The lowland A novel

Review by New York Times Review

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL, the countercultural upheavals of the '60s claimed, but in Jhumpa Lahiri's new novel, "The Lowland," which takes its inspiration from an Indian variant of that upheaval, it is the political that is always personal. Udayan, the younger of two brothers in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta (now Kolkata), gets drawn into a radical left movement called Naxalism, its name derived from Naxalbari, a tiny village to the north of Calcutta where impoverished peasants rose up against the police and landlords in 1967, sparking off dreams of a nationwide insurgency that would replicate Mao's earlier revolution in China. But Udayan is killed by the police, and his older brother, Subhash, apolitical, passive, but responsible, returns home from graduate school in the United States to console his parents. Finding himself confronted with his brother's pregnant widow, Gauri, and her ill treatment by his grieving parents, Subhash marries her and brings her to Rhode Island. Gauri gives birth to a girl, Bela, while also pursuing an academic career of her own in philosophy. By the end of the novel, when Bela is almost 40, the reader will have encountered four generations of this particular family. It sounds epic in sweep, especially when combined with the laden, potent themes, the intertwining of politics and sexuality, the cauterizing of emotional wounds and grievances, and the repetition of places and personalities. Subhash, who has escaped a city he sees as disorganized as well as violent, and who studies oceanography, finds in the beaches of Rhode Island a resemblance to the delta lowlands surrounding Calcutta. Bela, brought up almost entirely by Subhash, seems to inherit not his passivity but her biological father's radical streak in becoming a drifter working on organic farms. Throughout, Lahiri's prose hums along as efficiently as a well-tuned engine, showing us the melancholy beauty of coastal New England; the surreal perceptions of an immigrant (so that Subhash sees in the turning leaves of fall the "vivid hues of cayenne and turmeric and ginger pounded fresh every morning"); and the tension between generations, from the sense of abandonment and vulnerability felt by Bela to the terror of parenting, with its visions of failure and foreboding, faced by Subhash and Gauri. For all that, "The Lowland" does not seem to be trying to be an epic novel. Although it plays with secrets and emotional turning points (whether Bela will find out about her biological father, whether Udayan was a victim of police brutality or a deluded, violent man), it seems to possess no singular trajectory and no dominant idea beyond that of generational drift. Lahiri's previous novel, "The Namesake," which depicted the angst of a young Bengali-American named Gogol, had the virtues of a ferocious devotion to realist description, a satirical edge when probing upper-class New York pretensions, and a simple, linear plot. Here, the narrative moves back and forth through time and across the points of view of all the principal characters, but this diffusion does not appear to be in the service of formal playfulness or experimentation in the spirit of one of the many variants of modernism. This is a contemporary novel only in the sense that it knows the brisk economy of the screenplay, or the efficient design of an Apple product. Lahiri's work has always seemed much more assured within the tighter confines of the short story than the novel. Her first collection, "Interpreter of Maladies," displayed a high technical virtuosity while introducing readers to what has become her fictional realm: that small, claustrophobic milieu of Bengali Hindus working research and academic jobs in New England, Boston Brahmins twice over. "The Third and Final Continent," the last story in the collection - and one popular in high schools and writing programs, probably as much for reaffirming assumptions about America as a benevolent, welcoming place for immigrants as for its controlled prose - contained all the stock elements of Lahiri's repertory. It had the male Bengali immigrant working at a university, the sheltered wife who follows him abroad and the white American who, initially forbidding, turns out to be a paragon of humanity. That realm of South Asian privilege took on a darker tinge in Lahiri's second collection, "Unaccustomed Earth," where the veneer of professional success was shot through with alcoholism, suicidal impulses and depression, especially among the women. America, or India, or the world at large remained a backdrop, more or less faint, as the characters maneuvered through their heavy psychological landscape, but the narrow focus rarely felt like weakness. There was too much mystery about the peripatetic characters, unfinished, contingent selves moving through stories as neatly structured as the suburban housing (¿visions they emerged from. if some of those strengths are present in the new novel, they seem adrift in its larger swaths of time and space, diluted by waves of politics and history that Lahiri herself has chosen to bring in. Apart from Gauri, compellingly opaque at moments, the characters seem frozen into types - Subhash (dull but capable), Udayan (charismatic but irresponsible) and Bela (the rebel with a tattoo on her ankle and a compost bin in the backyard). Their misery, although powerfully depicted in scenes of confrontation or isolation, seems to be deeply private, personal, ultimately without reference to the ostensible political background introduced every now and then as Lahiri returns to the execution scene, playing it one way in depicting the brutality of the police and then the other in revealing Udayan's own complicity in a crime. There is mention of Marx and Adorno; of S.D.S.; and of Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal, the two central ideologues of the Naxalite movement. There are somewhat rote descriptions of demonstrations, political meetings and slogans on the wall, but not a single line of the Naxal poetry or songs that flared through India at the time, in numerous languages, and that formed a far more defining aspect of the movement than the badly made bombs and dense theoretical tracts mentioned in the novel. There is a similar absence even when it comes to depicting America or contemporary India. There are passing references to the civil rights movement and the antiwar demonstrations, to organic farming and an Obama sticker, to India's vaunted new economic policies (now suddenly in trouble) and to the re-emergence of the Naxalites, now underground in the forests of central India, but these things seem to have as little to do with the characters as the characters have to do with them. It makes all four generations of the family appear strangely bereft, not so much upwardly mobile immigrants making it into the promised land as much as characters flailing at the boundaries of life, wanting to be let across the borders into the mysterious disquiet that afflicts so much of the rest of humanity. SIDDHARTHA DEB is the author of two novels and the nonfiction book "The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 29, 2013]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The clever Mitra brothers are inseparable even though Subhash is serious, cautious, and reliable, while Udayan is brash, impassioned, and rebellious. Both excel in their studies even though, thanks to Udayan, they get into mischief in their quiet, middle-class Calcutta enclave with its two adjacent ponds and water hyacinth-laced lowland, a gorgeously rendered landscape Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth, 2008) uses to profound effect. In college, Subhash studies chemistry, Udayan physics, but while Subhash prepares to go to America to earn his PhD, Udayan experiences a life-altering political awakening. It's the late 1960s, a time of international protest, and Udayan joins the Mao-inspired Naxalite movement, which demands justice for the poor. He also secretly marries self-reliant, scholarly Gauri. Subhash's indoctrination into American life and Rhode Island's seasons and seashore is bracing and mind-expanding, while Udayan's descent into the Naxalite underground puts him in grave danger. As shocking complexities, tragedies, and revelations multiply over the years, Lahiri astutely examines the psychological nuances of conviction, guilt, grief, marriage, and parenthood and delicately but firmly dissects the moral conundrums inherent in violent revolution. Renowned for her exquisite prose and penetrating insights, Lahiri attains new heights of artistry flawless transparency, immersive intimacy with characters and place in her spellbinding fourth book and second novel, a magnificent, universal, and indelible work of literature. An absolute triumph. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Pulitzer Prize winner Lahiri's standing increases with each book, and this is her most compelling yet, hence the 350,000 first printing, national author tour, and major publicity campaign.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

When Subhash's closest friend and brother, Udayan, is killed because of his participation in a revolutionary movement in Calcutta in the 1960s, he attempts to do the responsible thing and take his brother's pregnant wife, Gauri, with him to the United States, where he is pursuing education and a new life. Yet both Subhash and Gauri will be haunted by and need to confront the absence of Udayan as the years pass. The waves of emotion and duress that ripple through Lahiri's narrative are well communicated in Malhotra's narration. Intentionally or not, his voice at times can feel disconnected from the text, which ably captures moments in which the characters are attempting to distance themselves from each other. Malhotra is capable of teasing out the emotional depth of a given scene with emphasis and timing. He maintains consistent voices for his characters and balances the different accents that emerge during this intergenerational tale. A Knopf hardcover. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Pulitzer Prize winner Lahiri's (The Interpreter of Maladies) unparalleled ability to transform the smallest moments into whole lives pinnacles in this extraordinary story of two brothers-so close that one is "the other side" of the other-coming of age in the political tumult of 1960s India. They are separated as adults, with Subhash, the elder, choosing an academic career in the United States and the more daring Udayan remaining in Calcutta, committed to correcting the inequities of his country. Udayan's political participation will haunt four generations, from his parents, who renounce the future, to his wife and his brother, who attempt to protect it, to the daughter and granddaughter who will never know him. VERDICT Lahiri is remarkable, achieving multilayered meaning in an act as simple as "banging the edge of the lid three or four times with a spoon, to break the seal"; her second novel and fourth title is deservedly one of this year's most anticipated books. Banal words of praise simply won't do justice; perhaps what is needed is a three-word directive: just read it. [See Prepub Alert, 3/18/13.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian -BookDragon, Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A tale of two continents in an era of political tumult, rendered with devastating depth and clarity by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author. The narrative proceeds from the simplicity of a fairy tale into a complex novel of moral ambiguity and aftershocks, with revelations that continue through decades and generations until the very last page. It is the story of two brothers in India who are exceptionally close to each other and yet completely different. Older by 15 months, Subhash is cautious and careful, not prone to taking any risks, unlike his impetuous brother Udayan, the younger but the leader in their various escapades. Inseparable in their Calcutta boyhoods, they eventually take very different paths, with Subhash moving to America to pursue his education and an academic career in scientific research, while Udayan becomes increasingly and clandestinely involved in Indian radical militancy. "The chief task of the new party was to organize the peasantry," writes the novelist (Unaccustomed Earth, 2008, etc.). "The tactic would be guerrilla warfare. The enemy was the Indian state." The book's straightforward, declarative sentences will ultimately force the characters and the reader to find meaning in the space between them. While Udayan characteristically defies his parents by returning home with a wife he has impulsively courted rather than submitting to an arranged marriage, Subhash waits for his own life to unfold: "He wondered what woman his parents would choose for him. He wondered when it would be. Getting married would mean returning to Calcutta. In that sense he was in no hurry." Yet crisis returns him to Calcutta, and when he resumes his life in America, he has a pregnant wife and, soon, a daughter. The rest of the novel spans more than four decades in the life of this family, shaped and shaken by the events that have brought them together and tear them apart--"a family of solitaries [that]...had collided and dispersed." Though Lahiri has previously earned greater renown for her short stories, this masterful novel deserves to attract an even wider readership.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Normally she stayed on the balcony, reading, or kept to an adjacent room as her brother and Udayan studied and smoked and drank cups of tea. Manash had befriended him at Calcutta University, where they were both graduate students in the physics department. Much of the time their books on the behaviors of liquids and gases would sit ignored as they talked about the repercussions of Naxalbari, and commented on the day's events. The discussions strayed to the insurgencies in Indochina and in Latin American countries. In the case of Cuba it wasn't even a mass movement, Udayan pointed out. Just a small group, attacking the right targets. All over the world students were gaining momentum, standing up to exploitative systems. It was another example of Newton's second law of motion, he joked. Force equals mass times acceleration. Manash was skeptical. What could they, urban students, claim to know about peasant life? Nothing, Udayan said. We need to learn from them. Through an open doorway she saw him. Tall but slight of build, twenty-three but looking a bit older. His clothing hung on him loosely. He wore kurtas but also European-style shirts, irreverently, the top portion unbuttoned, the bottom untucked, the sleeves rolled back past the elbow. He sat in the room where they listened to the radio. On the bed that served as a sofa where, at night, Gauri slept. His arms were lean, his fingers too long for the small porcelain cups of tea her family served him, which he drained in just a few gulps. His hair was wavy, the brows thick, the eyes languid and dark. His hands seemed an extension of his voice, always in motion, embellishing the things he said. Even as he argued he smiled easily. His upper teeth overlapped slightly, as if there were one too many of them. From the beginning, the attraction was there. He never said anything to Gauri if she happened to brush by. Never glancing, never acknowledging that she was Manash's younger sister, until the day the houseboy was out on an errand, and Manash asked Gauri if she minded making them some tea. She could not find a tray to put the teacups on. She carried them in, nudging open the door to the room with her shoulder. Looking up at her an instant longer than he needed to, Udayan took his cup from her hands. The groove between his mouth and nose was deep. Clean-shaven. Still looking at her, he posed his first question. Where do you study? he asked. * Because she went to Presidency, and Calcutta University was just next door, she searched for him on the quadrangle, and among the bookstalls, at the tables of the Coffee House if she went there with a group of friends. Something told her he did not go to his classes as regularly as she did. She began to watch for him from the generous balcony that wrapped around the two sides of her grandparents' flat, overlooking the intersection where Cornwallis Street began. It became something for her to do. Then one day she spotted him, amazed that she knew which of the hundreds of dark heads was his. He was standing on the opposite corner, buying a packet of cigarettes. Then he was crossing the street, a cotton book bag over his shoulder, glancing both ways, walking toward their flat. She crouched below the filigree, under the clothes drying on the line, worried that he would look up and see her. Two minutes later she heard footsteps climbing the stairwell, and then the rattle of the iron knocker on the door of the flat. She heard the door being opened, the houseboy letting him in. It was an afternoon everyone, including Manash, happened to be out, and she'd been reading, alone. She wondered if he'd turn back, given that Manash wasn't there. Instead, a moment later, he stepped out onto the balcony. No one else here? he asked. She shook her head. Will you talk to me, then? The laundry was damp, some of her petticoats and blouses were clipped to the line. The material of the blouses was tailored to the shape of her upper torso, her breasts. He unclipped one of the blouses and put it further down the line to make room. He did this slowly, a mild tremor in his fingers forcing him to focus more than another person might on the task. Standing beside him, she was aware of his height, the slight stoop in his shoulders, the angle at which he held his face. He struck a match against the side of a box and lit a cigarette, cupping his whole hand over his mouth when he drew the cigarette to his lips. The houseboy brought out biscuits and tea. They overlooked the intersection, from four flights above. They stood beside one another, both of them leaning into the railing. Together they took in the stone buildings, with their decrepit grandeur, that lined the streets. Their tired columns, their crumbling cornices, their sullied shades. Her face was supported by the discreet barrier of her hand. his arm hung over the edge, the burning cigarette was in his fingers. The sleeves of his Punjabi were rolled up, exposing the veins running from his wrist to the crook of the elbow. They were prominent, the blood in them greenish gray, like a pointed archway below the skin. There was something elemental about so many human beings in motion at once: walking, sitting in buses and trams, pulling or being pulled along in rickshaws. One the other side of the street were a few gold and silver shops all in a row, with mirrored walls and ceilings. Always crowded with families, endlessly reflected, placing orders for wedding jewels. There was the press where they took clothes to be ironed. The store where Gauri bought her ink, her notebooks. Narrow sweet shops, where trays of confections were studded with flies. The paanwallah sat cross-legged at one corner, under a bare bulb, spreading white lime paste on stacks of betel leaves. A traffic constable stood at the center, in his helmet, on his little box. Blowing a whistle and waving his arms. The clamor of so many motors, of so many scooters and lorries and busses and cars, filled their ears. I like this view, he said. Excerpted from The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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