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A daily record of what I'm thinking about what I'm reading

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Thursday, March 27, 2014

Is Lahiri's The Lowland a modern Doll's House?

Now about halfway through Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland and have not entirely changed my opinion butam beingwon over to a degree. I find the style very flat and enengaging, esp for a writer whohas built her reputation -- well deserved -- on her beautifuly crafted prose. Thisnovel feels like it's a long story that has been passed down to her -- whether it's from herown family or from other Indian immigrant families is immaterial -- and she has to just get it all down. The story covers a large swath of timea lifetime in fact and Lahiri rarely pauses to develop a moment a scene or an episode. Thenarrative feels very removed and external. That said I do find myself strangely engaged in the very sad lives of the two main characters -Subhash the hapless older brother who always tried to do the right thing and pays the price and his wife, Gauri (notice how her name contains the initials of the university setting) who marries Subhash knowing she can never love him and in fact never tries. In some ways this is a novel about a young woman wife mother discovering herself in the early days of feminism in the US, breaking from her culture, her marriage, her child, and going off - a modern Doll's House (perhaps not a tragedy, though - we'll see) but to Lahiri's credit she does not lionize Gauri -- we see her as deeply flawed and selfish -- as well as oppressed and humiliated -- and we feel sorrow and sympathy from the near-abandoned (and maybe soon to be abandoned?) Subhash. I only wish that Lahiri could have tightened this novel - perhaps as a first-person narration looking back? Or told it as a novella? I still think her work is at its best in the tighter and more demanding format of the short story.

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