Reply to Saptember 2025 -- What are you reading?

Forum Index » The DCUM Book Club

Reply to "Saptember 2025 -- What are you reading?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm reading The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri[/quote]

What are your thoughts? I really enjoyed her writing style in my 20s/early 30s…then she switched to Italian, and I haven’t found the same sense of connection from the back translations. Interpreter of Maladies (short stories) may need to be a re-read for me in 2026![/quote]

Lahiri wrote the Lowland in 2013, so I think it predates her writing in Italian (not 100% positive though). I'm about a third in and its excellent. Straddles India and the U.S. in the 1960s. Her writing is so easy to sink into. [/quote]

NP. I also loved The Lowland.

I read two recent short stories by her and loved the one published in the New Yorker this summer— it was about a summer she spent in London when she was ten. It had her same gorgeous writing style. I think it was semi or completely autobiographical. I read another about an expat living somewhere in Italy (published in Best American Short Stories 2024) and just didn’t connect with it; it was among my least favorite in the collection. I wondered if the first one was written in English and the second in Italian originally and maybe why I felt a bit of disconnect. [/quote]

I’m the “what are your thoughts” PP. I should have said that I read the Lowland and really liked it, though I enjoyed Unaccustomed Earth more (I didn’t want to bias your answer!). And yes, the Lowland was Lahiri’s last major work in English before transitioning to Italian.

Thanks PP for the New Yorker story tip—added the July 7 edition to my Libby shelf! Also, I learned today that Unaccustomed Earth is being developed into a Netflix series, including Frieda Pinto![/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics