Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Interpreter of Maladies

Jhumpa Lahiri, the 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. This slim collection of short stories was a quick read. I was a bit apprehensive when picking this one up. I had read Lahiri's full novel The Namesake a few years back and was fairly underwhelmed, but I will say I was pleasantly surprised by her short fiction. Lahiri's prose flows in each story as she lovingly reconstructs the full array of sensory glory for each of her characters.

Each of her stories explores a separate kind of sadness in her characters. Loss of family, loss of culture, loss of self, loss of faith. I think this wistful nature of the stories is what gives the collection a great deal of its beauty. The majority of the stories focus on characters who have left their native India (or in some cases have never known it) and Lahiri uses that cultural disconnect to both bind her characters together but also to isolate them.

I think mostly what pleased me most in reading this was that the way the compilation is ordered. The stories create delicate layers for the reader that pull him/her through the stories and binds them all together, even though they are different characters. It feels as though all the characters share an emotional bond. The final story in the collection shares the same sad tenor, but of all the stories ends with the most hope and a sense of peace.

Lahiri's stories are touching and thoughtfully written. With warmth and sadness she leads her characters through their lives. I enjoyed this collection and would recommend it highly to others.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida by Victor Martinez

Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida won the National Book award for Young Adult Fiction in 1996. Martinez follows 14 year old Manny in observations about his life in a scrubby California town. Manny really is more of an observer, bringing the reader up to speed on his poor, dysfunctional family, from his alcoholic father to his long suffering and cleaning obsessed mother. Manny's older brother and sister are not exactly help either.

This family drama was tense for most of the book, through joblessness, hunger, abusive arguments and even a miscarriage. Yet I find it hard to call the novel a coming of age story in the way that many others have. As I mentioned above, Manny does not really participate much throughout the narrative, but rather recalls as things happen to him and to his family. I don't feel like there was much of a change between the Manny you meet at the beginning of the book and the Manny at the end.

The narrative itself is very Wonder Years, recalled mostly as memories from what feels like a man much further in his life than his character in the book.

Overall, it was an interesting to read, but not one I feel will stay with me.