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 enlarge | Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $14.54
You Save: $10.46 (42%)
New (62) Used (23) Collectible (17) from $14.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  97 reviews
Sales Rank: 253
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.3
ISBN: 0307265730
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780307265739
ASIN: 0307265730
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Lahiri uses her old themes with success, and with a twist April 25, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Unaccustomed Earth is a remarkable collection of stories. Even though Lahiri uses mostly her common themes (coming of age stories of immigrants and their children) the works have a little bit of something extra, a bit of danger in the case of a few stories, deeper and different relationships in others.
I literally could not put this book down after I started it, with each story keeping me captivated through the pages. I would recommend this book to old fans of Lahiri's and to new readers--the stories are so powerful that they will keep you going, and possibly have you wishing for Lahiri's next work--like I am--by the end.
 same old song.... April 25, 2008
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
From the first few words of Jhumpa's stunning first story, you know you are reading her.....the style is simple but very much hers.
I particularly loved the title story, and feel its her best yet. On the whole I liked this better than "Interpreter..."
I agree with one of the other reviewers however. As an Indian who moved here in the 90s, I'm stuck between the two generations of Indians (always refered to as Bengalis in her book...Bengalis happen to be from India but are known for a slight strain of chauvinsim, shall we say) she describes. I've adopted most of the ways of people who live here and still have ties to my home in India. I still can relate to their stories however. I just wish she would depart every once in a while and populate her stories with people who are slightly different. Maybe Indians with Blue Collar jobs or Gay Indians or whatever else. Jhumpa, you've lived here long enough to have been touched by people who didn't go to Harvard or Columbia, didn't grow up in affluent Boston suburbs and don't have perfect careers (but silent personal struggles)...
Its like I'm hearing variations of the same (albeit beautiful) song over and over again.
Takes Your Breath Away April 24, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Finishing this collection of carefully wrought and longish short stories was bittersweet. Lahari is a master of character study, and it's difficult to believe she's still a young woman. Her descriptions of her multigenerational, mostly Bengali immigrant, characters felt intimate and usually sympathetic. The details may be Indian, but the emotions are universal. I can't think of any writer today who can so closely render the complicated interactions of adults and their offspring.
Two things are remarkable about these stories. One is the way she moves around from one point of view to another quite easily so that we see a situation from the standpoints of several characters. Lahiri switches smoothly in and out of various perspectives until she has rendered a little gem of a tale.
The second remarkable characteristic is the way she ends a story. It's not the classic O Henry ending where there's a twist that catches you by surprise and may not make sense entirely but what I think of now as a Lahiri ending, a devastating insight that takes your breath away. There's not an unsatisfying conclusion in any of the eight stories that make up this collection.
Excellent Reading April 23, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth is spellbounding. Eight short stories woven so tightly together, it would take a great deal of stretching, bending or breaking to get them to unravel. Lahiri's strength - among many of them as a story teller - lies is the character development of the protagonists, their realities, anxities, dream and behaviour. I first read one of the stories 'Year's End' in the new Yorker a couple of months ago. It was about a young man's fathers second marriage. I loved it. And, imagine the bonanza with seven more of these wondereful tales.
As an Indian, I lived in North America in the 70s and 80s, watching a first generation of immigrants. Now, I watch their children, the people Lahiri writes about. I see them in the US, in India and in other parts of the world. In them are all the things Lahiri writes about - strength, confusion, conflicts - and torn between the culture they came from and the one they are part of. She is right on target about them.
Reading Lahiri is pure pleasure. Don't miss the book!
 Variations on a theme April 22, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
As a Bengali-American from New England I always find it fascinating to read in Ms Lahiri's books what could be versions of my life (especially The Namesake"). However when I read fiction I'm not necessarily looking to relate to each and every character or event, I'm looking to be transported into the author's imagination. I loved "Interpreter of Maladies" not only because I love Ms Lahiri's precise and elegant writing style but also because in those stories the characters were diverse both biographically and geographically. In Unaccustomed Earth Ms Lahiri has cast a much narrower net and come up with a set of characters who could have all known each other, met at the same Puja and been part of the same adda group, their spheres of existence overlap so much.
On a separate note I do sense a certain disdain for the zero-generation, where the wives are completely taken up with home and hearth, blinkered from being a part of broader American society, never as career women or activists. And where the men are always in a state of "irritated resignation" with their wives and offspring. Though that might be more to do with the contraints of a short story, the resulting chasm between the zero and first generations becomes inevitable. If this book were a music album it would be variations on a theme all written in the same key. Beautiful but ultimately leaving the listener wishing desperately for a change of key, tempo and instrumentation.
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