Current mood:	weird
Entry tags:	author:jhumpa lahiri, collection:interpreter of maladies

#4 Interpreter of Maladies :: Jhumpa Lahiri

This year I chose to take a unit on postcolonial literature, which has sadly been disappointing so far, not because of the texts, but because the tutors are terrible. They're enthusiastic, but don't seem to be able to communicate any ideas very clearly. I'm lucky at least that all the texts have been really interesting.

Jhumpa Lahiri's book of short stories is the fifth text we've read this term, and the one I've enjoyed the most so far. There are nine short stories, each of them about very different people who share a cultural background that they're displaced from. I wasn't crazy about all of the stories, but some of them were completely wonderful. She has a beautifully subtle manner of narration, whether she's telling the story from the point of view of an eleven year old boy, a young white woman, or an old Indian man. Each character has a very clear voice, and though all the stories are touched with sadness, some are also filled with such hope.

None of the stories run too long; each is carefully measured to deliver emotional punch, the descriptions of emotion and movement acutely observed and recorded with a delicate clarity. You feel the coarseness of hair and sticky rice on your fingers, taste vinegar and pickled fruit on your tongue, and the rich colours; peacock blue, vermillion, burst across the inside of your mind like a vivid rainbow.

Beautiful.