Friday, June 17, 2011

Book review


Couple of weeks ago, I re-read Unaccustomed earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. In particular Hema and Kaushik which is a favorite of mine. I cant imagine meeting anyone who wasnt disappointed with the ending. The direction  it took was totally unnecessary. Knowing what to expect, the second time around wasnt disappointing.

But I was surprised at how plain Jhumpa's writing was. Inspite of having read all 3 of her books, I have no memory of her writing style and only associate her work with depth. But the depth comes from how intensely she portrays people's emotions. So within first few pages, I was back into her world completely engrossed. 

What initially attracted me to the story was the whole teenage crush turning into an adult love much later in life that too in a much different form. When I went online in search of reviews, the only one I could find discussed about the usual immigrant blues which can be applied for any of her books. 

Which brings me to the question, how come there are as many movie review sites but not so many book review sites? By review, I mean when you take movie reviews, you can find all kinds - the intellectual, pseud, run of the mill, totally random - every kind.

But for a book, there are hardly two reviews that I can dig out - one of them turns out to be some course notes. The other one discussing it in some vague literary terms. No sites discuss the ones I want to discuss, the way I would discuss it with my friends. The way the ones without literature/history degrees would discuss.

3 comments:

  1. thats a good pint actually... saad, but true.

    -L

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  2. nalla yosanai dhaan... but I first need to catch up on my reading again :) apparam dhaan review hehe

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