Unaccustomed Earth — Review by Chris

Jhumpa Lahiri knows how to communicate. She's not just — as if one can be "just" — a short story writer or a novelist. She is a communicator.

Take her latest: Unaccustomed Earth, a collection of short stories. In it, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author shares with us the life and inner workings of Bengali men and women and the people around them. Each character is carefully drawn and, to the reader, is a distinct individual. Lahiri has an affection for each of them, allows us into their lives with such intimacy I am overwhelmed and grateful time and again. Her language is precise and generous, and by no means unfair nor ambiguous. Her characters have their faults and foibles as well as their strengths and charms, deep and clear. She does not criticize them, but lets their stories make or break their cases.

In earlier books, Lahiri's characters precariously straddled the life between Bengali and American culture — bound to one but striving for the other. However, in this book, the characters have come to terms with this dichotomy, accepting the implied hyphen that keeps them in both camps with simultaneous magnetism. It isn't easier for these people, but the struggle has changed: from trying to find a place in the world to living within the boundaries of their territory.

The book is divided into two sections, the second of which involves the intertwined lives of Hema and Kaushik. I read the stories in order, but you needn't do that with the first section. The second section, however, you must read in order. All stories in this collection are varied and rich in detail.

Ruma is torn between life with her American husband and her expectations as a Bengali daughter. Her mother died unexpectedly and her father now travels the world by himself. Ruma thinks her father lonesome and abandoned. Her father, however, feels nothing of the sort. The story tells both Ruma's and her father's perspective of the same situation. As a daughter myself, it was lovely to see how both father and daughter held on to their strong — and wrong — expectations.

Sudha gave her baby brother Rahul his first beer when she was in college, helped him buy his stash and hide it when she would come home during school breaks — then watched, with a growing understanding and horror, as he continued down the slippery slope of alcoholism.

Sang has a boyfriend and Anglo roommates. She also has an unending line of potential husbands (Bengali, of course). She is a good catch: well-educated, a good daughter, of good moral character. She, however, has a boyfriend: Freddy/Farouk, who has, for the three years they have been together, spoken of the future in broad terms. However, things change when her male roommate, Paul, answers the phone one lonely evening.

Many vignettes stopped my heart as I read them. One in particular was about Kaushik, who met his new stepsisters and their mother one college break. His own mother had been dead for years, but he didn't discover the depth of his loss until bleak winter night — and his fury against two young children was so hot and violent it scared me to read it.

Another was the slow terrible realization of Neel's plight one evening. Could his uncle be as reliable as he appeared all week, while under the watchful eye of his suspicious sister and unaware brother-in-law? The gnawing doubt culminated in a terrible brief scene with details and images that brought tears to my eyes — it still gives me chills when I think about it, the subtlety, the devil in the details. Lahiri makes the tragedy and the joy immediate and deliberate.

Do yourself a favor: go out and pick up all three of Lahiri's works (including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Interpreter of Maladies and her sole published novel to date, The Namesake). Then pace yourself if you can. Once I finished a story or chapter, I found myself unable to resist reading the first few lines of the next part — which sucked me in for another indeterminate period of time. I never experienced Author Fatigue from Lahiri; unlike other authors, I did not feel a rut in style, rhythm or characters. If you picked them up at the library, which I always recommend, you will then want them for your permanent collection. Then you will wait hungrily for her next work.

I enjoyed this collection immensely and highly recommend it. Please let me know when you read her work. You will be glad you did.

So Big - Review by Carole

Yikes! I've been doing more reading than writing lately. I've been bouncing from one Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to another lately without taking the time to reflect. Shame on me!

Edna Ferber's So Big started me on this kick. This was the pick of one of my book clubs, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also enjoyed learning more about Ferber. One of the famed Algonquin Round Table members, Ferber devoted her life to writing. Sigh, I was born in the wrong era. I would have loved that life, those clothes...but I digress.

I hadn't read any Ferber--did you know she wrote the novels on which Show Boat and Giant are based? I didn't! She won the Pulitzer in 1924 for So Big.

So Big tells us the story of Selena, a young girl who grows up with a gambler for a father. When he is rolling well, they live the high life; when he's not, they eat at the boarding house table. But he always managed to pay her way at an exclusive girls' school. She gets a strong education from school and from him. When he dies unexpectedly, she has to make her own way. She takes on a schoolteacher job at a small farming community outside of fast-growing Chicago.

Her appreciation of beauty helps her see the color afforded by simple things, such as a field of cabbages, as she approaches her new life. This sentiment arouses rare humor in the taciturn, hard-working Dutch farm family with whom she comes to live. She finds a kindred spirit in their son, Rolff. Her influence, while brief, has a lasting impact on his life.

Before long, she finds herself agreeing to marry one of the community's farmers--a kind man, but no great shakes in the imagination department. Selena tries to get him to see what their farm could be, but he continues in the ways of his father.

They have a son, Dirk, whom she nicknames "So Big" from the old baby game: "How big is baby?" "Sooooo Big". You can just picture her taking the time from digging up vegetables from the garden to play this game with her baby, taking great joy in seeing him hold his arms wide.

When she finds herself on her own again, Selena manages to carve out a life for herself and her son. She raises him with her values, but he internalizes things much differently. His life experiences are significantly altered from her own. It's a classic story of a parent who wants a better life for her child and works hard to make sure of it, but then is surprised to see how different the child turns out. Children who have a better life aren't forged by the same fires as their parents and thus don't form their characters, values, or work ethics the same way.

Selena and Dirk have a great love for one another, even if they don't fully understand each other. The story shifts to focus on Dirk's life. He has many of the things that constitute success in that era. After an attempt at an architecture career (of which his mother has very high hopes), Dirk decides to become a bond salesman (a career his mother doesn't fully understand). He is very good at it--he makes good money--he lives in a lovely a part of town. Yet, it is very clear to the reader that he really doesn't have anything. He has no wife and children; he cannot point to anything lasting that he has created or improved. He cannot see that, though, until an artist comes into his life.

His feelings for the artist force him to examine his life--he sees that she and his mother have more in common than he would have ever envisioned. He sees his life as a "rubber stamp" of Selena's--a cheap imitation in other words. He finds himself at a crossroads.

Chicago looms in the background throughout the story, growing and sprawling across the pages, making it as defined a character as Selena or Dirk. A truly American story of success and how that is defined--I couldn't put it down.

A Confederacy of Dunces - Review by Carole

I read A Confederacy of Dunces while I was in New Orleans for a conference. I love when I get a chance to read a book in the city in which the story is set. I found the book to be an interesting experience--I found it both repulsive and compelling. I was fascinated to see how Ignatius J. Reilly was going to crash and burn and rise again from each situation. Definitely a dark comedy.

I found the introduction of the book by Walker Percy perhaps the most compelling element of all. The author--John Kennedy Toole--ended his life by suicide, and his mother persevered and was able to get the book published (it won a Pulitzer). How incredibly sad and what a tribute to a son from his grieving mother.

The book opens with a physical description of Ignatius J. Reilly:

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly’s supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people…Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person’s lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one’s soul.

I can't get the image of Reilly out of my mind, and I know that if I had ever seen a hot dog vendor attired as he was, in the French Quarter or anywhere, I would have crossed the street and scurried on by. The idea that ANYONE would try to buy a hot dog from him is amazing to me. I guess I would have been in the company of the horrified ladies who were staging their annual art show when he happened by.

Reilly often goes on at length about the delicate condition of his digestive system, no doubt aggravated by his unrelenting gluttony. If I had ever been subjected to listening to his discussions of his "valve" or his one disastrous attempt to leave New Orleans, I think I may have been ill.

I was intrigued by Reilly's fascination with Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy and how he often reflected on whether a person lacked theology and geometry. I picked up a copy of Boethius' work last summer and am now reading it. I'm enjoying the personification of Philosophy as a character, particularly as she reflects on how Fortune is always true to herself, but that people are only devotees of Fortune when she smiles on them. When she bestows ill favor on someone, she is just as true to herself, but people always feel betrayed.

I'm not sure if that is why Reilly values this book so much--he doesn't seem to be able to fathom why Fortune doesn't favor him more. His inability to see how his own actions contribute to the situations in which he finds himself is astounding and certainly seems to act as a sort of survival mechanism for him.

I admired Toole's ability to spin these different story circles at once--an exotic dancer and her parrot, mysterious "packets" for orphans, one floorsweeper’s determination to stick it to the lady who is underpaying him, Reilly’s mother's growing frustration with her son, a policeman desperate to save his career, and a college "girlfriend" who is determined to save Reilly from himself--until they collide in an organized chaos that has a "theology and geometry" of its own.

I wouldn't say that I loved the book, but it was like watching the proverbial train wreck--I couldn't look away.