It was good to be back in my usual spot, even though I sold only a Mary Higgins Clark mystery today. Thanks, ma'am. And it was so great not having to deal with oppressive heat. The cloud cover and stiff wind negated the high humidity. What a relief. Thanks also to the gentleman who donated three paperbacks to the cause.
I had never heard of Jhumpa Lahiri until actor/singer Johnny Feets spotted Unaccustomed Earth (2008), a collection of long short stories (oxymoron) among the books I had on display. He said she wrote like an angel. That day I took it home. I've just finished it. The stories are about people of Bengali (India) origin living in the United States. She writes about real life, without any embellishment other than her beautiful prose. She shows the customs of the characters, which are different than that of most Americans. More importantly, she reveals their humanity, which is exactly like anyone else's. The parents hold onto ties from their old lives, just as mine did, while their American-born children become westernized. I characterize this type of work, as I would 90% of my own, as "explorations of the bittersweet mystery of life." While reading, I was reminded of a film I recently viewed on DVD, Tokyo Story (1953). In it, an elderly couple living in a remote village decide to visit their children, who, busy with their own lives, have little time for them. There is no action, but plenty of understated interaction - just like in real life. The characters, except a young widow at the end, rarely show any deep emotion. They are decent folk lost in the great mystery of life. Director Yasujiro Ozu ( yes, there were others besides the great Kurosawa making movies in Japan) allows viewers to form their own conclusions. It is rife with hard truths.
Lahiri's debut collection of stories, The Interpreter of Maladies (1999), was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. I was happy to learn she has chosen Brooklyn as her home, although the yuppie-hipster section of Park Slope seems so different from the rest of the borough. I wonder if she ever passed the floating bookshop when I used to set up shop there.
Read Vic's stories, free:
http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
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