May 15, 2011

Rohit Reviews: Interpreter of Maladies

As the long and largely gloomy list of books I have reviewed on this site over the past seven odd years should make clear, I am not a person particularly enamored with contemporary literature, and certainly not short stories. Indeed, the last short story collection I read was probably Anton Chekhov's Stories for an English class at Cal back in 2003. Less justifiably, I think, I am also not a person who frequently reads works by female authors, though I had never given it much thought until it was pointed out to me by a friend who noticed a dearth of such works on my bookshelves. It was that same latter observation that prompted my friend to gift me Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, among others, which I completed today.

I was of course familiar with Lahiri from The Namesake, a book which I had long been meaning to pick up but to which I had never gotten around. After completing the Interpreter of Maladies, I think it will be one I will be picking up sooner rather than later (though the question of whether to purchase a paperback or Kindle version continues to vex).