Lahiri’s decision to write a sweeping family epic is perhaps not surprising, given her background in short stories. “The Namesake” and “Unaccustomed Earth” wove together disparate tales concerning central themes—assimilation and biculturalism—while her novel “The Namesake” spanned two generations of the same Indian-American family. “The Lowland” outdoes them all: over the course of five decades and four generations, Lahiri examines the lives of various members of the Mitra family. From California to Calcutta, their experiences are inexorably affected by the politically motivated murder of their son, brother, and husband Udayan. His involvement in the Naxalite communist movement of the 1970s leads to his tragic ending: police shoot him in the swampy lowland adjacent to the family home. His aging parents and pregnant young wife Gauri watch, horrified; across the ocean, his scientist brother Subhash receives the news in two brief sentences, compelling him to return to the world he so recently escaped.
These first 100 pages contain Lahiri’s weakest writing. The tone is somber, yet the reasons for this unclear: as yet unmarked by tragedy, Subhash …show more content…
The novel begins with a linear narrative: over 80 pages, Subhash and Udayan grow from adventurous boys to scholastic teenagers to intellectual young men. Eventually Udayan is killed, Subhash raises his brother’s daughter as his own child, and a fragile marriage dissolves. Time progresses slowly and surely, each moment building on the last, until Bela begins to grow up. Her teenage years span two pages; time skips, sputters, flits away as quickly as she does from her broken home. Time contracts, expands, and reverses: as an old woman, Gauri recalls her brief and passionate marriage to Udayan. Eventually Bela raises her own child, vowing not to repeat her parents’ matrimonial
These first 100 pages contain Lahiri’s weakest writing. The tone is somber, yet the reasons for this unclear: as yet unmarked by tragedy, Subhash …show more content…
The novel begins with a linear narrative: over 80 pages, Subhash and Udayan grow from adventurous boys to scholastic teenagers to intellectual young men. Eventually Udayan is killed, Subhash raises his brother’s daughter as his own child, and a fragile marriage dissolves. Time progresses slowly and surely, each moment building on the last, until Bela begins to grow up. Her teenage years span two pages; time skips, sputters, flits away as quickly as she does from her broken home. Time contracts, expands, and reverses: as an old woman, Gauri recalls her brief and passionate marriage to Udayan. Eventually Bela raises her own child, vowing not to repeat her parents’ matrimonial