January 20, 2009

Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri


Interpreter of Maladies is a book I was reading for the New Classics Challenge - a challenge I have been a little neglectful of but I now only have another 3 books to read to complete the challenge before it ends on the 31st January so I'm going to do my very best to finish this challenge alive!


It was a no brainer for me to pick Interpreter of Maladies as one of my books for this challenge after reading (and absolutely loving) Lahiri's later book of short stories - Unaccustomed Earth last year. This book made my top 5 reads of 2008 and actually made me want to seek out short stories - a genre I had never really been interested in before.

Unfortunately, Interpreter of Maladies did not strike the same chord with me - I found it really hard to be interested in the stories and the characters in the same way and even though the writing is brilliant and evocative - I just didn't care. The title story was probably the only story that stays with me now that I have finished the book.

I know others have told me that they enjoyed Interpreter even more that Unaccustomed Earth but I just could not get there - my feeling is that Unaccustomed Earth is more a new classic for me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read The Intrepeter of Maladies before Unaccustomed Earth and slightly prefer it, so am sorry you didn't feel the same. I haven't read The Namesake yet, so wil be interested in how it compares.

Karen said...

Hi adevotedreader - I was sorry I didn't like it as much too! I guess different stories just make different connections for different people. I'm still really looking forward to reading The Namesake.