Interpreter of Maladies

So, I must admit... I am a little behind. While I find it somewhat easy to pick up a book for a few minutes every other day or so, I find it increasing difficult to write about what I read. I finished Interpreter of Maladies a month or so ago, and I am just now sitting down to the computer to write my thoughts. If I were to be completely honest, I would tell you that I have already finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao as well. I haven't written about it either. And while I am not diligent, I find it necessary to record my journey through some of the greatest novels America has to offer. And so I continue....

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri is a wonderful short collection of stories. All of which relate to the author's native country of India. Some take place in India; others depict Indians adjusting to the American way.  Lahiri has a wonderful way of weaving such a fine seam between the two countries, I found it difficult, at times, to know on what side of the Atlantic to picture myself.

Within each story, I felt dropped deliberately into the middle of a person's life to decipher the who, what, when, where, and how of the matter, like when you tune into a 10-year-running soap opera for the first time. Lahiri has a quality reminiscent of J.D. Salinger in Nine Stories (this collect also has nine stories, but I am sure that is just coincidence), and she is able to capture emotion in the simple moments, leaving the reader uncertain of themselves.

My two favorite stories with this collection are "A Temporary Matter" and "Interpreter of Maladies." In "A Temporary Matter," a couple has received a letter that their electricity will be temporary shut off at 8:00 every night. Under the protective covering of darkness and candlelight, the wife uses this as a way for the two to reveals things about themselves that the other doesn't know. As the story continues, a temporary matter takes on a new meaning, and the end leaves you dangling in the uncertainty of the couple's future.

In "Interpreter of Maladies," the main character is Mr. Kapasi, an interpreter for a doctor during the week and a chauffeur on the weekend. This particular weekend, he is chauffeuring an Americanized Indian family who is visiting their native country after a considerable absence. They are more tourists that family returning for a visit. Mr. Kapasi is flattered when the wife begins to take an interest in him and his position as an interpreter of maladies. To his own wife, he is merely a doctor's assistant, a failure, but to his passenger, his position was "romantic" and carried great responsibility.  He finds himself growing infatuated with this glamorous woman, too busy for her children and not really paying much attention to anyone other than herself. He is quickly reminded, however, that brief moments can't last a lifetime.

It's king of funny to think, though, that that is what a lifetime is: a series of brief moments and small beauties. And it is ofter the little things that we remember about a person: Nanny cutting fabric holding pens between her teeth, coloring my dad's toenails with a #2 pencil, brushing off my daughter's knees after a fall. Small brief moments that make up a lifetime. I want to collect them all.

Up next, my report on The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Until then... Happy reading.

All the King's Men

So after a few long months, I have finally finished Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize. I wasn't excited about reading this one. If I were honest, I would say that I was dreading it... about as much as I am dreading Gone with the Wind. Reading the back cover (and I know you shouldn't judge a book by its proverbial cover), I was anticipating a book about Louisiana politics. If there is one thing I hate more than a boring book, it's a book about politics. But in an effort to keep an open mind, I greeting the ambitious task with a large cup of coffee and nothing by time.

Sure. Time. Something I have loads of as a full-time employee, wife, and mother. But I digress.

I will be the first to say that I enjoyed the journey, the ambling pathways and detours it took, in a winded but even pace. And while it was largely about corrupt politics (as if there is any other kind), it was more about the journey of the narrator, Jack Burden.

Appropriately named, Jack Burden is a man carrying the burden of a successful family and his inability to rise to the challenge in his own right. He quites his job at the paper when he refuses to publish an article in favor of a candidate whom he can't support. He seemingly finds his salvation in Willie Stark, a good ol' boy from the country with no experience in politics but a good heart to help the common man. My how power can change a man!

You know from the end of the first chapter (might I mention that they are about 50 pages long!), you know that things are not going to end too well for Willie Stark and his pawns. It just takes another 550 pages for you to find out why. Through those pages, you wander in and out of the past, learning how Willie Stark became the Boss, why Burden is the way he is, and how everything fell apart upon uncovering a pretty hefty secret.

While the book centers around Louisiana politics, the heart of the novel rests in human nature and moral courage. Is it human nature to lie, cheat, and steal to get what you want? Perhaps. When left to our own devices, are we just like animals: survival of the fittest? Perhaps.

My daddy has always said that the measure of the good in a person is also the measure of the bad. I think my dad is a pretty smart man. The most beautiful places on earth are also the deadliest, full of venomous animals, and carnivorous creatures. While man strives to be good and do good things, the means do not always justify the end. While Burden tries to be a good man, he misses his opportunity to rise up and do what is morally right, and while Willie Stark wants to do right by the common man, his means are neither moral or ethical. Perhaps he has just learned to play the game.

Something, I think, I will never learn to do.

So I leave the realm of politics for the Taj Mahal. Up next, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpta Lahiri, winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize.

Until then... Happy reading.