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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780618101368
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0618101365
Label: Houghton Mifflin
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: May 22, 2000
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Studio: Houghton Mifflin

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.com Review:
Mr. Kapasi, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri's title story, would certainly have his work cut out for him if he were forced to interpret the maladies of all the characters in this eloquent debut collection. Take, for example, Shoba and Shukumar, the young couple in "A Temporary Matter" whose marriage is crumbling in the wake of a stillborn child. Or Miranda in "Sexy," who is involved in a hopeless affair with a married man. But Mr. Kapasi has problems enough of his own; in addition to his regular job working as an interpreter for a doctor who does not speak his patients' language, he also drives tourists to local sites of interest. His fare on this particular day is Mr. and Mrs. Das--first-generation Americans of Indian descent--and their children. During the course of the afternoon, Mr. Kapasi becomes enamored of Mrs. Das and then becomes her unwilling confidant when she reads too much into his profession. "I told you because of your talents," she informs him after divulging a startling secret.

I'm tired of feeling so terrible all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I've been in pain eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better; say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy.

Of course, Mr. Kapasi has no cure for what ails Mrs. Das--or himself. Lahiri's subtle, bittersweet ending is characteristic of the collection as a whole. Some of these nine tales are set in India, others in the United States, and most concern characters of Indian heritage. Yet the situations Lahiri's people face, from unhappy marriages to civil war, transcend ethnicity. As the narrator of the last story, "The Third and Final Continent," comments: "There are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept." In that single line Jhumpa Lahiri sums up a universal experience, one that applies to all who have grown up, left home, fallen in or out of love, and, above all, experienced what it means to be a foreigner, even within one's own family. --Alix Wilber

Product Description:
Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant. She is an important and powerful new voice.




Rating: - Character-Rich Stories
This collection of nine stories was the choice for our January book club. Jhumpa Lahiri is a talented storyteller and the topic of "maladies," which is woven through each tale, made for interesting discussion. The stories are character-rich and are set in both India and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Regardless of the setting, Lahiri's description is filled with minute, sensory-oriented detail. The characters become three dimensional as they share what humors and ails them. All are quite ... Read More

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Rating: - Book is great, but CD awful!
This review is for the CD (audio) version of Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. I actually liked the writing and stories, but the reader, Matilda Novak, was terrible for this work. She may be excellent for other books that need a perky and cheerful white woman, but it was a mistake to choose her for this book. It really ruins an otherwise good piece of writing.

What made it especially difficult for me was that I had just listened to Lahiri's more recent work, Unaccustomed Earth, ... Read More

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Rating: - Living Character
Interpreter of Maladies

As I read the book I begin to discover myself in many of the characters.

This is obviously the power of the writing. It is a difficult task particularly when a writer portrays the character of an opposite sex. It makes me wonder though: Is the author a woman who in a previous life was a man or am I a man who in a previous life was a woman. Or, am I a character brought to life that would disappear when the reading is finished?

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Rating: - Simple/Subtle/Powerful
One of the reviews of this book called the stories, "bland." I prefer to think of them as "subtle." To make a food analogy, these stories are each lovely, lightly, but delicately spiced, appetizers. Each story presents its characters in a straightforward, clear and precise manner, with little inserted point of view; thus, allowing the reader to deeply feel the thoughts and emotions of each character. I was particularly moved by This Blessed House, which tells the story of Sanjeev and Twinkle, newlyweds ... Read More

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Rating: - The Race Novel as a new genre or can I just call it Starbucks Lit?
I had been practicing speed reading over the course of a few books. Simultaneously reading Dickens's "David Copperfield" and Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago," there were moments in those books when my pace halted to a screech in the presence of a crystalline line. With Lahiri's book, I decided I could take my time with such a slim volume, after all Raymond Carver (and Gordon Lish) were able to pack so much punch into 2-3 pages. Remarkably, I trudged from one paragraph to another in Lahiri's book, impoverished ... Read More

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