Mondays Reviews Today: Lahiri's 'Earth' & Judt's 'Reappraisals'
-- Publishers Weekly, 1/24/2008 2:21:00 PM
In Jhumpa Lahiri's "stunning" new collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, the author turns to familiar territory, dissecting "the gulf that separates expatriate Bengali parents from their American-raised children." With stories that "evince a spare and subtle mastery," Lahiri proves, again, a master of the form and an author with "few contemporary equals." And in Tony Judt's collection of previously published essays, Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century, the author offers up a "fascinating exploration of the world we have recently lost" that "cannot be bested."
Unaccustomed Earth
Jhumpa Lahiri. Knopf, $25 (352p) ISBN 978-0-307-26573-9
The gulf that separates expatriate Bengali parents from their American-raised children—and that separates the children from India—remains Lahiri’s subject for this follow-up to Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake. In this set of eight stories, the results are again stunning. In the title story, Brooklyn-to-Seattle transplant Ruma frets about a presumed obligation to bring her widower father into her home, a stressful decision taken out of her hands by his unexpected independence. The alcoholism of Rahul is described by his elder sister, Sudha; her disappointment and bewilderment pack a particularly powerful punch. And in the loosely linked trio of stories closing the collection, the lives of Hema and Kaushik intersect over the years, first in 1974 when she is six and he is nine; then a few years later when, at 13, she swoons at the now-handsome 16-year-old teen’s reappearance; and again in Italy, when she is a 37-year-old academic about to enter an arranged marriage, and he is a 40-year-old photojournalist. An inchoate grief for mothers lost at different stages of life enters many tales and, as the book progresses, takes on enormous resonance. Lahiri’s stories of exile, identity, disappointment and maturation evince a spare and subtle mastery that has few contemporary equals. (Apr.)
Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
Tony Judt. Penguin Press, $29.95 (464p) ISBN 978-1-59420-136-3
Historian and political commentator Judt warns against the temptation “to look back upon the twentieth century as an age of political extremes, of tragic mistakes and wrongheaded choices; an age of delusion from which we have now, thankfully, emerged.” In this collection of 24 previously printed essays (nearly all from the New York Review of Books and the New Republic), Judt, whose recent book Postwar was a Pulitzer finalist, pleads with readers to remember that the past never completely disappears and that the coming century is as fraught with dangers as the last. Buttressing his argument, Judt draws upon an impressively broad array of subjects. He begins by describing the eclipse of intellectuals as a public force (for instance, the steep decline in Arthur Koestler’s reputation) before reminding his audience of the immense power of ideas by discussing the now inexplicable attractions of Marxism in the 20th century. In the book’s penultimate section, Judt examines the rise of the state in the politics and economics of Western nations before finally tackling the United States, its foreign policy and the fate of liberalism. As a fascinating exploration of the world we have recently lost—for good or bad, or both—this collection, despite its lack of new content, cannot be bested. (Apr. 21)
