Unaccustomed Earth : Jhumpa Lahiri

The book opens with the quote "Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes shall be within my control shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth."

There are eight stories in this book, about Bengali immigrants to America and the lives they live as they bridge old home and new home.  These stories do wonders to break into lives of the model immigrants to the US.. who work and produce and pay taxes and do not break laws. However, thinking of all the characters in Tagore's stories, and in Ray's films.. these stories help to bring to life some of the dilemmas of preserving culture, integration, settling into a new place.

The stories are longish.. the last three follow the lives of two Hema and Kaushik.
Unaccustomed Earth is about a woman, her father and his new found love; Hell-Heaven about unrequited love outside of marriage; A Choice of Accommodations about lust in marriage; Only Goodness about guilt, alcoholism in the family; Nobody's Business about love and lust and cheating.

Lahiri develops her stories gently and then in the end there are 'sledgehammer conclusions' as one reviewer put it. 

 I started reading stories in Junot Diaz' Drown, about Dominican Republican and wondered if his characters could be compared to Lahiri's characters. Similar themes of love, displacement , cheating, lusting but different encounters with the immigration.. Lahiri's characters are nice and middle class; Diaz' are not.

The book is worth a read.. and reread.

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