Lahiri wrote a series of short stories about people of Indian descent and their experiences as expatriates or immigrants (for the most part). The summary on the back says the collection of stories "charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations." I suppose that's accurate. I didn't think of love as the common thread, though, until I read that.
It's interesting because, as a collection of short stories, you don't really get a lot of time to become attached to the characters. And descriptions are sparing most of the time. I felt too often like too much of what I was processing was coming from my own imagination--that I was supplementing what I was reading with what I expected in order to form a more complete picture in my mind.
My favorite stories of the bunch were probably "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" and "Mrs. Sen's," although there were a few passages among the others that really stood out to me as well. "Mrs. Sen's" has to be my favorite, though, because I feel it captured so well that monotony and lost feeling that you have when you're in a new place and you're shut off (even if by choice) from really connecting with the world. And then the few times Mrs. Sen ventured out, how overwhelmed she was! I held my breath each time she got in the car. I understood her joy each time she was able to cook fresh fish. It brought back some of the feelings I remember when studying abroad.
Overall, I definitely appreciate the many versions of immigrant life that this book portrayed, but I just thought the literary style was too pedestrian. I was not overly impressed.
~6/10~
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