My blog reviews of the IAM Reader's Guild gatherings in 2010. (see previous Readers Guild posts here)
August 2010: Unaccustomed Earth by
Endicott, NY chapter of the IAM Readers Guild
Perfect for summertime reading, the eight short stories that
make up Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth received unanimous approval from the Endicott gathering of the
Reader’s Guild. We were drawn into the
lives of each skillfully-written character.
The few celebrations and the much heartache.
The unobtrusive manner in which Lahiri writes the
cross-cultural tension for each Bengali-American family increased our empathy
toward those among us trying to live as citizens of one country, yet honoring
the traditions of another. Some readers
related to this tension through family stories of immigrant grandparents,
handed down one or two generations. Some
readers, those who have lived out of country, have experienced a level of the
culture shock themselves. Others related
to the hardship of straddling two worlds in other dynamics of life: serving as a bridge among family members,
relating to other walks of life in educational or socio-economic indicators.
The author describes the tension between cultures and
generations so skillfully that we, as readers, felt it grow on us in layers,
story after story, character after character.
The opportunity to discuss together the themes, settings, relationships
found in the book helped us gradually awake to the author’s perspective, rather
than have it thrust upon us. Like a slow burn leading toward a burst of flame,
the three-chapter novella in part two of the book serves as a summary to this
motif of cross-cultural and intergenerational disconnection. The romantic
tragedy of Hema and Kaushik proves this almost dispassionate disconnection
Lahiri writes so well. Once again, the
generations miss each other, the cultures miss each other, the lovers miss each
other. In the end, life goes on in
almost parallel worlds.
Ms. Lahiri chooses an excerpt from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
“The Custom-House” as an epigraph for the book.
Human
nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and
replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My
children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be
within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.
She describes in these stories the subtle complexities and
the muted longings of her characters for fortunes in a fresh soil, but it seems
too many times the roots do not grow deeply enough for relationships to thrive
in the new terrain. The second generation
all receives excellent opportunities in a new homeland, but it doesn’t seem
that they are building on the strengths of tradition and culture in the
motherland. If the author’s intentions
are for us to empathize with the sacrifices and lament the loss of culture
between generations, to wonder if the “ends justify the means”, she succeeds
brilliantly. If nothing else, she gives
us pleasure in reading and insight into the commonality of the human struggle –
no matter the earth in which we are planted.
