Interpreter of Maladies

Novel-amazing; Audio-mediocre

The stories in this book were amazing. They gave such a beautiful view into the Indian culture. I longed to know the sense of community and comraderie that the author makes so integral a part of these stories. As the stories ended I was sad to end my relationship with the well-drawn and intriguing characters.

The reason I rated this audiobook only 3 stars was not the novel itself, but the narration and production of the audio. I found the narrator's style to be distracting and at times downright annoying. Short interludes of music separated the book into equal sections, but this distracted from the flow of the novel because they often came in the middle of a story and at times in the middle of a character conversation.

Dispite the poor quality of the audio production, I would recommend this novel for its wonderful characterizations and fascinating stories.

skip it

Since there are so many reviews of the book itself, I will review the narration of the audio version.

First, I was distracted by the narrator's style. Her odd, unnatural, and often nasal enunciation of words was annoying. The amaturish and undulating style of her reading the sentences made me wonder if the author picked a friend or family member who wanted to break into the business. This narrator has no business doing this work. Additionally, the narrator certainly did not capture the emotions of the characters.

Secondly, the producers decided to add music to signify the ending of one "chapter" and the beginning of antoher. However, the chapters in the audio version did not coincide with the stories in the book. The music breaks only served to separate the book in to 6 equal parts, which was in the middle of a story.

While the narrator did read at a decent pace, the up and down vocalizations, the inability to capture sentimental or sad emotions and her odd enunciations made this narration one to skip.

Fresh perspective on love's many maladies

I bought this book after having read the Namesake, because I had enjoyed it so much. I was not disappointed. Each of the nine stories in this book offers a brief glimpse into the narrator's life. The stories offer no grandiose defining moments, but rather a very simple series of affecting moments, most of which center on an Indian protagonist. An American boy's relationship with his Indian nanny; a travel guide in India shares his imaginative subtext as he spends a day with an Indian-American family; etc. The narrator did a wonderful job on this project. I do wish there had been a bit longer break between stories...perhaps with a little music to aid in the transition. I also wish I could have smelled and tasted all of the food in this book! I realized, that during the two weeks I listened to this book, I'd been drawn to cook Indian food twice! (Quite out of the ordinary for me!)

Tension between foreignness and loneliness

Some of the stories were brilliant, some were very good and only a couple were meh. This novel captures for me the right tension between foreignness and loneliness and those small wires, crumbs of connection that bridge people and cultures. Yeah, I dug it.

Personally, I don't care about awards (See William H. Gass). And I really don't care that she's a woman (other than the fact that I'm trying to read more women this year) or that she's Indian American (although both are a significant part of this collection).

I don't believe she was subsidized for either being a woman or being Indian, of if she was I really don't care. Everybody is subsidized by something. White men get the white men subsidy. The rich get the rich subsidy. The educated get the educated subsidy. The poor and broken get the helluva life story subsidy. If I could sum it up, I'd guess that this book probably won the writer lottery: the right good book gets published at the perfect momemnt.

The stories themselves gave me the same temperate, nuanced, soft vibe I get when I read Kazuo Ishiguro or Julian Barnes. So, at least in my mind, she fits/resonnates more into/with the: über-educated, upper-middle, British/East Coast US, 'outsider now inside' club(s) more than the female writer or even Indian American clubs. But then again, I could be wrong.

Anyway, I don't have to say that this was her first published book and she still ended up writing (from what I've heard) solid, serious fiction. So that.

BRILLIANT STORIES:

#1 A Temporary Matter
#3 Interpreter of Maladies
#6 Mrs Sen's
#7 This Blessed House

GOOD STORIES:

#2 When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine
#5 Sexy
#9 The Third and Final Continent

MEH STORIES:

#4 A Real Durwan
#8 The Treatment of Bibi Haldar

****

The reading was good, but the editing was ok. I wasn't a fan of the sound-effects thrown into the middle of chapters and suspect it was done to cover an editing issue. There were also several points where it was evident that there was a break in the reading: volume, reading changed. That is fine that readers need a break, but good post-productin could have masked that a bit better. Other than that I had NO problems with Matilda's read.

Appallingly bad reading!

This is probably a good book, but the reading in terrible. First off all the reading is very choppy, she cuts all sentences into little phrases, the phrases are read a bit too fast, with long pauses between them, its OK for about 5 minutes or so, then gets very annoying. But the worst is the reader's voice, it is so very, very, very prissy, and she sort of gushes with 'pleasedness' at the most random moments. She does this once in the sample, so listen carefully, because the sample is the lest prissy 5 minutes of the whole book. The style would probably be OK for a trashy romance novel, but this book has a dark side, and the reading style completely destroys this. Also as other reviewers have noted, the book is cut up into chapters, that don't align with the stories.

Don't get this as an audiobook.

Underwhelming

This is a highly touted, award-winning collection of nine short stories and is on several “best” lists.
I found most of these stories superficial, and the writing quite ordinary.

I love short stories, but these stories seemed to focus on the shallowest aspects of both Indian and US culture. I liked the last two stories the best, but these were only above average. The rest of the stories did not make me laugh or cry or give me shivers or move me or shock me or surprise me or make me consider deeply. Yet the stories were not bad, and the writing was not bad. I did not find myself liking, or respecting, any of the characters. Yes, real life can be shallow and tedious but I don’t need to read that part in short stories.

These stories seemed like they could be short scenes in novels, if supported by the structure and story and characters of a novel. On their own, they seemed a bit pointless.

The audio production was down right annoying. The chapters do not align with the stories and there are discordant musical interludes between and within stories. The tone of the narrator was peppy and light, as if this was a children’s book, and I found the narration clashed sharply with the material. I certainly will not listen to this book again.

Disapointing presentation

What did you like best about Interpreter of Maladies? What did you like least?

Presenting short stories on audio is always challenging. Either too long or too short a pause between 2 stories is awkward. In this case I'd say the producer got it just wrong. There are musical selections between sections of stories, and a rapid fire movement between stories. I could never tell where I was in a tale.

And what is the deal with lovely classical guitar music - in stories that are about Indian immigrants to the US... I can see Jazz, or classical (both have places in the short stories) but this music, while quite nice was just wrong.

wonderful short stories; good narration

I read these stories in print when they were first published, and was excited to re-encounter them as an audiobook when both of my sons read them for school in 8th grade.

I'm very interested in India and Indian culture, and these stories resonated for me in the mixing and clash of cultural identities.

Both my sons enjoyed this as 13 year olds, but I wouldn't say it was their favorite book for school.

I thought the narrator did a very good job.

My biggest beef -- and this is serious -- is that the musical interludes come at random times and not at the end of a short story. I so wish the chapters had been divided by story! It was so hard to use this for school, and unlikely to make me re-listen when I can't easily find the story I want.

Decent reader, disappointing preparation.

Any additional comments?

It's fair to call Lahiri an American writer; therefore there's nothing wrong with having a non-South Asian American as a narrator. However, I do wish Ms. Novak had done a little more research about the pronunciation of Indian words (Dixit, Laxmi, Lucknow, etc.).

Wonderful!

Lahiri's Pulitzer prize winner only gets better the more often in is read.