The Lowland eBook: Jhumpa Lahiri: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

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Review

A domestic epic that manages to combine the personal and intimate with the political and the public superbly well (Harry Ritchie Daily Mail)

Sublimely brilliant (Esther Freud)

She has an extraordinary power of empathy for her characters and a steady hand for unspooling the knotted threads of their individual motives and histories

(Sunday Times)

An author, at the height of her artistry, spins the globe and comes full circle (Vogue)

Profound … real and convincing. The characters don’t act like people in a novel: they are much closer to real life in their responses, their heartfelt cries of pain

(Eileen Battersby Irish Times)

A sweeping, ambitious story... There is no doubt that The Lowland confirms Lahiri as a writer of formidable powers and a great depth of feeling

(Observer)

She observes the small moments of adapting to a new country particularly beautifully… Cool, measured and beguiling writing

(The Times)

Poignant story and epic sweep

(Tatler)

Elegant and thoughtful

(Literary Review)

Jhumpa Lahiri is an elegant stylist, effortlessly placing the perfect words in the perfect order time and again so we’re transported seamlessly into another place ... Every family story is somehow a war story; Lahiri has a talent for coolly illustrating this truth (Vanity Fair)

Such is the strength, individuality and vividness of Lahiri’s characters, that it’s a loss when their voices finally fall silent (Rachel Hore Independent on Sunday)

Hypnotic ... An excellent example of the art of fiction (Bharat Tandon Daily Telegraph)

[An] immaculately constructed and a model of lucidity, well deserving of its place on the Man Booker shortlist (Mail on Sunday)

A domestic epic that superbly combines the personal and intimate with the political and public (Irish Mail on Sunday)

Moving, surprising and utterly compelling ... It’s as beautiful as anything you will ever read – it touches your soul ... We’re not surprised that Lahiri’s work has made the Man Booker shortlist – it certainly gets our vote here ( Stylist)

Thrillingly nuanced ... Lahiri’s most ambitious work to date, brimming with pain and love and all of life’s profound beauty ( O, The Oprah Magazine)

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 ... Ms 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 ... And the tension between generations (Siddhartha Deb International Herald Tribune)

An important novel for Lahiri to have written (Robert McCrum Observer)

This is the sort of domestic epic that manages to combine the personal and intimate with the political and public superbly well (Harry Ritchie Daily mail)

Jhumpa Lahiri is intelligent, astute, informed and genuine … The Lowland is real. Its emotional intelligence is extraordinarily persuasive, as is the calm, quietly intense Lahiri (Eileen Battersby Irish Times)

Lahiri writes with great emotional precision (Anjali Joseph The Times)

Book Description

Two brothers bound by tragedy; a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past; a country torn by revolution: the most powerful and ambitious novel yet from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, multi-million copy bestselling author of The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth

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Product details

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 620 KB
Print Length: 353 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1408828111
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing; 1 edition (8 Sep 2013)
Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.� r.l.
Language: English
ASIN: B00E3T6N96
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

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Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (63 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #957 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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More About the Author

Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London of Bengali parents, and grew up in Rhode Island, USA. Her stories have appeared in many American journals and her first collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize 2000 for Fiction, the New Yorker Prize for Best First Book, the PEN/Hemingway Award and was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Award. Her novel, The Namesake, was published in 2003 and is now a major motion picture from the director of Monsoon Wedding. Unaccustomed Earth, her latest collection of stories, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and was a New York Times Number One bestseller. Jhumpa Lahiri lives in New York with her husband and two children.

(Photo credit: Elena Seibert)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The West is the Best? 11 Sep 2013

By MisterHobgoblin TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE VOICE

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The Lowland is a flat area of marshland next to the settlement of Tollygunge in Calcutta. Tollygunge houses a golf course and, even after independence, is well patrolled to keep the locals out. This symbol of colonial power is the catalyst to inspire brothers Udayan and Subhash to join the dangerous world of Indian-Maoist Marxism.

But, as time passes, the brothers mature. Subhash takes up a study scholarship at a university in Rhode Island whilst Udayan stays loyal to the cause. This parting of the ways is deeply symbolic of the crossroads at which India found istelf in the 1960s and 1970s - whether to look to the east or the west for its politics and its economy. For a long while, it was not clear which would prevail, even as India seemed to choose the west there were regrets and hints of reconsidering. There were turbulent times in which leaders were assassinated whilst the economy stagnated. The Lowland offers this drama in an exquisite and extended metaphor. Just as in Midnight's Children, we see wrong choices being made and opportunities lost. We see the grind and monotony of following the respectable path in Rhode Island whilst the history of India is out of sight and out of mind.

What maked The Lowland special, though, is the perfect writing that allows characters to feel real and complex; situations to feel three dimensional. Subhash and, particularly, Gauri have nuanced shades of light and dark. And there is no temptation to match morality to outcomes; both characters are well intentioned, thoughtful people but they end up hurting one another and hurting others without effort. They are caught in a web of their own making and the more they struggle to free themselves, the more ensnared they become. Read more ›

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting story, superficial at the start, which did draw me in eventually 18 Oct 2013

By Mme Suzanne Lageard

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At the beginning, I felt that the story was too superficial. It aims I think to give a global view of changes and spans the whole lifetimes of its protatgonist, and I felt that I was too distanced from them, not drawn in enough to their lives. There is the backdrop of violence in India and insurgencies, but again, these felt more like a décor, than anything really substantial. It is also a book about the personal, about Gauri's decisions and how they affect her family. I felt this was a true description, and it awakened real, not always positive, emotions in me.
In the end, this novel was successful for me, but I think most of that was thanks to the affections I felt for Subhash, the hero. I cared for him and wanting to know what happened to him carried me through to the end.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed 11 Jan 2014

By Ian Hobbs

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Whilst the book is doubtless well-constructed, I found it lacking in emotion. Perhaps the detached style was deliberate to convey the disconnect between the lives that are revealed to us but it diminished my engagement with the narrative. I enjoyed the Namesake more, but I also felt that there were echoes of the same themes. Overall, I was left untouched by it.

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic read 10 Oct 2013

By Amazon Customer

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Found the beginning difficult with political names hard to remember,but after the fist few chapters,the story off in epic stlye/The main characters were well developed and the twists and turns of the story kept me turning the pages with eager anticipation.I have already recommended this to friends,and hope it wins the Booker prize

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointingly average... 7 Feb 2014

By FictionFan TOP 100 REVIEWER VINE VOICE

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Subhash and Udayan are brothers, growing up together in post-independence Calcutta. Subhash is conventional and studious, fully intending to follow the path expected for him by his parents. Udayan is more adventurous and becomes politicised after the brutal suppression of a communist uprising in the small village of Naxalbari. Udayan soon becomes a member of the Naxalites, an offshoot of the Communist Party, which believes in direct action - i.e. terrorism - to achieve its ends. Subhash meantime takes up an opportunity to go to the States to continue his studies in oceanography.

This is where Lahiri makes her first strange choice. Instead of remaining in Calcutta with the charismatic and interesting Udayan, learning more about the Naxalites and the political situation, we are whisked off with the frankly dull-to-the-point-of-catatonia Subhash, and given detailed accounts of the considerably less exciting environment of the campus of a University in Rhode Island, where the most thrilling thing that happens is that Subhash decides not to get involved in Vietnam protests. From there on, we only learn what is happening in India through the occasional letter that Udayan sends, until an incident occurs that makes Subhash return briefly - but only long enough to marry, when he and his new wife return to Rhode Island. The bulk of the remainder of the book is taken up with detailed minutiae about the extremely dull and miserable lives led by Subhash, Gauri and their daughter, Bela. Subhash and Gauri both spend their lives studying and then teaching in Universities so we rarely get off campus and, after an entertaining start, Bela turns into as dull and misery-laden a character as her parents.

I suspect the aim of the book is three-fold: to show the sense of displacement felt by immigrants, to examine the effect of a violent incident on the futures of those affected by it and to look at the moral questions surrounding the use of terrorism as a political tool. The blurb describes it as 'epic', 'achingly poignant' and 'exquisitely empathetic'. It is epic in the sense that it covers a period of 50 years, but geographically and emotionally it remains static for most of that time. The other claims, I'm afraid, would depend on the reader caring about the characters and sadly these characters are not written in a way that induces empathy. Lahiri's second strange choice is to make the book entirely humourless and passionless, with Subhash and Gauri perpetually wallowing in their self-created misery. Each has a successful career, but neither seems able to form real relationships - not even with each other.

The writing is completely flat, and so is the story; no passion, no light and no real dark - just greyness, like living under permanent cloud-cover. On the rare occasions that Lahiri discusses the politics of the Naxalites, she does so in a way that reads like a textbook or a Wikipedia article, which means that there is no depth or humanity to it. The old saw of 'show, don't tell' was constantly running thorough my mind at these points. The moral questions around terrorism are only discussed at the end of the book, in a very superficial and throwaway manner. The implication is that these characters were damaged by Udayan's actions, but we are given nothing to make us believe they were significantly different people before. In fact, it is very clear that Subhash in particular lacks passion and humour before the life-changing incident just as much as after.

For a plot that promises so much, the book fails to deliver. Competently written rather than beautifully, I find it hard to understand why this book was shortlisted for the Booker. If this is really one of the best books being produced in the Commonwealth, it goes some way to explaining why the Booker is being opened up to the rest of the world. But I suspect it was shortlisted for the author's reputation and the 'worthiness' of the message rather than for any real qualities of writing or story-telling. A disappointingly average read that I didn't feel gave me an adequate return on the time I invested in it. Read more ›

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving story dealing with universal themes 18 Jan 2014

By Mancsgal

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I loved this novel. It worked for me on many levels. I was interested in the details of the political situation in India which form the backdrop to the story. I was also interested in the details of Indian family life and customs. ,
But most of all I connected with the universal themes it deals with-- ambivalence towards motherhood, fatherhood and the role of men in childrearing, aging, regret and guilt, bereavement. Huge themes but all knitted together seamlessly in a beautiful life-affirming tale.

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