to wait six weeks.
On arrival in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the
narrator
checks into the local YMCA and later rents a
room in the
home of a 103-year-old widow, Mrs. Croft,
who lives by
herself. She is a stay-at-home eccentric
mother of a
68-year-old daughter, who thinks it improper
that her
visiting daughter wears a dress high above
her ankle.
"For your information, Mother, it's 1969.
What would
you do if you actually left the house one
day and saw a
girl in a miniskirt?"
Mrs. Croft sniffed. "I'd have her
arrested."
When the narrator's wife, Mala, arrives from
Calcutta,
Mrs. Croft scrutinizes her "from top to toe
with what
seemed to be placid disdain. I wondered if
Mrs. Croft had
ever seen a woman in a sari, with a dot
painted on her
forehead and bracelets stacked on her
wrists. I wondered
what she would object to. I wondered if she
could see the
red dye still vivid on Mala's feet, all but
obscured by the
bottom edge of her sari. At last Mrs. Croft
declared, with
equal measure of disbelief and delight I
know well":
"She is a perfect lady!"
It is during this scrutiny that the narrator
begins to
empathize with his bride for it reminds him
of his own
earlier experiences as a bewildered stranger
in London.
Looking back, "I like to think of that
moment in Mrs.
Croft's parlor as the moment when the
distance between
Mala and me began to lessen."
All nine of the stories are very well
crafted.
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