Interpreter of Maladies

I really wanted to hate Jhumpa Lahiri's debut collection, Interpreter of Maladies. All these neat, precious stories where everything is tied up with a bow at the end. (Maybe I was just upset because the eponymous story in the collection is about an interpreter who works for a doctor, rather than some sort of shaman). Fortunately, I was not able to -- the stories flow quite well, as the limpid prose is eminently readable, and Lahiri makes it easy to become invested in her characters.

Having previously read Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children helped me avoid too much culture shock towards Lahiri's Indian characters and settings, but she does an excellent job at making the exotic familiar -- all of Lahiri's characters are easy to relate to, and as such, there comes familiarity with the things, foods, and customs that they are familiar with.

Despite their ease of reading, I have little desire to revisit these stories. They're all the sort of work that I'm glad I read, but there's little pleasure to be had here, in re-reading. I'd love to be proven wrong, but this is an experience to have once. The characters are good to have met, and the craft is to be admired, but there's little memorable or to be reflected upon.

One thing I wish I could remember -- in "Sexy", an American (of non-Indian extraction) asks an Indian what the Taj Mahal is like, and is told: "The most romantic spot on earth. An everlasting monument to love." I wish I could remember what work I'd been exposed to said of the Taj Mahal "it's a tomb" to emphasize how misguided the desire to build one for a living woman was.