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Loading... Unaccustomed Earth (2008)by Jhumpa Lahiri
 jmoncton | Jun 3, 2013 |  This is an excellent collection of interconnected short stories. All of them explore the experience of first- and second-generation immigrants from India, not only their awareness of being different from their American friends and neighbors, but also the problems that are common to people of all ethnic backgrounds.The characters and plots are always compelling in Lahiri's works, but in this collection I was struck by the beauty with which each story ended. There may not have been a neat "solution," but I always felt that each one ended in just the right place. That is so often not the case, as we may be left wanting more information or the ending may feel rushed and contrived. Just another reason why I so admire Jhumpa Lahiri's work. (  ) pssm95 | May 24, 2013 | These are beautiful stories, but they are not happy stories. The use of language is amazing, metaphors woven effortlessly into the text of the story, narrators (either in the first or third person) who have true voices, characters that jump out at the page. My biggest criticism is the depressing sameness of the themes--regret, sadness, missed opportunities, betrayal, unrequited longing. The world seen through Lahiri's eyes is a bleak and hopeless one. These thematic elements certainly provided a sense of unity to the stories in the collection, but they did not improve my appreciation of them. Overall, this is a collection I'm glad to have read, but not one that I'd read, as I did, on a rainy day. (  ) shabacus | May 20, 2013 | Fantastic short stories, by a master of the genre. ( ) lxydis | May 11, 2013 | I cannot believe what she did at the end. I was prepared for it to go one way or the other, but I was not prepared for the way it went. Damn. Of course, overall, a brilliant book. She is such a wonderful writer. ( ) JennyArch | Apr 3, 2013 |
 There is much cultural news in these precisely observed studies of modern-day Bengali-Americans — many of them Ivy-league strivers ensconced in prosperous suburbs who can’t quite overcome the tug of traditions nurtured in Calcutta. With quiet artistry and tender sympathy, Lahiri creates an impressive range of vivid characters — young and old, male and female, self-knowing and self-deluding — in engrossing stories that replenish the classic themes of domestic realism: loneliness, estrangement and family discord. Great Book! Contains
 Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0307265730, Hardcover)From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome. Unaccustomed Earth is rich with Jhumpa Lahiri’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom, and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is a masterful, dazzling work of a writer at the peak of her powers. (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:55:51 -0500) Exploring the secrets and complexities lying at the heart of family life and relationships, a collection of eight stories includes the title work, about a young mother in a new city whose father tends her garden while hiding a secret love affair. |
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