Review: Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri

I am a big of Lahiri, but had never read her first collection, Interpreter of Maladies. Published ten years ago, this initial offering offers much the same fluid embrace that her following publications do. Lahiri is skilled at welcoming readers and treating them like they belong to this culture of Indian immigrants, much the same as the characters themselves seek each other out for community in their new land.

Some of the stories beckoned to me more than others in this collection, simply because in a short story format, I find it more difficult to bond with characters who experience what seems to me to be an almost fantastically unreal experience than I would in a longer format, where I would have time to settle in and really get to know and understand them. For instance, in 'The Treatment of Bibi Haldar', the main character is a strange woman who is afflicted with some sort on undiagnosable seizure disorder; as a result, although she is accepted by the community at large, the family members that live with her shun her increasingly until they move away and abandon her entirely to live in their shed. Abruptly, she somehow becomes pregnant, gives birth, and is miraculously recovered. While I found the tale interesting, it didn't draw me in on a personal level.

My favorite story, 'A Temporary Matter', did. A couple with deep-seated marital problems is drawn closer together by regularly scheduled power outages, sharing secrets in the dark. The path of the tale was like a funnel, seeming to draw together in a small, safe zone and then dropping me out the bottom. It was shocking, telling, and very, very real. I also enjoyed 'Sexy', the story of a young woman caught up briefly as the mistress of a shallow aldulterer, and 'This Blessed House', told from the perspective of a recently arrangement-married man who moves into a house with his bride only to discover a trove of hidden Christian idols hidden everywhere; his wife is inexplicably obsessed, and his irritation grows until it pops like a bubble. As the only story told from a child's perspective (although it is actually an adult relaying the story of her experience as a child), 'When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine' offers an innocent's glimpse into the geographic politics of war and separation, as viewed on an American television with Mr. Pirzada, a Pakistani man in American on a research grant, who has lost contact with his family in the war zone. The undertones of American distance from all that is difficult to fathom, and related ideas that it is unnecessary to understand issues that don't concern us, is an endictment that is very much relevant today.

Rating: four out of five stars: not quite as compelling as her later works, but still well worth reading for the beauty and insight it provides.