Reading update

After an upsetting day, I come home, sprawl down on the bed, and open the pages of Unaccustomed Earth, a book I had been reading all throughout the week, often keeping myself awake late into the night. It was obvious that I liked the book. Jhumpa Lahiri’s words drew me like a force, in a quiet and unassuming manner. And it allowed me to take a peep into others’ life and forget my own. But, well, there were moments when the peep into others’ life gave a glimpse of the pain and wonder that lay buried within self, freshly coming alive from the recess of forgotten memories. And that, probably, is the triumph of Jhumpa Lahiri’s fictional characters; they allow us to feel the pain and alienation of their lives in a way few fictional characters can.

Long back, I had been stumped by the stories in Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut short story collection, The Interpreter of Maladies, which I had read when I was still in college. I realize now that there were some pretty sloppy stories in that collection; but, nonetheless, some of the stories have withstood the test of time and still remain etched in my memory, the characters still alive like I’ve seen them in real life. In fact, I can still recall the way some of the stories – A Temporary Matter, Sexy, and The Third and Final Continent – touched me. Of course I was young and impressionable back then, but I have a feeling that I’ll like them even if I reread these stories today.

The next book of Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake, didn’t come my way for a long time. And when it finally came, I didn’t get a chance to finish it. Till date it remains half-read, and I have ambivalent feelings towards that.

Now, with Unaccustomed Earth, I am again back to the fold, gleefully admiring the stories contained in this collection. Some of the stories in this collection had kept me awake late into the night, and these sleepless nights are probably my compliments to these stories. I have often come across comments disparaging Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing as being confined to the Indian diaspora. I don’t care much about such comments, of course. I have liked these stories and that’s it. Period. As long as she can invent stories of such quality drawn from the limited milieu of Indian (read Bengali) diaspora and still not appear hackneyed, I have no issues reading about her stories.

Among other books I recently read, Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies was a bit of let-down; Irène Némirovsky’s All Our Worldly Goods was pretty good (am picking up Suite Française next); and Qurratulain Haider’s Fireflies in the Mist was an absorbing read.

Books are piling up, unread, beside my bed at an alarming rate, and my pulse races just by looking at them and imagining how much catching-up I have to do. Sigh!