Soon after watching Black Swan, while I was still under its influence, I finished reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, which cast me down so much that I felt like crying for hours. The last page was nowhere near a happy end, which we usually expect from a last page, even if it's too cliché. At the same time, it was so gripping that I immediately decided to write about it, mainly to advertise it somehow because I don't think she is well-known here in Hungary, though I can only speak for myself. To this entry I also wanted to give the title "How fragile we are."
I first came across Lahiri a few years ago, when a former literature teacher lent me her very first collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. To some extent I'd always been into Indian culture, though I'm afraid my knowledge of it is rather superficial to this day. As you can see, Lahiri is not only brilliant but also quite beautiful. I don't know much about her except that she's a second generation immigrant in the U.S. I've just googled her and found that she is a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, whatever it is, appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Her stories always deal with cultural clashes, like if you remember the movie Crash, this is something along the same lines. The misunderstanding might be between Americans and Bengalis, or between conservative and Americanized Bengalis, but it might as well involve parent-children or wife-husband issues. What is interesting is that she doesn't really take sides, for her there aren't good or bad ways of looking at an issue but several perspectives. And very often the conflicts are about unspoken or even unspeakable, subtle quivers in the self. I detect a bit of Tschekhov here.
Her protagonists are either somewhere around turning thirty or middle-aged, and very often a figure pops up who is writing his or her PhD thesis. I don't no if it's statistically proven but she maintains the stereotype of diligent and talented Indians, who typically make a living as doctors, scientists, or philologists. It is also interesting that very often these highly educated couples don't have children. The stories are set in the U.S., England (especially London), or sometimes India.
Besides misunderstanding (or multiple understandings) her stories also tell about loss. The loss of innocence or illusions, the loss of culture, the loss of love, or even the loss of control over life. I think this is what makes her stories accessible for people of all culture or gender. I will spoil only one story to prove my point.
The story is told in a sequence of three short stories, which together are called Hema and Kaushik, after the protagonists. The first story is told from the viewpoint of Hema, reflecting on her life as a teenager. The second is from Kaushik's point of view, I think he's about 20 at the time of the events of this short story. The last story is told by a neutral narrator. The first two are addressed to the other person, i.e. Hema addresses Kaushik and vice versa, but these aren't letters, rather reflections.
I'll try to put it as briefly as possible. There are two families, Hema's and Kaushik's. (I can't remember their last names). Both live in the US. After a while Kaushik's family moves back to India, then a couple of years later they come back yet again. Until they find a house of their own, they move in with Hema's family. This situation is becoming more and more irritating for Hema's family, e.g. she has to give her room to Kaushik and sleep on a cot, Kaushik's mother doesn't help with household chores, also, Kaushik's family seems rather picky in choosing their new home. In the meantime Hema (aged 13 then) has a crush on Kaushik (about 16), who looks right through her and spends most of his time wandering in the nearby wood, with his camera always around his neck. Finally one day Kaushik tells Hema that his mother has breast cancer and will soon die. This marks the loss of Hema's innocence.
About 20 or 25 years later they meet again in Rome, Hema working on her thesis on Etrusks, Kaushik being a world-famous freelance photo reporter. Neither of them has an established, "proper" life. Hema doesn't have children and is about to enter an arranged marriage; Kaushik is planning to stop travelling to and fro and is about to start working as a photo editor for a magazine in Japan. They become lovers and spend a couple of weeks together in Italy. When Kaushik realizes that she is the only person who understands him and whom he could live his life with, Hema says it's too late and leaves for Calcutta. Kaushik spends a few days in Thailand before starting the job in Japan. One day he goes on a sail trip with a Swedish guy. In the meantime Hema is wondering whether she's just made the biggest mistake of her life. Next thing we know, the Tsunami hit Thailand.
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