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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 $14.54
Avg. Customer Rating:  97 reviews
Sales Rank: 230
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 shows her growth as a writer July 17, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Lahiri's stories are described as a slow burn. This is most evident in this collection. Each story seemingly plods on, but at the end of each one, the reader sees it all come together. I absolutely loved the final story, which was more like a novella. It perfectly described the joys and pitfalls of illicit romance. I felt as if this collection took on cultural identity in a more subtle way than Lahiri's two other books. The characters are all Bengali, but they are somehow also more American than the characters in 'Interpreter of Maladies' and 'The Namesake'. I don't know if this is a function of Lahiri growing as a writer or if it was done intentionally. Either way, she's done a bang up job.
 I was sad to leave the characters July 17, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Unaccustomed Earth is a wonderful collection of stories that you are so sad to leave at the end of each one. A book that doesn't leave you. I am so happy that I found it.
 Just Okay July 14, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
When Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize winning volume of short stories, "The Interpreter of Maladies" was published, I didn't read it. For one thing, I'd just read Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy" and Rohinton Mistry's "Family Matters," and while I absolutely loved both books, I was suffering from a surfeit of Indian fiction, at least at that time. But more than that, I gave "The Interpreter of Maladies" a pass because of all the hype. I've been let down by hype in the past. More than once. Surely the book couldn't be that good, I told myself. Surely Lahiri's prose wasn't that sparkling and fresh.
When "Unaccustomed Earth," Lahiri's third book of longer short stories was released, I'd "sort of" decided to give it a pass as well. I have plenty to read, and didn't really need anything new. However, I was shopping the other day and there was the book, lying on a table right in front of me. I couldn't resist. But please keep in mind, I approached the book with a mind to dislike it.
At first, I was astounded by the beauty and grace in Lahiri's stories. No, the plots aren't much to speak of. Nothing earth shattering really happens. These are just normal people living normal lives. Yes, they're Bengali-Americans, but so what? Lahiri writes about the universality of the human experience, not about experiences that are unique to Bengalis or Bengali-Americans.
I was impressed with Lahiri's spare and unadorned prose, with her understatement. But as time went on, my good feelings about this book were replaced by some not-so-good. For one, the surfeit of grammar mistakes, such as using "one another" instead of "each other" when speaking of only two people. This would be okay in a memo or an email, but not coming from a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Another reviewer has already pointed out the numerous grammar mistakes, so I won't do so here, but please know, they are they and in spades.
Another thing I came to dislike about the book was the flatness of the storytelling, the lack of vivid details. I'm not talking about cheap "hooks" or action scenes like are found in less-than-great detective stories or thrillers, neither of which I really like, but sensuous details - the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings of things - description that makes use of the five senses. It just wasn't there and I found Lahiri's prose pleasant, but flat. It didn't come to life vividly like Alice Munro's always does, or William Trevor's. Pulitzer or not, I don't think Lahiri has mastered her craft.
Personally, I can't understand criticism of Lahiri because she writes about Bengali-Americans. Doesn't Alice Munro write about Canadians? Doesn't William Trevor write about the Irish? Did Chekhov write about Russians and Eudora Welty about people of the American South? No, I wouldn't be able to read Lahiri every day. But neither would I be able to read Alice Munro or Chekhov every day. That part doesn't bother me nearly as much as the flat prose and the grammatical errors, neither of which should be tolerated in a Pulitzer winner.
If you're new to Lahiri's writing, "Unaccustomed Earth" probably isn't a good place to start. Although at first impressed, after letting the stories "settle" for a while, I came away from the book feeling very let down, very underwhelmed. No, the stories aren't bad, but they're not stellar, either, and definitely not up to the caliber of Alice Munro or William Trevor. Certainly not Chekhov.
Two and one-half stars, rounded up to three.
Well Worth Reading July 12, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Another great work by Jhumpa Lahiri. It's nice to find a consistent writer that is never a disappointment.
Unaccustomed praise? July 8, 2008
9 out of 13 found this review helpful
...not by today's standards! I have read this author's earlier work and actually enjoyed some of the stories in her collection from a few years back. But deserving of a Pulitzer? In all fairness, I must say that it seems as though one must now be ethnic and from a Third World country to get any literary recognition in this fair United States these days. I'd say this might be a good thing if these writers were really coming from difficulty and struggle. But that is not the case with these ethnic immigrant writers of today. If one is as privileged as Ms. Lahiri has been, (and there are many), you will go to the correct top tier Ivy League schools, which will give you correct entry to the publishing circle elite. Let me just say that I welcome varied experience; I am all for different perspectives-but what's missing here is the grit of life. We can't help but see that Lahiri's dramas are rather predictable, shallow and simply not constituting the very stuff of which great fiction is made.
To wit: the greatest writers, to me, never entered an MFA program or Ivy League type of school. I think this is true today as any. Could you imagine Henry Miller, Mark Twain, Dickenson, Gogol, Austen, Whitman, George Eliot et al, coming out of the precious Iowa School or any other assortment of MFA programs? I think not. What constitutes such a lustrous and exquisite rendering of life is life itself. And those great writers lived it. Sad to say this no longer seems to be the case. And our expectations are so lowered as a result of it.
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