|
|
Executive Times |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
2008 Book Reviews |
|||
|
|
Unaccustomed
Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri |
|||
|
Rating: |
**** |
|||
|
|
(Highly Recommended) |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Family There
are eight stories in Jhumpa Lahiri’s new collection titled, Unaccustomed
Earth, which is also the title of one of the stories. That phrase came from
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato,
if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the
same worn out soil. My children ... shall strike their roots into
unaccustomed earth.” The characters in this story are typically
Bengali-Americans, and Lahiri develops each one with great care and fine
writing. Often, the connections of family provide the grist for the tension
in these stories. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of the story
titled, “A Choice of Accommodations,” pp. 84-86: From
the outside the hotel looked promising, like an old ski lodge in the
mountains: chocolate brown siding, a steeply pitched roof, red trim around
the windows. But as soon as they entered the lobby of the Chadwick Inn, Amit
was disappointed: the place was without character, renovated in pastel
colors, squiggly gray lines a part of the wallpaper's design, as if someone
had repeatedly been testing the ink in a pen and ultimately had nothing to
say. By the front desk a revolving brass rack was filled with tourist
brochures about the Berkshires, and Megan grabbed a handful as Amit checked
in. Now the brochures were scattered across one of the two double beds in
their room. Megan unfolded the cover of a brochure to reveal a map.
"Where are we, exactly?" she asked, her finger trailing too far to
the north. "Here,"
Amit said, pointing to the town. "There's the lake, see? The one that
sort of looks like a rabbit." "I
don't see it," Megan said. "Right
here." Amit took Megan's finger and drew it firmly to the spot. "I
mean, I don't get how the lake's supposed to look like a rabbit." It had been a long drive from
New York and Amit was in the mood for a drink. But there was no minibar, and
no room service. The two double beds were covered in flowery maroon quilts,
and across from them, a wide dresser held a television set at its center. A
small paper pyramid sat on a square table between the beds, listing the local
cable channels. The only pleasant feature in the room was a cathedral ceiling
with exposed beams. In spite of this the room was dark; even with the curtains
to the balcony drawn apart, all the lights needed to be turned on. They were here for Pam Borden's
wedding, which was to take place that evening at Langford Academy, a boarding
school where Pam's father was headmaster, and from where Amit had graduated
eighteen years ago. There had been an option to sleep, for twenty dollars a
person, at one of the Langford dorms, empty now because it was August. But
Amit had decided to splurge on the Chadwick Inn, which was slightly removed
from campus, and offered a pool, a tennis court, a restaurant with two stars,
and access to the shaded lake in which he'd been taught, as a teenager, to
kayak and canoe. Talking it over with Megan, they'd agreed to drop off the
girls at her parents' place on Long Island and book a room for both Saturday
and Sunday, making a short vacation out of Pam's wedding, just the two of
them. Amit
unlocked the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the balcony, a strip of
cement containing two plastic chairs. The Northeast was in the middle of a
heat wave and even up in the mountains it was sultry, but the purity of the
air, with its sharp scent of pine, felt restorative. He was unsettled by how
quiet it was. No little girls' voices calling out to one another, no reprimands
or endearments coming from Megan. The car ride had been
the same, Megan
asleep, the backseat empty even though he kept looking in the rearview
mirror, expecting to see his daughters' faces as they dozed or quarreled or
chewed on bagels. He sat down now in one of the chairs, which was not very
comfortable. He felt cheated. "I can't believe they charge two hundred
and fifty dollars a night for this," he said. "It's crazy," Megan
said, joining him. "But I guess they can get away with it, given that
we're in the middle of nowhere." It was true, they were in the
middle of nowhere, though he did not feel the same way. He'd known, without
having to review a map, which roads to take after exiting the highway,
remembered which direction the town was in. But he had never been to this
hotel. His parents had not stayed here for parents' weekends; when Amit was
at Langford they had lived in India, in New Delhi. They hadn't made it to his
graduation, either. They'd been planning to, but Amit's father, an
ophthalmologist at one of Delhi's best hospitals, was requested to perform
cataract surgery on a member of Parliament, and so Bengali acquaintances of
his parents' from Worcester attended in their stead. After graduating, Amit
had not kept in touch with his Langford friends. He had no nostalgia for the
school, and when letters came seeking alumni contributions or inviting him to
the succession of reunions, he threw them out without opening them. Apart
from his loose connection with Pam, and a sweatshirt he still owned with the
school's wrinkled name across the chest, there was nothing to remind him of
those years of his life. He couldn't imagine sending his daughters to
Langford—couldn't imagine letting go of them as his parents had let go of
him. He looked out at the hotel
grounds. A pine tree growing directly in front of their balcony obstructed
most of the immediate view. The pool was small and uninviting, surrounded by
a chain-link fence, with no one swimming or sunbathing on its periphery. To
the right were the tennis courts, concealed by more pine trees, but he could
hear the soft thwack of a ball flying back and forth, a sound that
made him tired. While
developing characters expertly, Lahiri then paints them into settings that
are described with just enough exposition to make them come alive for
readers. Unaccustomed
Earth presents fine writing by a writer who has mastered the short story.
Steve
Hopkins, November 20, 2008 |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
Go to Executive Times Archives |
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the December 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Unaccustomed Earth.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
