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| Unaccustomed Earth | 
 enlarge | Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Category: Book
Buy New: $27.99
New (5) Used (12) Collectible (1) from $18.46
Avg. Customer Rating:  119 reviews
Sales Rank: 1115805
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0676979343
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780676979343
ASIN: 0676979343
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW
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| Customer Reviews:
 Outstanding June 5, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Jhumpa Lahiri just keeps getting better and better. "Unaccustomed Earth" is her third book and her second collection of short stories. I'm amazed that she was able to top "Interpreter of Maladies" with such rich, emotional portraits of love and loss. This book contains eight stories, three of which are linked together, and like all of Lahiri's previous works, each story focuses on individuals from Bengali families who are now living in the U.S. The title story revolves around Ruma, a woman who feels obligated to ask her widowed father to move into the home she shares with her father and son. Other highlights from the book include "Only Goodness," which revolves around an older sister's sense of duty toward her alcoholic brother; "Nobody's Business," a story of an American man who falls in love with his unavailable Indian roommate; and "Hema and Kaushik," three related stories that chronicle the relationship between two characters that spans more than 20 years.
Lahiri is one of the most prominent writers of modern fiction, and "Unaccustomed Earth" is another flawless collection of prose. I recommend this book to everyone, and strongly encourage you to check out the author's other two works as well.
 Band-aid surgery September 12, 2008
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
Lahiri's skilled writing is transparent; words simply melt on your brain!
However, the sameness of her characters is boring. I could skip pages and didn't feel if I missed anything. To describe her book an imagery of a surgical room came before me: The operation room is ready for Dr.C.., Bengali doctor's skillful surgery. He enters with no expression on his face. He checks the gleaming surgical tools. Nurses become silent and steady their masks. He nods, pulling the mask over his face. The lights are on; patient lay motionless but fearless. Dr. C lifts the sheet and skillfully removes the band-aid from the patient's knee...
 Offers the Reader an Enticing Window. May 2, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I finished reading "Unaccustomed Earth" by Jhumpa Lahiri in about four days. To me, that's the first hallmark of a good book--that you want to keep on reading it.
One reason I was so motivated to keep on reading was that Lahiri writes such accessible characters. They grapple with issues we all do (parents not understanding you when you're young, the death of a parent, etc.). Lahiri's characters in this book are as human and flawed as the rest of us, in spite of (or maybe because of) the pressure put on them to be so successful.
Lahiri gives many of us a window into what it's like to grow up Indian in America. I like the way that she adds details about Indian culture, foods, etc., but not to the extent that it alienates or makes the story inaccessible to someone of non-Indian background like myself.
Her writing style, at least to me, seems basic in that it's not cluttered with a lot of florid adjectives and description. Yet the characters' stories still come across as real. She gets to the essence of these characters and leaves out what is unnecessary.
In reading some of the previous reviews, I do agree that Lahiri should try extending her range by writing about Indian or Indian-American characters outside of the highly educated class that seems to be a hallmark of her stories so far. While her stories do show a certain degree of variety and uniqueness, there is always the danger of producing stories of a uniform sameness if she's not careful.
Overall though, I definitely recommend this book, as well as her earlier "Interpreter of Maladies" collection.
Welcome Back! May 4, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
It's good to see Jhumpa Lahiri working again in the art form that best suits her temperament, the short story. Although "The Namesake" garnered much attention and a movie, it was for me ultimately a failure as a novel, as too many small moments stretched out over too long a span and collapsed from boredom and exhaustion.
These stories, however, work very well. Lahiri gives us just enough small concrete moments and perceptions to sustain the experience of loss and of what the immigration experience means for those who are transported into the west from India. The characters are precisely and neatly drawn from closely observed but telling details. The subtle and not-so-subtle encroachment of U.S. culture and life into the India mindset, with its subsequent fallout of loss and emotional ambiguity, is clearly captured here.
This talented observer and careful writer is at her best again. I highly recommend this collection for everyone.
We've Been Here Before August 30, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Lahiri's work has become predictable: children of middle or upper class Bengali immigrants adopt American customs, causing consternation to their traditional parents/family. Most of this isn't even especially well written. She had some earlier successes, notably the Third and Final Continent, but this is just getting boring.
Most of her characters suffer the same life altering but not necessarily fatal flaw: unwilling to accept familial change, they simply turn away. Thus, a young man walks out on his father when he fails to connect with his new stepmother and step sisters and a young mother lets her father walk out of her life when she begins to suspect his travel companion is actually a girlfriend.
In July '08, the Frank O'Connor Short Story prize committee announced that it was taking the unusual step of announcing Lahiri as the annual contest's outright winner rather that pare the long list of almost 40 names down to five and then announcing the winner at the festival. Apparently, the judges found her work to be so superior to the other nominees that they felt suspense was unwarranted. I for my part don't see it. The irony is that given the breadth of Frank O'Connor's work--childhood, love, soldiership, and on and on--Lahiri seems limited to the same old characters and ideas.
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