The Lowland / Jhumpa Lahiri

This family saga involves two brothers who grow up in Calcutta. One is killed by state forces after his clandestine involvement in an anti-government group, the Naxilites, a Maoist force that was active in India starting in the late 1960s. His brother, who was studying in the United States at the time of his death, marries his brother’s widow and so the uncle serves as father to his unborn child. The book mainly charts the history of Subhash and Gauri’s strained relationship, and the often difficult growing up of Gauri’s daughter, Bela. Gauri eventually abandons Subhash and her daughter, and the secret of Bela's real father remains unrevealed for far too long. Gauri has her own secret, which the reader only finds out at the end of the novel, a secret that might reveal her motivation to flee any vestige of her past and link to her life in India.

Once again Jhumpa Lahiri crafts a tale that successfully and beautifully spans cultures and generations.

Comments

And the Mountains Echoed / Khaled Hosseini

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The mysterious figure of Bertha Mason provides much of the tension in Jane Eyre , but what does the reader really know about her? Rochester provides some details of her past, but is his account reliable? Caribbean author Jean Rhys attempted to tell the story of Rochester's insane (and perhaps misunderstood) wife in her 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea . It's a sort of prequel to Jane Eyre . I'm afraid Rochester doesn't come out looking good, though we always knew he had a bit of a wild side with his continental dalliances. Anyway, there's a lot of interesting backstory about Bertha's origins in Jamaica, her real name, the tragic circumstances of her upbringing, and how she was established at Thornfield Hall. Gosh, if Jane had only known all these details about Rochester, she might have taken St. John up on his offer of marriage. All in all, Wide Sargasso Sea is pretty credible, but I missed Charlotte Bronte's flowery language, and of course th...

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