Interpreter of Maladies

By: Jhumpa Lahiri

Narrated by: Matilda Novak

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2000

With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide. The nine stories in this stunning debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations.

A blackout forces a young Indian American couple to make confessions that unravel their tattered domestic peace. An Indian-American girl recognizes her cultural identity during a Halloween celebration while the Pakastani civil war rages on television in the background. A latchkey kid with a single working mother finds affinity with a woman from Calcutta. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession.

Imbued with the sensual details of Indian culture, these stories speak with passion and wisdom to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner. Like the interpreter of the title story, Lahiri translates between the strict traditions of her ancestors and a baffling new world.

©2000 Jhumpa Lahiri (P)2000 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

"Moving and authoritative pictures of culture shock and displaced identity." (Kirkus Reviews)
"The crystalline writing in the nine stories of this Pulitzer Prize-winning debut collection dazzles. These sensitive explorations of the lives of Indian immigrants and expatriates touch on universal themes, making them at once specific and broad in their appeal. Narrator Matilda Novak's light voice is fine for stories written by a young woman, and the hint of melody in her reading is typical of Indian voices." (AudioFile)

Wonderful writing, but lacking plot.

I guess I should have expected a collection of short stories to lack plots, but it made it hard to finish the entire collection. Lahiri has a wonderful way with words and she has great insight into the particulars of people's lives that are often overlooked, but I need a little more plot to each story to satisfy me.

Wonderful book

Loved it. Warm and sensitive stories of the heart. Not often found in modern writing.

Performance good, but no music needed

I enjoyed the stories and the narrator was great, but what confused me was the way each chapter was divided. It was not by each story but in the middle of a story. It didn't make sense!

Splendid!

Splendid. Superb. Subtle. Serious. Silly. Sonorous. Significant. Sublime. Sensual. Sensible.

Without a doubt the most enjoyable collection of short stories I've read in ages. The beautiful writing describes places and persons I've yet to see, but still feel I know their thoughts intimately now. The glimpses of Indian and Indian-American culture are priceless and thought-provoking.

I listened to this book on Audible. My only complaint is the 'chapters' of the audiobook do not correspond in any way to the short stories. Each ends in the middle of a chapter and the next begins. Nonsensical, that.

The narrator is wonderful, though, and I have not a single critical word to add. This book is simply awesome.

Excellent

Despite oddly placed musical interludes the stories are brilliant and I quite enjoyed the narration.

I loved it!

Great collection of stories that stay with you.
I highly Recommend
The narration was superb

Underwhelming

This is a highly touted, award-winning collection of nine short stories and is on several “best” lists.
I found most of these stories superficial, and the writing quite ordinary.

I love short stories, but these stories seemed to focus on the shallowest aspects of both Indian and US culture. I liked the last two stories the best, but these were only above average. The rest of the stories did not make me laugh or cry or give me shivers or move me or shock me or surprise me or make me consider deeply. Yet the stories were not bad, and the writing was not bad. I did not find myself liking, or respecting, any of the characters. Yes, real life can be shallow and tedious but I don’t need to read that part in short stories.

These stories seemed like they could be short scenes in novels, if supported by the structure and story and characters of a novel. On their own, they seemed a bit pointless.

The audio production was down right annoying. The chapters do not align with the stories and there are discordant musical interludes between and within stories. The tone of the narrator was peppy and light, as if this was a children’s book, and I found the narration clashed sharply with the material. I certainly will not listen to this book again.

Wonderful!

Lahiri's Pulitzer prize winner only gets better the more often in is read.

masterpieces of literature

If you appreciate the storytelling quality of greats like William Carlos Williams and George Orwell combined with a cultural richness of Bengali and American heritages, this book will truly deliver. The short stories in this volume combine authentic voice and powerful depth of characters to make even the seemingly most mundane aspect of life been seen anew, turning simple moments into revealers of profound truth.

Fantastic!

Great stories, wonderful writing and good narration. As a kid growing up in a small town in India, I always wondered how the lives of Indians who had moved to America would be like. The simplicity of these stories and the vivid descriptions of subtle emotions give me a wonderful picture of average people courageously voyaging to alien nations in search of a better future for themselves.