Ce filme grozave s-ar putea realiza pe baza acestor povestiri!

I have this fear that used bookstores will cease to exist in the near future. They exist in spite of reality now. What on earth could be the return on investment (ROI) of a used bookstore?

As any connoisseur of used books will tell you, a used book has a much different smell than a new book. Indeed, used books have a variety of smells depending on how old and what kind of paper they are printed on.


Used book stores offer the opportunity to find things--not just books, but the marginal notes of other readers. Used books have history, character.


In the future, we'll still have libraries, but how will we get a book for a dollar we can take into the bath with us? Where will we get books for two dollars we can leave on planes and buses for others to find?


As a library book, I would never have picked up Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies for the second time. It doesn't even crack my top 50 books I have to read in the next year and a half. But as a book found in a Japanese use book store for 115 yen (about 1 US dollar), now I could reread the stories and write my own marginal notes. This book won't be a sentimental object; instead, it will be the object of my marginal notes. Who knows how many pencil marks the triumph of "A Temporary Matter" will get? Who knows how many pencil marks and comments the less-than-triumphant "Sexy" will get? Who knows who will pick up the book next somewhere down the line?


What is the ROI of a used book store? Someone finding the exact same book I did some five years later, slightly more worn, smelling a little differently--a treasure to behold.

I can officially attest that Interpreter of Maladies more than merits the rave, rapturous reviews printed on the back–this is a stunning success from Jhumpa Lahiri.

In Lahiri’s rich, delicate, precise voice, the miniature stories in this collection tingle on the skin. They are moving, disquieting, and, in some cases, brutally devastating. How Lahiri manages to atomize these incredibly full, dense lives into short form, moving her characters around Boston and Bengal with the ease of a fish through waves—I don’t know. What I do know is that one does not so much read this collection as live in it.

Lahiri writes in language that is alive and unexpected. My initial guesses at what was coming continuously went through some rather severe adjustments. Lahiri was, I quickly learned, always just one step ahead. Yet, at the same time, each unexpected outcome somehow also felt inevitable: the characters in these stories seem to carve out their own patterns, impervious to the shape of the narrative. I never knew where each story was going, and that too felt like life.

There are nine disparate stories in this collection. Together, they form a complete, cohesive, emotionally legible whole. They are stories about loss, exile, and dispersion, and, in any such stories, they are also about love. In tragic, lyrical strains, Lahiri expresses the transient, exilic intimacy that emerges from shared uprootedness and promises to dull the habitual estrangement of everyday life. Against the background of a foreign, sometimes less than caring world, the characters in these stories stretch themselves to reach for one another and hope for understanding. But the attachments they form are not always easy or uncomplicated. This kind of diasporic intimacy is fragile, fraught, and haunted by dreams of home and homeland. It cannot retrieve the past, nor can it anesthetize against the pain of displacement, and in most cases, it cannot last forever. Yet, as Lahiri shows us, the transient, imperfect quality of these pockets of intimacy does not diminish the power of the characters’ encounters and collisions with one another: in the intricacy that transforms stories into histories, we are, in some impossible-to-measure way, always already intertwined.

Perhaps that is why “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” “Mrs. Sen’s,” and “The Third and Final Continent” are the stories I return to the most. They are stories about the people who pass through our lives like a vision, but nevertheless leave indelible traces. People whose presence makes it easier to not only endure but inhabit our experiences of exile. Each story trails off into afterimages of a closeness that can no longer exist, an intimacy that was always already forfeit—and each ending stole my breath.

I loved Interpreter of Maladies, and I am convinced that an encounter with one of these stories will not leave you unchanged.

سومین کتاب ۴۰۲

خوشحالم که تموم شد. یک ماااه طول کشید تا ۹ تا داستان کوتاه رو بخونم!

ঝুম্পা লাহিড়ীকে আগে থেকে চিনতাম না। প্রথম শুনি যখন উনি পুলিৎজার জেতেন। বছর বছর পুলিৎজার পুরষ্কার দেয়া হলেও সেবারেরটা একটু ভিন্ন ছিল। ঝুম্পা লাহিড়ীর পিতা মাতা কলকাত্তার লোক, বাঙালী। সেই হিসেবে ঝুম্পা লাহিড়ীর পুলিৎজার জয় যেন ছিল আমাদেরই জয়। যদিও লাহিড়ীর জন্ম কলকাতায় না। তিনিও নিজেকে আমেরিকান নাগরিক হিসেবে ভাবতেই বেশি পছন্দ করেন, ভাবতীয় না। তবুও ঝুম্পা লাহিড়ীকে নিজেদের লোক ভেবে মনে মনে সুখ পেতে তো কোন দোষ নেই!

তখন খুঁটিয়ে খুঁটিয়ে পেপার পড়তাম। একেবারে প্রথম পৃষ্ঠা থেকে শেষ পৃষ্ঠা অবধি। ইন্টারপ্রেটার অভ ম্যালাডিজের নাম সে সময়টাতে শোনা। তখন স্কুলে পড়তাম। মনে আছে খুব শোরগোল উঠেছিল। পত্রিকায় ফিচার, ইন্টারভিউ, লাহিড়ীর রঙিন ছবি। তখন আমার দৌড় ছিল গোয়েন্দা কাহিনি থেকে বড়জোর হুমায়ূন আহমেদ কিংবা জাফর ইকবাল পর‌্যন্ত। ছোটগল্প একেবারেই পছন্দের জনরা ছিল না। তাই ইন্টারপ্রেটার অভ ম্যালাডিজও ঠিক আগ্রহ জাগায়নি, যতই মিস লাহিড়ী নিজেদের মানুষ হন না কেন!

এত্তগুলো বছর পর আগ্রহ জাগার কারণ একটাই। একসময়কার অপছন্দের জনরা আমার এখন ভীষণ পছন্দের। সুযোগ পেলেই তাই ছোটগল্প পড়ি।

ম্যালাডিজ আকারে ঢাউস না। মোটে নয়টি গল্প নিয়ে এ সংকলন। সংকলন শুরু সবচেয়ে সেরা গল্পটি দিয়ে “অ্যা টেম্পরারি ম্যাটার।” শেষ হয় আরেকটি চমৎকার গল্প দিয়েঃ “দ্য থার্ড অ্যান্ড ফাইনাল কন্টিনেন্ট”। শুনেছি থার্ড অ্যান্ড ফাইনাল কন্টিনেন্টের প্রটাগনিস্ট লাহিড়ীর পিতৃমহোদয়।

লাহিড়ী গল্পকথক হিসেবে প্রথম শ্রেণীর। তার গল্পবলার ভঙ্গি, ভাষার মুন্সিয়ানা অনবদ্য। যদিও লাহিড়ী বেড়ে উঠেছেন বিদেশ-বিভূঁইয়ে কিন্তু গল্পের পাত্র-পাত্রী হিসেবে নিজের পিতৃপুরুষের মানুষদেরই বেছে নিয়েছেনঃ বাঙ্গালী। তাদের কেউ সাম্প্রতিক ট্র্যাজেডির শিকার (অ্যা টেম্পরারি ম্যাটার), কেউবা দেশে নিজের পরিবারের পরিণতি নিয়ে শঙ্কিত (হোয়েন মিঃ পীরজাদা কেম টু ডাইন), কেউ কলকাতার মাছ বাজারটা সাংঘাতিক মিস করে (মিসেস সেন’স), কিংবা কেউ রহস্যময় রোগে জীবনভর কাহিল থাকে কিন্তু চায় সাধারণ এক মেয়ের মত বিয়ে করে সংসারী হতে (দ্য ট্রিটমেন্ট অভ বিবি হালদার)।

লাহিড়ীর ভাষা পরিণত, পরিমিত ও সংযত। গল্পের চরিত্রের জন্য তার সহানুভূতি প্রবল। কিন্তু আবেগের আতিশয্য তার মধ্যে নেই। একবারের জন্যও তাকে লাগামছাড়া মনে হয় না। মনে হয় না একটা প্যারা বেশি লিখে ফেলেছেন। কিংবা কম। এরকম গুণ স্রেফ প্রথম শ্রেণীর গল্পকারের মধ্যেই দেখা যায়।

গল্পগুলো আপন মহিমায় ভাস্বর। তবু আলাদাভাবে অ্যা টেম্পরারি ম্যাটার, দ্য ট্রিটমেন্ট অভ বিবি হালদার, মিসেস সেন’স ও দ্য থার্ড অ্যান্ড ফাইনাল কন্টিনেন্টের কথা বলতে হয়। বিশেষ করে অ্যা টেম্পরারি ম্যাটার গত দু-তিন বছরে আমার পড়া দ্বিতীয় সেরা ছোটগল্প। প্রথমটা এ বছরই পড়া। জন চিভারের দ্য সুইমার।

I enjoy short stories. Short but full of love, information, redemption! Jhumpa does it well. A couple stories were heartbreaking but that didn’t stop this reader.

This author, her prose and imagination are stunning. Attempting these stories most of her characters live in the world of exiles. They are trying to live their hope of making a livelihood in the west by being strong enough to leave India.

I can only finally say that I loved this book of short stories and this author’s beautiful poetry.

This lady can write!!! 5 Stars!

اوایل نوع بیان کتاب من رو یاد کتاب بالاخره یه روزی قشنگ حرف می‌زنم و نوع نگارش فیروزه جزایری دوما می‌انداخت. با این تفاوت که این کتاب داستان‌هایی از زندگی شخصی نویسنده نیست، طنز ضعیف‌تری داشت و متوجه نمی‌شدم که خب که چی؟
تنها نقطه مثبت کتاب شاید تصویری باشه که از افراد هندی به خصوص اون‌هایی که مهاجرت کردن ارائه می‌داد. به اضافه اینکه نوع صحنه‌پردازی خیلی خوب بود و روند جالبی رو طی می‌کرد، گرچه پایان‌بندی هر داستان اصلا برای من خوشایند نبود.

Pulitzer Prize winner, Jhumpa Lahiri gives readers a glimpse into the world of immigrants from India and Pakistan. Many of these stories focus on relationships and marriage and the human desire for connection. We see faults and breakages that are difficult to wade through. We see snapshots of the experiences of immigrants and how different they are from a “regular” American. In “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”, a girl is curious about why he is Pakistani and not Indian. She has a school project on the American Revolution but stumbles upon a book about Pakistan and she is told to put it away because it is not relevant.

“A Temporary Matter” and “The Third and Final Continent” were the best two stories in my opinion. In the first, we see a young couple struggle while mourning their stillborn baby and in the second, we see a young man’s friendship with a 103-year-old woman who helps him to adjust to a new country and his new wife.

These stories were melancholic on the whole. They shed light on various themes of cultural differences with immigrants such as assimilation, loneliness, responsibility, and displacement of their cultures. This was a great introduction to Lahiri and I’m intrigued to read more.

n  "I know my achievement is quite ordinary, I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."n

Though in no way relevant to me, I feel this quote too deeply.

This one is, undoubtedly one of the author’s most prominent works, and for some reasons the only one I have managed to read. Introductory one, that’s probably why. And the Pulitzer is also an additional factor.

It is a collection of nine not-so-short stories, which actually vary in their emotional and love quotients. The first one, n  A Temporary Mattern is quite intuitively placed in that position, as it is bound to grab your total attention and whisper in your ears that this collection isn’t overhyped. Pretty much that’s the reason you will finish this book in one sitting, as though it isn’t extremely thin, but you can pretty much read this sort of stories at any time. So simply told, you will definitely feel like you are conversing with the person sitting next to you.(Not always, though).

The second one has a shift in tone of narrative. n  When Mr. Pirzada came to dinen is definitely too-well-told from the perspective of a young girl. The third one, n  Interpreter of Maladiesn is by far the most memorable of the lot, told in third person where the protagonist has the unique combined profession of hired- driving and playing an interpreter to a local doctor. Quite rightfully it deserves to be the title of the book itself.

A long after that comes the story n  Sexyn, not-unique-yet-unique perspective of an extra-marital affair. Actually, two affairs of two couples, where one tries to learn from the other, fails at first, and then wants to rectify her own faults. The rest of the stories, though all good in their own respects, I won’t discuss them here. You must definitely read yourselves to find out.

All these stories do defy the usual standards or, rather the definition of good short stories, like having twists and turns, ambiguous or open endings, or some morals to teach. For good, actually. We don’t have relationships or any sort of emotional attachments just to be taught something. Similarly, not overdependent on emotions. And in real life one hardly does expect too many twists.

However, this is a book to be read when your brain is baffled from serious readings. And also, of the nine stories, only a few can leave a mark on your mind, say a week after reading. And all of them don’t deserve equal attention, and that keeps the book a little from becoming a truly good book. Basically, you shouldn’t read this going to expect anything new to happen.

The book proved quite nostalgic to me, however. It has the flair of a Bengali’s writing in a foreign tongue in an exactly identical tone as her mother tongue. My only suggestion to whoever picks this one up will be to read at bedtime. They won’t definitely overexert you.

n  “He watched as it rose, carried higher and higher by the breeze, into the trees where the monkeys now sat, solemnly observing the scene below.”n

4.5 stars ☆

This is quite the moving, colorfully woven collection of short stories…now on to my further thoughts on specific stories that settled within me with a singing spirit of heart and frank courage of soul amidst Jhumpa Lahiri's explorations into the global experience of people:

“A Temporary Matter”:

The darkness opens up an intimacy, whether negative or positive reveals itself more clearly as the story goes on, between this husband and wife who are falling out of love, as they do nothing but occupy space together. The negative space that sits itself between them painting a poignant picture of what has been lost to the stillness of words unsaid and can’t cleanse itself any further from the ways it has been singed beyond recognition.

As distance worms its way further and further between them they can’t help but fall further and further out of rhythm with the other, habits, zapped of energy, replacing what was once love. Their idiosyncrasies which once molded together with the ease of clay causing each other now a bitter torment.

The darkness in fact has become a presence of its own in their collapsing relationship that has begun to recede with the quickness of a tide, rushing to be found by the certainty of shore again.

Since the time power has gone out in their building, a proceeding powerlessness has haplessly settled itself over their relationship that’s coated in a melancholia and nostalgia for times past, a time of selves caressed by a calming closeness and elevating warmness.

The wife then begins a game with her husband, whether to rekindle a connection or lead up to a truth she needs the courage to reveal, only time will decide. For in life, things can turn temporary in a shattering reversal, even if they were once promised to be bounded to forever.

“Interpreter of Maladies”:

A family is led around by a tour guide who not only interprets the landscape and local culture, but also interprets people’s physical ailments. A new family he comes into contact with to lead around strikes his interest in particular and begins to impact his sense of self/temporarily fill a void in him that has been left empty and loveless for as long as his heart, mind, and body can remember. He especially finds this void filled by the mother, Mrs. Das, after she proclaims that his profession as an interpreter of maladies is romantic.

As soon as Mr. Kapasi learns from Mrs. Das that she considers his profession romantic, something within him pivotally shifts and he feels seen for the first time in a while, which provokes a profound stirring of desire in him, not only for her, but for things and emotions lost, voided with the elapsing of a time bygone that he can never get back. And with this stirring of profound, deepening desire and reawakening of his sense of purpose he, in turn, begins to project his more romantic notions of Mrs. Das onto her, as her one comment has cemented his existence in something more verifiably tangible, validating that his presence is felt and needed.

Mrs. Das unwittingly becomes Mr. Kapasi’s own interpreter as she unpacks his profession and realizes her own sense of who he is and can be as a man. Mr. Kapasi is drawn deeper and deeper into feeling an imagined subject of romantic attraction just because his love language is someone verbally appreciating him and acknowledging what he does, like Mrs. Das has, even though her actual meaning and intention is in fact never romantic. People read and interpret things how they need to, however, in order to feel some sort of comforting antidote to their lingering, acute loneliness that hinders their ability to feel anything else.

This short story was quite impactful in how it explored the different worlds and burdens people carry, the way we live and how we idealistically romanticize, even inventing our own subtext, and, in culmination, ultimately revealed that our language of feeling pain is more universally understood as others are able to interpret our pain and help us in crisis, even if unwittingly.

Though the voluminous weight and influence of a malady can’t be fully remedied, it can be lessened and lightened, but in this case Mrs. Das was looking for something Mr. Kapasi couldn’t give her, a magical cure-all, which reflects that sometimes what we want isn’t what we need or what’s obtainable in our current condition. We, like Mrs. Das, must work through our own messiness and deepness of feeling, torment over past actions, in order to get somewhere instead of short-cutting our way there. In any case, it also comes back to and derives from our own limits in being able to extract truths from each other’s endlessly complex wholes.

“Sexy”:

Although I had mixed feeling about parts of this story, it still stuck out to me in distinctive ways. In ways that I wanted to undress as the characters not only physically but also metaphorically undress each other in the story. What I most enjoyed about “Sexy” is getting to the bottom of what sexy really means in the first place, almost a sweet, sensually pleasing nothing you tell someone you don’t know, which can startle them into thinking you’re closer than you are and understand each other more than you do.

It can fill you with palpable playfulness, rising hope, and delicate, deepening desire, that will imminently come to a pained standstill, especially in this instance since the man is wrongfully betraying the someone that he has already given his word and heart to. This story also looks into what it can mean to fall in love before you really know someone more intimately, like what it is to wake up and live with them day to day, and without that additional knowledge you can’t fully interpret them: as they remain an art piece with elaborately different, more elusive meanings. Which brings one of the themes of this piece full-circle: in different places one thing can have cultural significance and meaning and in another part of the world it does not.

“The Third and Final Continent”:
This was such a poignantly moving tale of burgeoning care and love between a new husband and wife, unexpected, intergenerational connections born, and stepping into a new culture so vividly different from your own.

A man comes to America to work and before his new wife arrives to live with him from India he stays in an apartment with an elderly woman, Mrs. Croft, who influences him greatly in the small amount of time that they know each other. They are both there for each other in ways that they may need it most and imprint on each other a subtle appreciation for the other’s cultural context and background.

And with the everlasting power of his connection with Mrs. Croft, the man also comes to recognize the ways in which he can embrace the journey of getting to know his wife and ultimately see her through new eyes and an accompanying changed perspective for what she has been through. He recognizes in her some similar challenging feelings that he himself has felt and I think that that’s a beautiful moment of empathetic recognition that can be built upon and influence the course of his and his wife’s relationship.

This story left me with a rich appreciation for the feelings that magically soar between us, our capacity to be good and remember others, and what can be the rivetingly powerful impact of the moments we live and who we share them with.

بعد از خاك غريب دومين اثري است كه از اين نويسنده ميخونم،باتوجه به اينكه اين كتاب هم شبيه كتاب قبليش بود دوسش داشتم،البته گويا اينو قبل از اون نوشته :دي
قلمشو خيلي دوس دارم،توصيفاتشو دوس دارم،با اينكه كتاباش داستاناي كوتاهه و من داستان كوتاه دوست ندارم ولي بازم كتاباشو دوس دارم.

I have always felt that many of the diaspora writers exploit India rather than bring out the realistic aspect of it. A writer will go on to mention about spices, the brown people and the garlic curry we eat--as if this is the end of Indian people and nothing else defines them.

But not with Jhumpa Lahiri. It is not that Lahiri does not mention curries or spices or the brown people--but her writing is not just limited to these things. She has that perfect sense of storytelling that many native language writers in India have with a touch of subtlety, humour and emotions while never being an active participant in the story. This is what makes this collection remarkable. I found all of the stories pretty effective on an emotional level and if one or two different stories didn't particularly touch me or I found unrealistic (like the titular story), I admired the amazing writing style of Lahiri that keeps you hooked. In fact, it is hard to pick the best one and a single theme of isolation and longing runs through every story.

"Sexy" was well written and reminded of the Nina Simone's song "The Other Woman" about a mistress.

"A Real Durwan" and "The Treatment of Bibi Halder" brought out the lives of people living in the same building and their ways of coping with each other.

"Mrs Sen's", "The Third and The Final Continent" explored themes of adjusting in a new land.

Overall this is a must read collection from a remarkable writer which explores the depth of immigration among other sensitive issues.