Probably says more about me than it does about her or about them, but I was shocked--no, thrilled--Tuesday when a small class of students claimed to love Jhumpa Lahiri.
I really shouldn't have been as surprised as I was because Lahiri has, among other things, won the Pulitzer for Interpreter of Maladies, and won the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award for Unaccustomed Earth (when the judged didn't even create a short list because, they claimed, Lahiri's second collection of short fiction simply had no significant rivals!). Listen to this: Unaccustomed Earth debuted at numero uno on the NY Times Best Seller list, something that rarely happens to a bona fide literary work.
No matter. I was scared. I bought the book from audible.com when they claimed it was their best seller. I listened to it, twice, while lifting weights and biking. Loved it. Determined that thematically it fit perfectly with the syllabus in a course I'm teaching this year, stuck it in, then, last week, nearly froze with fright, thinking the students were too young to understand its gorgeous nuance.
Nothing much happens in Lahiri's stories. There's no sudden insight. What's more, there's barely any narrative drive, no car chases, no steamy love scenes (well, maybe a few). Conflicts are easy to come by but hard to determine. There's nothing, I thought, to grab their attention.
Except character. Except sheer humanity. Except the realization a reader feels that we're on the page ourselves somehow.
So I came to class Tuesday, ready to be slain by their arching eyebrows, ridden out of town on the rail of their disdain, you might say. I was ready to entertain suicide.
But they loved her. Almost unanimously, they loved her. I swear.
"Why?" I said.
"I don't know," one of them said. "I couldn't put it down."
But nothing happens in a Lahiri story, I said.
"I couldn't put it down."
I'm not making this up.
Just one of the reasons I'll leave this profession with some glee in a couple years is the growing gap between myself and them. They're always 20. I'm not. I don't have fingers enough to count that high, but I'm somewhere in the region of 40+ years older than they are. I don't know, any more, how they read or what they pick up when their eyes scan the pages. What's more, Lahiri's concerns are all mature in Unaccustomed Earth--she's all about generations; most of my students call their parents twice a day. Lahiri is interested in families, in love and birth and death and loneliness. My students live in dorms, for pete's sake. The front-page story in the last student newspaper was about powder puff football.
I was sure their lips would flatten. I was dang sure they'd wince.
But I was wrong. I was dead wrong.
They loved her. "I couldn't put it down."
We're six, maybe seven weeks into the semester, and it's been good time. Honestly, it's been good. But this morning I'm thankful for the shock of my semester on Tuesday afternoon, thankful they get it, thankful they couldn't put Lahiri down.
I'm okay and so are they.
I really shouldn't have been as surprised as I was because Lahiri has, among other things, won the Pulitzer for Interpreter of Maladies, and won the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award for Unaccustomed Earth (when the judged didn't even create a short list because, they claimed, Lahiri's second collection of short fiction simply had no significant rivals!). Listen to this: Unaccustomed Earth debuted at numero uno on the NY Times Best Seller list, something that rarely happens to a bona fide literary work.
No matter. I was scared. I bought the book from audible.com when they claimed it was their best seller. I listened to it, twice, while lifting weights and biking. Loved it. Determined that thematically it fit perfectly with the syllabus in a course I'm teaching this year, stuck it in, then, last week, nearly froze with fright, thinking the students were too young to understand its gorgeous nuance.
Nothing much happens in Lahiri's stories. There's no sudden insight. What's more, there's barely any narrative drive, no car chases, no steamy love scenes (well, maybe a few). Conflicts are easy to come by but hard to determine. There's nothing, I thought, to grab their attention.
Except character. Except sheer humanity. Except the realization a reader feels that we're on the page ourselves somehow.
So I came to class Tuesday, ready to be slain by their arching eyebrows, ridden out of town on the rail of their disdain, you might say. I was ready to entertain suicide.
But they loved her. Almost unanimously, they loved her. I swear.
"Why?" I said.
"I don't know," one of them said. "I couldn't put it down."
But nothing happens in a Lahiri story, I said.
"I couldn't put it down."
I'm not making this up.
Just one of the reasons I'll leave this profession with some glee in a couple years is the growing gap between myself and them. They're always 20. I'm not. I don't have fingers enough to count that high, but I'm somewhere in the region of 40+ years older than they are. I don't know, any more, how they read or what they pick up when their eyes scan the pages. What's more, Lahiri's concerns are all mature in Unaccustomed Earth--she's all about generations; most of my students call their parents twice a day. Lahiri is interested in families, in love and birth and death and loneliness. My students live in dorms, for pete's sake. The front-page story in the last student newspaper was about powder puff football.
I was sure their lips would flatten. I was dang sure they'd wince.
But I was wrong. I was dead wrong.
They loved her. "I couldn't put it down."
We're six, maybe seven weeks into the semester, and it's been good time. Honestly, it's been good. But this morning I'm thankful for the shock of my semester on Tuesday afternoon, thankful they get it, thankful they couldn't put Lahiri down.
I'm okay and so are they.
2 comments:
She is a fabulous post-colonial writer. Her work is so powerful. Her books really are hard to put down. Glad your class enjoyed her!
I'm proud of your class, and am aching to discuss her work with ya'll. I believe Prof. Zuidema has glowing reviews as well. I just finished reading Interpreter of Maladies again, and shook my fist at how carefully her characters are crafted.
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