The Lowland

Author: Jhumpa Lahiri

Rating: ⭐ 5/5

Date Read: 2014/03/02

Pages: 340

I don’t know exactly how this happened, but I finished The Lowland in what was almost a single sitting, just putting down the book for a few moments here and there to take care of basic needs, like eating. Let me tell you, I did not expect this to be such a quick read. I had sampled the first couple chapters, which went by slowly. Don’t let the beginning fool you: this is a gripping book, but not in the way you might think. It’s something of a quiet page turner, a story about a family that I felt I truly got to know after spending the last five hours with them.

All of the press I had heard about this book talked about it as a story of a single event that changes everything between two brothers, which really doesn’t do the storyline justice. I thought it would be like a rehash of [b:The God of Small Things|9777|The God of Small Things|Arundhati Roy|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1385160508s/9777.jpg|810135], but it wasn’t. Not at all. Actually, it felt more of a book about the ties between family, and the immigrant experience. If you like sweeping, character driven books, you may want to give this one a try. If I were to compare it to anything, it would be [b:American Pastoral|11650|American Pastoral (The American Trilogy #1)|Philip Roth|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327935620s/11650.jpg|598119], although I feel that The Lowland is more successful. Lahiri’s prose has a lightness to it, a naturalness that makes it feel as if it’s just the soft waves of a stream lapping over you, conveying reality for a brief moment until they pass you by. Roth, on the other hand, always feels heavy-handed and manipulative.

What can I say without betraying the secrets that lurk within the pages of this book? I’m not sure, except that I do urge you to read it. The praise that it has garnered recently is absolutely deserved.