Book: 29/52
Roman Stories - Jhumpa Lahiri
My Rating: 5/5
This is my 4th book from Jhumpa Lahiri back to back, and I am totally loving the experience of exploring her more. Now I have two more to go with her Pulitzer Prize-winning book - Interpreter of Maladies being penultimate and The Namesake being last from her till she comes out with a new book. Now that I have recently read her "In other words", which turns out to be her own story, connecting with these stories was charming. Again, taking a lot of cues from her own experiences in and around Rome, she has written this one. And I can bet my life on that story where a married woman is having a one-sided affair with another married man was her own story, or at least an inspiration from her own life, that she has written it so beautifully. I totally liked the story and loved its ending big time. The good part now about almost all her books is that she is writing them in Italian and getting them translated by someone else, as she believes she cannot do justice to both languages together, and it will be like cheating if she writes or even translates them herself in English. I am enjoying them more right now as I have recently started taking French lessons myself for no good reason but to be able to read someday a French classic in its original form and to be able to watch a French love story in its own originality (someday in the near future).
Some of these stories are so real-life-like that it feels as if she herself experienced them all in person and then narrates them to us for our benefit. Her characters are totally believable, and I guess, at times, they are based on her too, as so many times she mentions others' bias towards their skin colour, or origin and whatnot. Maybe religion she hints at, but it isn't that clear, so one has to guess what she is talking about, but the pain is pretty much evident as she is always talking about the expats in one way or another, as that's exactly the case with all her books and stories so far. There is a story about teenagers passing their time on the "Steps", and one must read to know what exactly they do to strangers at the dead of the night, which was shocking, but then again, can't deny as my own nephew who visited Italy not so long ago called it a country full of thieves, so you take a guess what I am talking about. And then there is this heart-touching story of a couple who have lost a teenage kid, how they survive in the shadows of his death was a totally emotional story with such a touching ending. Although the book was hardly 250 pages, it took quite a while for me to finish this one, as each story has such superb depth that I had to take a pause every time I finished one before I started on the next one.
Do let me know if you have read this one and liked it. Namesake will remain my forever favourite from her. Going to read it again in the next month to make sure it remains the same.
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