interpreter of maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for her collection of stories titled interpreter of maladies. These beautifully written narratives focus on the joys and sorrows of immigrants from the Bengalese region of India as they navigate their new lives in Boston. They feel grateful for the opportunities they have been given to live and work in America. While adapting to American culture, they still cling to their customs from home. They long for the familiar food, smells and sounds of India. Lahiri captures the intimate feelings of both the mundane aspects of their new lives as well as the significant milestones of living in the diaspora.

All the stories are strong. Perspectives vary as we hear from people of different genders, class and abilities. The Blessed House is about a married Hindu Indian couple who move into a suburban Connecticut house and discover that the prior owners left various Catholic trinkets. The husband wants to discard the items and the wife wants to display them. The husband realizes that he agreed to an arranged marriage because he thought his life lacked love. However, as he and his new wife discuss the Catholic knickknacks, he realizes he does not understand who he married and what love entails.

The stories crescendo to my favorite and final story of the book, The Third and Final Continent. After studying in London, a nameless young man returns to India. With his consent, his brother and his wife have arranged for him to marry before he moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to work at an MIT library. His wife, Mala, whom he barely knows, will soon join him. He rents a room from Mrs. Croft, a 100-year-old woman. His tender, patient response to her diminishment gives us many clues to his empathic character. This man’s gentleness and compassion grace the story. Thirty years later, he reflects on his physical and emotional journey from his Bengalese roots to his life in suburban Boston. He says with awe, “Still, 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. As ordinary, as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.” 

Lahiri’s gorgeous collection of stories allows readers to understand the experience of another culture and its people. With an abundance of historical, social and political context, she transports us into the hearts and minds of Indians living in America in the 1970s. Due to her writing skills and deep humanity, she interprets the maladies of those we meet with insight and compassion.