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.

Midnight's Children

Who the hell am I to judge Midnight's Children? Not only did Salman Rushdie's novel win the Booker Prize, it won the Best of the Booker, marking it the finest of the 41 novels to be awarded said prize. (Of course, the Best of the Booker was chosen by online and text message voting, with 7800 people casting votes, so maybe it's not the indicator of quality one would think. Not that I didn't enjoy the novel -- Midnight's Children was an entertaining story, an introduction to the history of India (certainly not the final word, but my knowledge of Indian history prior to this was based mainly on Wikipedia articles), as well as much more than literary junk food. (And what is literary junk food? For me, my most recent dosage came in the form of this: Super Bowl Bound
by William Campbell Gault -- I remember reading this at age 12 and it being lots of fun, and I recently managed to acquire a copy. Total escapism.))

Being the contrarian that I am, I'd love to debate how as to whether this actually is the best novel to receive the Booker Prize. Unfortunately, this is the only winner of the Booker Prize that I've read. I suppose I'll have to rectify that at some point, several of the prizewinners are on my "to read" list. (This is ordinarily the part of the blog post where the author asks for recommendations. However, as far as I am aware, no one reads this blog.)

Self-indulgent digressions aside, Midnight's Children is absolutely worth reading, as it is regarded as Rushdie's finest novel. It follows Saleem Sinai from his birth at the moment of India's independence from Britain (the stroke of midnight, August 14th, 1947), through his childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Saleem's life loosely mirrors that of the young nation, although most of his actions do not affect his countrymen -- he even spends a time living in Pakistan. The novel culminates in the Emergency, with Indira Gandhi's seizure of powers as well as some severe consequences for Saleem. (The novel isn't kind to Indira* -- her son Sanjay Gandhi is referred to having 'labia lips' every time he is mentioned -- in fact, 'labia lips' appears in the novel more than his given name.) This irreverence wasn't without repercussion for Rushdie, however -- Indira sued him for defamation, not due to her depiction in the novel, but due to one sentence, that I repeat here:

"It has often been said that Mrs Gandhi’s younger son Sanjay accused his mother of being responsible, through her neglect, for his father’s death; and that this gave him an unbreakable hold over her, so that she became incapable of denying him anything."

This line has been excised from my edition of the novel due to the terms of the settlement (which are apparently still in place despite Indira's death? This gives me the opportunity to use my favorite of the internet acronyms, IANAL) is happily provided by Rushdie himself (along with some background, and the sentence's proper place in the text) in his preface. There's not much that bothers me more than such textual edits, so it's nice to know such a sentence was meant to be in place.

*Ordinarily, I wouldn't refer to a historical personage by their first name, but "Gandhi" is so associated with Mohandas Gandhi (no relation), that I feel here I must make a distinction.