Jhumpa Lahiri does not generalise. She said she didn't like to. Question after question directed at her asked about whether her weak husbands were a reflection on Bengali men; whether the doomed mixed-race marriages in her books reflected her view of modern reality; if life in the US was really so unfilial. Patiently, she repeated: she does not like to generalise. She is not a sociologist. Her characters are specific and not archetypes; what happens to them happens to them in the world that they inhabit; they are internally consistent with that world; they are not a megaphone that blasts out her biases.
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Jhumpa Lahiri, for the first time, wrote a short story (the titular one of her book) from two points of view. Why? When she first started to write it, it was from the view of the daughter. Then one day she was flying with her family out of Seattle, and she felt suddenly that the persona of the father had descended upon her and she felt what he felt; she became him; her family were suddenly strangers to her; she felt that she had to give voice to this man. Having absorbed the works of William Trevor, a master of the multiple viewpoint, she felt it was her time to do so as well.
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Isn't Jhumpa Lahiri sick of writing of the immigrant experience? (She is moving away from that; her The Lowland explores other themes.) Why are all her immigrants successful, intellectual, middle class? (They are not all successful, but it's true she has written mostly about the milieu she grew up in, and she hopes to explore other themes.)
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Unaccustomed Earth is a collection of short stories, the last three of which form a linked set, a novella. An A-Level student attending asked if this was intentional, to jar the reader into sensory fragmentation.
Sorry. I cannot recall Jhumpa Lahiri's response.
My stomach rumbled so much during the recording I got dirty looks from my neighbours. One can turn off one's mobile, but not one's alimentary canal. I should have had lunch.
Sorry. I cannot recall Jhumpa Lahiri's response.
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My stomach rumbled so much during the recording I got dirty looks from my neighbours. One can turn off one's mobile, but not one's alimentary canal. I should have had lunch.
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[In case you're wondering: I attended a recording of the BBC World Book Club of an interview with Jhumpa Lahiri about her book Unaccustomed Earth few weeks ago. There will be another one in the series soon on Albert Camus' The Outsider, to be recorded at the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris. Sadly, I won't be there, but Jhumpa Lahiri said it was one of her favourite books, and would love to call in.]
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