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The Lowland Jhumpa Lahiri Books

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The Lowland Jhumpa Lahiri Books

THE LOWLAND REVIEW

Jhumpa Lahiri has moved to the front of my favorite author list after reading “The Lowland.” I’m fickle with my favorite authors so how long she remains there is dependent on what I read next. The fact remains that she’s a remarkable writer and has captured me with this magnificent novel.

A researcher, cautious and reliable Subhash, relocates from India to America, and his younger sibling, rash and idealistic Udayan, is assassinated as a political activist in Calcutta. Subhash marries the widow, Gauri, who is carrying his brother’s child, to remove her from the brothers’ disapproving parents who are creating an oppressive environment for her. The ensuing years are chronicled as Subhash attempts to quiet the reverberations that affect all members of his family, although his efforts are mostly ineffective. His relationship with his niece, and stepdaughter, Bela, is a captivating episode of love and acceptance, but family members generally go their separate ways, each carrying their own bag of ashes.

This story of two brothers with very different approaches to life is largely joyless but it does not leave an aftertaste of depression. The lives of the characters steadily progress with hints that something pleasant might happen, a hypnotic writing style that keeps reader involved. Disappointment, unfulfilled dreams, secrecy, and many deaths inhabit this lengthy novel but the ending, in just a few pages, brings the story to a tranquil closure.

Lahiri touches senses and allows descriptive passages to be felt rather than read. She describes rain as both a feeling and a sound. “The roof of the cottage was as thin as a membrane, the pelting sound of the rain like an avalanche of gravel.” Recollections of seaside cottages are nostalgically gathered. “He pulled… into the driveway, bleached shells crackling under the tires as he slowed to a stop.” And sleepless nights are relived. “He longed for sleep, but it would not immerse him; that night the waters he sought for his repose were deep enough to wade in, but not to swim.”

Several generations pass and the reader is carried along by the author’s mesmerizing story. It is written crisply in brief and succinct language. There are no lengthy, soaring flights of inner thoughts with obscure meanings. Relationships are clear and believable. The dialogue is easy to follow although the author doesn’t use quotation marks, but I don’t miss them. As mentioned, the author’s talent for drawing the reader into the story and allowing action to be felt, rather than simply directing eyes over words on a page, creates a glorious experience.

As I end the book I have a curious thought. If Lahiri can write a book of sadness with such skill and poignancy, how might she present one of light heartedness and wondrous experiences? Just a thought.

Schuyler T Wallace
Author of TIN LIZARD TALES


Tags : Amazon.com: The Lowland (9780307265746): Jhumpa Lahiri: Books,Jhumpa Lahiri,The Lowland,Knopf,0307265749,Asian American,Cultural Heritage,Sagas,Brothers;Fiction.,Naxalite Movement;Fiction.,Triangles (Interpersonal relations);Fiction.,ASIAN AMERICAN NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,Brothers,FICTION Asian American,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Cultural Heritage,Fiction Literary,Fiction Sagas,Fiction-Literary,GENERAL,General Adult,India,Naxalite Movement,Triangles (Interpersonal relations),United States

The Lowland Jhumpa Lahiri Books Reviews

It’s hard to know where Jhumpa Lahiri is going with her novel, THE LOWLAND. It’s about two brothers who were born fifteen months apart, but were often mistaken for each other. Both are good students, but one is conservative and the other is a revolutionary.

Subhash, the older one, and Udayan, were born in North Calcutta. Lahiri shows them fashioning a putter into an all-purpose club and sneaking into the exclusive golf course near where they live. Her point seems to be that India hasn’t changed much since independence. You still have the haves and the have nots. Strangely she never uses the word “Untouchable.” Not that the boys are poor; their parents are sort of upper middle class, just not rich enough to belong to the club.

Matters come to a head when the Naxalite (communist) movement entices Udayan, and he is introduced to Gauri, a friend’s sister, whom he marries in defiance of his parents. In the India of the time, the late sixties and early seventies, parents chose their children’s spouses. Subhash would never have done that, but he does decide to attend a college in Rhode Island to study some sort of oceanography, where he picks up some American habits.

Ultimately Udayan pays with his life and Subhash goes home to console his parents. They act like he's not there. He disapproves of the way they treat Gauri, rather like a servant girl, and he decides to marry her and take her back to America with him. This is really where the story starts. Gauri is pregnant with Udayan’s child. She’s also been studying philosophy and Subhash does everything in his power to help her achieve her goals in that respect, despite the child. Remarkably the baby seems drawn more to her “father” than her birth mother.

I had a bit of a problem with Gauri’s behavior. She’s inappreciative; she can’t form a normal mother/daughter bond with her own child. I know we can’t help how we feel, but one would think being saved from life as a servant girl would have more of a psychological impact, whether sexual or only platonic. But apparently, as an author, Lahiri needs this to happen. Despite this, her objective, journalistic approach doesn’t provide much of a tone. And what is she saying about Udayan? Is he responsible for the unhappiness most of the characters go through because he wanted to help poor people? There’s no denying matters would have been quite different if Udayan had lived. Or is she saying that it doesn’t matter where the traumatic incident happened, that we’re all influenced by our families, and that they set the course of our lives?
Read this for my book club that is focusing on "cultural differences" this year. From that standpoint, this was a good selection as I learned a lot about the turmoil in India from the 1940's to 1970's when the main characters were coming of age. As other reviewers note, one brother escapes the turmoil by moving to the USA for his PhD, setting off his own conflict between his Indian culture and that of the US. The younger brother stays in India and becomes a revolutionary activist. But it's also a story about family conflicts and devotion.

Of note, the author/editor chose to publish the book without quotation marks to indicate when a character was speaking. Some readers found this distracting, but it wasn't for me.

I did enjoy the book and the author's style of story telling
THE LOWLAND REVIEW

Jhumpa Lahiri has moved to the front of my favorite author list after reading “The Lowland.” I’m fickle with my favorite authors so how long she remains there is dependent on what I read next. The fact remains that she’s a remarkable writer and has captured me with this magnificent novel.

A researcher, cautious and reliable Subhash, relocates from India to America, and his younger sibling, rash and idealistic Udayan, is assassinated as a political activist in Calcutta. Subhash marries the widow, Gauri, who is carrying his brother’s child, to remove her from the brothers’ disapproving parents who are creating an oppressive environment for her. The ensuing years are chronicled as Subhash attempts to quiet the reverberations that affect all members of his family, although his efforts are mostly ineffective. His relationship with his niece, and stepdaughter, Bela, is a captivating episode of love and acceptance, but family members generally go their separate ways, each carrying their own bag of ashes.

This story of two brothers with very different approaches to life is largely joyless but it does not leave an aftertaste of depression. The lives of the characters steadily progress with hints that something pleasant might happen, a hypnotic writing style that keeps reader involved. Disappointment, unfulfilled dreams, secrecy, and many deaths inhabit this lengthy novel but the ending, in just a few pages, brings the story to a tranquil closure.

Lahiri touches senses and allows descriptive passages to be felt rather than read. She describes rain as both a feeling and a sound. “The roof of the cottage was as thin as a membrane, the pelting sound of the rain like an avalanche of gravel.” Recollections of seaside cottages are nostalgically gathered. “He pulled… into the driveway, bleached shells crackling under the tires as he slowed to a stop.” And sleepless nights are relived. “He longed for sleep, but it would not immerse him; that night the waters he sought for his repose were deep enough to wade in, but not to swim.”

Several generations pass and the reader is carried along by the author’s mesmerizing story. It is written crisply in brief and succinct language. There are no lengthy, soaring flights of inner thoughts with obscure meanings. Relationships are clear and believable. The dialogue is easy to follow although the author doesn’t use quotation marks, but I don’t miss them. As mentioned, the author’s talent for drawing the reader into the story and allowing action to be felt, rather than simply directing eyes over words on a page, creates a glorious experience.

As I end the book I have a curious thought. If Lahiri can write a book of sadness with such skill and poignancy, how might she present one of light heartedness and wondrous experiences? Just a thought.

Schuyler T Wallace
Author of TIN LIZARD TALES