Long time back, when we participated in Macmillan interschool tests, there used to be puzzles with figures instructing us to have a bird’s eye view on them. The opinions expressed in the review are my own, and remain unbiased and uninfluenced.Ģ) Indian Quills Reading Challenge at Tales Pensieve.At times, to enjoy certain books completely, one needs to do something different than just the usual self-identification with the characters. This book was given to me for review by Random House India. Thought-provoking and realistic, a book that’ll stay in my bookshelf for a long time to come. Not a fun read, but it makes us return to it, mull over it. The book goes into the intricacies of relationships and pulls us in easily.

A sibling’s world perhaps, but not one that I would find understanding in my life. For me, the best story, though I liked the story Unaccustomed Earth, was the one titled Only Goodness. So it felt nice to read even with the depth. It was a twist perhaps, but one that went with the flow. The other thing that links the stories of course is that not all endings are happy. Different, distinct characters yes, but they felt same after a while. Whereas I liked that the characters had accomplished something, were settled in life and had good things going their way too, the common backgrounds after a couple of stories became repetitive. This was both a positive and a negative about the book.

The first thing I found linking the stories was the Bengali backgrounds, and then immediately, the foreign setting. I’ve heard of her works, and a couple sit in my wishlist still. This is the first time I’m reading a Jhumpa Lahiri creation. Reading a story that takes us into the skin of a character makes us feel like that character is more than that. We’re happy to read that, I guess, because we know that alternative thorny ending, and we wouldn’t want to wish it upon anyone, not even a fictional character. Most novels hinge around getting that rosy, all-is-well, happy ending that life, in that situation, might not get. It usually never is, but sometimes, if things seem to be going well, then it would feel like it is. Life… life isn’t always only roses without the thorns. She is also a member of the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, appointed by Barack Obama. Jhumpa Lahiri is an London-born Indian author, whose work has won international acclaim including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and being shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize.

Unaccustomed earth review