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Roman Stories
Rome—metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical—is the protagonist, not the setting, of these nine the first short story collection by the Pulitzer Prize–winning master of the form since her number one New York Times best seller Unaccustomed Earth, and a major literary event.
In “The Boundary,” one family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker’s daughter, who nurses a wound from her family’s immigrant past. In “P’s Parties,” a Roman couple, now empty nesters, finds comfort and community with foreigners at their friend’s yearly birthday gathering—until the husband crosses a line. And in “The Steps,” on a public staircase that connects two neighborhoods and the residents who climb up and down it, we see Italy’s capital in all of its social and cultural variegations, filled with the tensions of a changing visibility and invisibility, random acts of aggression, the challenge of straddling worlds and cultures, and the meaning of home.
These are splendid, searching stories, written in Jhumpa Lahiri’s adopted language of Italian and seamlessly translated by the author and by Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz. Stories steeped in the moods of Italian master Alberto Moravia and guided, in the concluding tale, by the ineluctable ghost of Dante Alighieri, whose words lead the protagonist toward a new way of life.
In “The Boundary,” one family vacations in the Roman countryside, though we see their lives through the eyes of the caretaker’s daughter, who nurses a wound from her family’s immigrant past. In “P’s Parties,” a Roman couple, now empty nesters, finds comfort and community with foreigners at their friend’s yearly birthday gathering—until the husband crosses a line. And in “The Steps,” on a public staircase that connects two neighborhoods and the residents who climb up and down it, we see Italy’s capital in all of its social and cultural variegations, filled with the tensions of a changing visibility and invisibility, random acts of aggression, the challenge of straddling worlds and cultures, and the meaning of home.
These are splendid, searching stories, written in Jhumpa Lahiri’s adopted language of Italian and seamlessly translated by the author and by Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz. Stories steeped in the moods of Italian master Alberto Moravia and guided, in the concluding tale, by the ineluctable ghost of Dante Alighieri, whose words lead the protagonist toward a new way of life.
235 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 10, 2023
1095 people are currently reading
20191 people want to read
About the author
Jhumpa Lahiri
109 books14.7k followersNilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.
Her debut collection of short-stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture.
Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013) was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.
On January 22, 2015, Lahiri won the US$50,000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland. In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America.
In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome, Italy and has since then published two books of essays, and began writing in Italian, first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo, then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories. She also compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English.
In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022. In 2022, she became the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Barnard College of Columbia University.
Her debut collection of short-stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was made into a major motion picture.
Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013) was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.
On January 22, 2015, Lahiri won the US$50,000 DSC Prize for Literature for The Lowland. In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America.
In 2012, Lahiri moved to Rome, Italy and has since then published two books of essays, and began writing in Italian, first with the 2018 novel Dove mi trovo, then with her 2023 collection Roman Stories. She also compiled, edited, and translated the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories which consists of 40 Italian short stories written by 40 different Italian writers. She has also translated some of her own writings and those of other authors from Italian into English.
In 2014, Lahiri was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University from 2015 to 2022. In 2022, she became the Millicent C. McIntosh Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Barnard College of Columbia University.
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November 9, 2024
In a Nutshell: I admire what the author attempted with this collection, but I don’t admire the collection itself.
I am a huge fan of Jhumpa Lahiri. About two decades ago, I had taken a chance on a new Indian author who had won the Pulitzer for her debut story collection, ‘Interpreter of Maladies.’ The stories blew me away, and to date, it remains one of my favourite single-author compilations. ‘Unaccustomed Earth’, her second collection, was almost as good. I have also read her full-length novels, of which I found ‘The Namesake’ the best, but I believe that Ms. Lahiri is good at novels and outstanding at short stories.
Then came updates that she was learning Italian, had moved to Rome along with her family in her passion for the language, and now onwards, would write only in Italian. I had mixed feelings about this last piece of information. On the one hand, writing a whole book/story in a new language is a huge task. It takes immense talent to pull it off, and I wasn’t in doubt of Lahiri’s prowess. At the same time, I wondered if her style would come across as well in the new vernacular. Reading ‘Roman Stories’ has provided me an answer to my curiosity.
‘Roman Stories’, a collection of nine stories, was originally written by the author in Italian in 2022, and has been translated to English by the author and Todd Portnowitz. (I am not sure why a fluent English writer needed assistance from a translator to convert her works TO English. Anyway…)
Lahiri’s writing has always had a beautiful, picturesque feel. She can capture a scene like no one else, and her words make the entire story come alive in my imagination. This book is no exception. I never once felt as if I was reading a translation, or that there was some gap between thought and word. Her lines flow like a movie through your mind.
She is also a master at capturing emotions, especially poignant ones. Her characters always have this aura of vulnerability around them. As they are trying to get a hang of their day-to-day life and its perils, their feelings of inadequacy and loneliness come across clearly through their thoughts. Lahiri’s stories are written mostly in first person, thereby giving us an “insider view” of the character’s sentiments.
If you are familiar with her short stories, you will know that she doesn’t write entertainment, but slice-of-life character-oriented narratives. So if you are looking for a neat start-middle-end plot progression with a happy ending, this isn’t the book for you. The stories here are strongly character-driven, with the plot primarily being a vignette that reveals the character in and out. This collection is thereby better suited to literary fiction lovers.
On the other hand, the collection disappointed me much on a couple of counts. While the title should have prepared me for the fact that these were *Roman* stories, I took a long while to accept that none of the stories would have an Indian connection. To me, Jhumpa Lahiri has been one of the very few acclaimed expat authors to capture the essence of the Indian immigrant experience without resorting to stereotypes. So I felt a little betrayed (and a lot heartbroken) that she has clearly moved away from India in her writing and made Italy entirely her own.
Of course, the stories don’t feel like they have been written by someone who is relatively new to Italy. There’s an undertone of authenticity to every single tale, and had I not been aware of the author’s background, I would have assumed the writer to be Italian. That said, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the Roman portrayal with as much confidence as I would have for an India-based collection.
Most of her protagonists are outsiders in some way or the other. Though not necessarily immigrants, they either aren’t a part of or don’t feel like they belong in Rome, and hence their perception is always from the outside-in. Because of the intimate writing style, we also feel one with their feelings of not fitting in. But this also means that the picture we get of Rome is somewhat limited, with many denizens of the city depicted as being aloof, if not worse, to outsiders.
Moreover, the use of the first-person in the mostly melancholic stories means that after a while, the tales start feeling repetitive despite their distinct plotline. The motions and emotions explored should have been wider in range. I also didn’t like the decision of not naming any character, and where needed, using vague cues such as an initial or their gender or their profession to refer to them. It sounded awkward and kept me from connecting with the characters.
The nine stories are divided across three sections, but I couldn’t figure out any logical explanation for the compartmentalisation. The middle section comprises just one lengthy story divided into multiple episodes with distinct characters.
As always, I rated the stories individually, and except for a couple of tales, most were around the 3-3.5 star mark. Even for the stories that didn't satisfy me as much, I was invested in the writing from start to end. My favourite of this collection was ‘The Steps’, the extensive story in the middle section. I loved how it spanned various character experiences around some steps in the heart of the city. I also enjoyed ‘The Boundary’, a somewhat contemplative story about a caretaker’s daughter and her experiences with the family who has rented the house the girl works in; and ‘Notes’, an unusual but deep story best experienced by going into it blind.
All in all, I am not sure if my experience was so mixed because my expectations were too high, or because the works weren’t originally in English and hence lost something in translation, or because I wanted more of India. Whatever the reason may be, the fact is that I liked much of the writing but not so much of the content, if that makes sense.
Recommended to literary fiction readers who would enjoy a slice-of-life style story collection, with Rome being the city in focus.
3.4 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each story.
My thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the DRC of “Roman Stories”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
I am a huge fan of Jhumpa Lahiri. About two decades ago, I had taken a chance on a new Indian author who had won the Pulitzer for her debut story collection, ‘Interpreter of Maladies.’ The stories blew me away, and to date, it remains one of my favourite single-author compilations. ‘Unaccustomed Earth’, her second collection, was almost as good. I have also read her full-length novels, of which I found ‘The Namesake’ the best, but I believe that Ms. Lahiri is good at novels and outstanding at short stories.
Then came updates that she was learning Italian, had moved to Rome along with her family in her passion for the language, and now onwards, would write only in Italian. I had mixed feelings about this last piece of information. On the one hand, writing a whole book/story in a new language is a huge task. It takes immense talent to pull it off, and I wasn’t in doubt of Lahiri’s prowess. At the same time, I wondered if her style would come across as well in the new vernacular. Reading ‘Roman Stories’ has provided me an answer to my curiosity.
‘Roman Stories’, a collection of nine stories, was originally written by the author in Italian in 2022, and has been translated to English by the author and Todd Portnowitz. (I am not sure why a fluent English writer needed assistance from a translator to convert her works TO English. Anyway…)
Lahiri’s writing has always had a beautiful, picturesque feel. She can capture a scene like no one else, and her words make the entire story come alive in my imagination. This book is no exception. I never once felt as if I was reading a translation, or that there was some gap between thought and word. Her lines flow like a movie through your mind.
She is also a master at capturing emotions, especially poignant ones. Her characters always have this aura of vulnerability around them. As they are trying to get a hang of their day-to-day life and its perils, their feelings of inadequacy and loneliness come across clearly through their thoughts. Lahiri’s stories are written mostly in first person, thereby giving us an “insider view” of the character’s sentiments.
If you are familiar with her short stories, you will know that she doesn’t write entertainment, but slice-of-life character-oriented narratives. So if you are looking for a neat start-middle-end plot progression with a happy ending, this isn’t the book for you. The stories here are strongly character-driven, with the plot primarily being a vignette that reveals the character in and out. This collection is thereby better suited to literary fiction lovers.
On the other hand, the collection disappointed me much on a couple of counts. While the title should have prepared me for the fact that these were *Roman* stories, I took a long while to accept that none of the stories would have an Indian connection. To me, Jhumpa Lahiri has been one of the very few acclaimed expat authors to capture the essence of the Indian immigrant experience without resorting to stereotypes. So I felt a little betrayed (and a lot heartbroken) that she has clearly moved away from India in her writing and made Italy entirely her own.
Of course, the stories don’t feel like they have been written by someone who is relatively new to Italy. There’s an undertone of authenticity to every single tale, and had I not been aware of the author’s background, I would have assumed the writer to be Italian. That said, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the Roman portrayal with as much confidence as I would have for an India-based collection.
Most of her protagonists are outsiders in some way or the other. Though not necessarily immigrants, they either aren’t a part of or don’t feel like they belong in Rome, and hence their perception is always from the outside-in. Because of the intimate writing style, we also feel one with their feelings of not fitting in. But this also means that the picture we get of Rome is somewhat limited, with many denizens of the city depicted as being aloof, if not worse, to outsiders.
Moreover, the use of the first-person in the mostly melancholic stories means that after a while, the tales start feeling repetitive despite their distinct plotline. The motions and emotions explored should have been wider in range. I also didn’t like the decision of not naming any character, and where needed, using vague cues such as an initial or their gender or their profession to refer to them. It sounded awkward and kept me from connecting with the characters.
The nine stories are divided across three sections, but I couldn’t figure out any logical explanation for the compartmentalisation. The middle section comprises just one lengthy story divided into multiple episodes with distinct characters.
As always, I rated the stories individually, and except for a couple of tales, most were around the 3-3.5 star mark. Even for the stories that didn't satisfy me as much, I was invested in the writing from start to end. My favourite of this collection was ‘The Steps’, the extensive story in the middle section. I loved how it spanned various character experiences around some steps in the heart of the city. I also enjoyed ‘The Boundary’, a somewhat contemplative story about a caretaker’s daughter and her experiences with the family who has rented the house the girl works in; and ‘Notes’, an unusual but deep story best experienced by going into it blind.
All in all, I am not sure if my experience was so mixed because my expectations were too high, or because the works weren’t originally in English and hence lost something in translation, or because I wanted more of India. Whatever the reason may be, the fact is that I liked much of the writing but not so much of the content, if that makes sense.
Recommended to literary fiction readers who would enjoy a slice-of-life style story collection, with Rome being the city in focus.
3.4 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each story.
My thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the DRC of “Roman Stories”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connect with me through:
My Blog | The StoryGraph | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
November 13, 2023
maybe, when you're a brilliant writer as it stands and you've won major awards, learning another language and refusing to write in anything but that might have an effect.
possibly.
i spent more than half of this collection writing mini-reviews for each story, but i had to stop because it was negativity city and vitriol was being spewed everywhere and all of them amounted to the same thing: the best parts of this collection explore the relationship between alienation and culture, often describing the plight of immigrants within italy. but eventually even those fell into the same predictable pattern of recycled material and telling, not showing.
i have read another book by jhumpa lahiri in her post-italian-writing-declaration years and enjoyed it, but this one felt...shallow and hard to get into.
bottom line: i miss the old jhumpa.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
possibly.
i spent more than half of this collection writing mini-reviews for each story, but i had to stop because it was negativity city and vitriol was being spewed everywhere and all of them amounted to the same thing: the best parts of this collection explore the relationship between alienation and culture, often describing the plight of immigrants within italy. but eventually even those fell into the same predictable pattern of recycled material and telling, not showing.
i have read another book by jhumpa lahiri in her post-italian-writing-declaration years and enjoyed it, but this one felt...shallow and hard to get into.
bottom line: i miss the old jhumpa.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
October 16, 2023
3.5 stars
When fellow readers talk to me about Jhumpa Lahiri its always with great admiration. In fact, I’ve yet to come across a fan who hasn’t taken something meaningful from her writing, whether it be from a novel or a lauded short story.
And now I can say I’ve had a somewhat similar experience after having read her latest story collection, Roman Stories. I, too, see her brilliance – when she shines, she blinds – but unfortunately not every story in her latest release is memorable.
Some background: Lahiri, after being raised in the United States, has moved to Italy and adopted Italian as her second language. As far as I’m aware, she now writes only in Italian and chooses to then translate her work into English, which seems backwards to me. And what’s even more curious is that three of the stories in this collection are translated by someone else – Todd Portnowitz. It leaves me wondering why she used another translator when typically she does the work herself.
When considering Lahiri’s move to Italy, it’s unsurprising that she chooses to write about the country. All of the stories are set in Rome, and they all feature an unnamed narrator, either a native of Rome or a foreigner, who gives the reader a cultural and social take on the city as they see it. Thematically, the stories do have some common threads, that of immigration and displacement from one’s home country, the difficulties of adapting to a new culture, racial aggression, and loss. It feels, too, as if Lahiri draws a line on the page between insiders and outsiders, perhaps mirroring some of her own encounters.
A few of the standout stories:
The Boundary, where a family vacationing in the Roman countryside is observed by the caretaker’s daughter.
P’s Parties, a tale about a Roman married couple who looks forward to their friend’s yearly birthday gathering where they interact with interesting foreigners.
The Delivery, a captivating snapshot of racial violence.
The Steps, the longest story of the bunch, it features short vignettes about different residents who live near a towering public staircase.
The remaining stories are okay, but they’re missing the wow factor. It’s almost like something misfired in the translation, causing important pieces of the narrative to be left out. And then Lahiri can’t quite take us all the way to where she wants us to go, resulting in some of the endings to be jarring and not in line with the rest of the story.
Roman Stories left me with the sense that it’s not Lahiri’s best work. And while I still plan to read more from her, devotees may be left disappointed with the collection as a whole.
My sincerest appreciation to Jhumpa Lahiri, Knopf, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.
When fellow readers talk to me about Jhumpa Lahiri its always with great admiration. In fact, I’ve yet to come across a fan who hasn’t taken something meaningful from her writing, whether it be from a novel or a lauded short story.
And now I can say I’ve had a somewhat similar experience after having read her latest story collection, Roman Stories. I, too, see her brilliance – when she shines, she blinds – but unfortunately not every story in her latest release is memorable.
Some background: Lahiri, after being raised in the United States, has moved to Italy and adopted Italian as her second language. As far as I’m aware, she now writes only in Italian and chooses to then translate her work into English, which seems backwards to me. And what’s even more curious is that three of the stories in this collection are translated by someone else – Todd Portnowitz. It leaves me wondering why she used another translator when typically she does the work herself.
When considering Lahiri’s move to Italy, it’s unsurprising that she chooses to write about the country. All of the stories are set in Rome, and they all feature an unnamed narrator, either a native of Rome or a foreigner, who gives the reader a cultural and social take on the city as they see it. Thematically, the stories do have some common threads, that of immigration and displacement from one’s home country, the difficulties of adapting to a new culture, racial aggression, and loss. It feels, too, as if Lahiri draws a line on the page between insiders and outsiders, perhaps mirroring some of her own encounters.
A few of the standout stories:
The Boundary, where a family vacationing in the Roman countryside is observed by the caretaker’s daughter.
P’s Parties, a tale about a Roman married couple who looks forward to their friend’s yearly birthday gathering where they interact with interesting foreigners.
The Delivery, a captivating snapshot of racial violence.
The Steps, the longest story of the bunch, it features short vignettes about different residents who live near a towering public staircase.
The remaining stories are okay, but they’re missing the wow factor. It’s almost like something misfired in the translation, causing important pieces of the narrative to be left out. And then Lahiri can’t quite take us all the way to where she wants us to go, resulting in some of the endings to be jarring and not in line with the rest of the story.
Roman Stories left me with the sense that it’s not Lahiri’s best work. And while I still plan to read more from her, devotees may be left disappointed with the collection as a whole.
My sincerest appreciation to Jhumpa Lahiri, Knopf, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.
March 2, 2024
Unfortunately I was not a fan of this book. I so loved Jhumpa Lahiri’s
The Lowland
and
Unaccustomed Earth
for her ability to capture an accumulation of small moments that defined grand emotions and complex characters. In Roman Stories, however, I found her writing vague, unfocused, and tedious. Perhaps those who are more interested in cities or locations will like this more as the collection is focused on Rome, though in my opinion at the expense of any meaningful character development or plot. It seems like she’s flourishing in her interest to write only in Italian, though this choice has left me unimpressed by her resulting literary output.
October 11, 2023
Jhumpa Lahiri’s story collection is marked by an atmosphere of melancholy and sense of loss. Lahiri has adopted Rome as a second home and these stories were originally written in Italian. But despite Lahiri’s obvious love for Rome she doesn’t shy away from the harsher realities of life in contemporary Italy. A number of her narratives centre the experiences of apparent outsiders, often immigrants facing an outpouring of deep-seated racism: “The Boundary” told by the child of caretakers for a rural, holiday home, whose family ended up there because of a brutal attack on her father in the city; “The Delivery” and “Notes” depict the experiences of isolated women both victims of prejudice, one violently assaulted, the other confronted by a more insidious form of hatred, neither confident that they can report these hate crimes and be taken seriously; and “A Well-Lit House” in which a man’s family is destroyed by the actions of his neighbours who single them out because of perceived difference. Various pieces dwell on other forms of loss from the bereaved, middle-age couple in “The Procession” to an aging husband dreaming of what might have been in “P’s Parties.” “The Steps” is a longer story revolving around a location in Rome that’s become a haunt for groups of teenage boys and the various reactions and perceptions of people who pass through this place. There are no pyrotechnics here, these are quiet, acutely observed, a series of moving, poignant reflections on feelings of estrangement, exile, and the aftermath of discrimination. Translated by the author and Todd Portnowitz.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Picador for an ARC
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Picador for an ARC
April 12, 2023
Stylistically and thematically the stories collected in Racconti Romani/Roman Stories resonate a lot with Jhumpa Lahiri’s previous collections. Unlike those however Roman Stories features stories written directly in Italian. Having loved Lahiri’s previous Italian work, Dove Mi Trovo/Whereabouts, I was prepared to once again be pulled away by her quietly melancholic storytelling. Most of the stories in RS however came across as ‘labored’, from the studied language to the storylines themselves. For instance, whereas the lack of proper names in Whereabouts didn’t bother me, here, perhaps because it is a ‘thing’ in almost every story, it felt gimmicky. Characters are referred to by their ‘role’, job, age, and or gender. While there are quite a few stories focusing on foreigners, we never learn much about their pasts, be it their language, culture, or even their family histories. Consequently the characters felt as vague, representative of their role, age, or whatever, rather than individuals with personalities and histories.
While I did appreciate how Lahiri highlights the experiences of those who are subject to xenophobia and racism in Italy (having recently returned to italy after nearly 10 years abroad i was taken aback by just how proudly bigoted many italians are), aside from one story in the latter half of the collection which deals with a violent hate crime, I do think that the episodes she portrays were slightly too ‘tame’, or maybe not tame but more ‘sanitised’...so things are never said but alluded to, which I am sure happens but like I said, there are also so many Italians who have 0 qualms about being vocal when it comes to their shitty opinions on ‘stranieri’.
I appreciated the themes Lahiri explores throughout this collection, as many of her characters seem mired by their own past and present choices. Change too is a motif in this collection: from changing family dynamics to changing landscapes to changing seasons. There is a sense of movement, yet, we also get that typical slice of life Lahiri excels at, so that it feels as if we are glimpsing an intimate moment in the everyday life of ‘ordinary’ people. Although the characters deal with grief, unrequited love, ageing, and hopelessness, yet, the stories retain a lightness that makes them exceedingly readable and far from heavy going. The dialogues sometimes lacked immediacy, in that most of the characters spoke this rather formal Italian, which sure enough, give the stories a nostalgic vibe, but they don’t always sound ‘credible’, or at least true to life. Especially considering that these stories are set in Rome, I was expecting a different type of vernacular, especially in those stories that seek to juxtapose older and younger generations.
Overall far from a bad read but not on the same level as Lahiri's other collections. Still, I think readers who aren't familiar with Rome or Italy might find this more enthralling than I was.
While I did appreciate how Lahiri highlights the experiences of those who are subject to xenophobia and racism in Italy (having recently returned to italy after nearly 10 years abroad i was taken aback by just how proudly bigoted many italians are), aside from one story in the latter half of the collection which deals with a violent hate crime, I do think that the episodes she portrays were slightly too ‘tame’, or maybe not tame but more ‘sanitised’...so things are never said but alluded to, which I am sure happens but like I said, there are also so many Italians who have 0 qualms about being vocal when it comes to their shitty opinions on ‘stranieri’.
I appreciated the themes Lahiri explores throughout this collection, as many of her characters seem mired by their own past and present choices. Change too is a motif in this collection: from changing family dynamics to changing landscapes to changing seasons. There is a sense of movement, yet, we also get that typical slice of life Lahiri excels at, so that it feels as if we are glimpsing an intimate moment in the everyday life of ‘ordinary’ people. Although the characters deal with grief, unrequited love, ageing, and hopelessness, yet, the stories retain a lightness that makes them exceedingly readable and far from heavy going. The dialogues sometimes lacked immediacy, in that most of the characters spoke this rather formal Italian, which sure enough, give the stories a nostalgic vibe, but they don’t always sound ‘credible’, or at least true to life. Especially considering that these stories are set in Rome, I was expecting a different type of vernacular, especially in those stories that seek to juxtapose older and younger generations.
Overall far from a bad read but not on the same level as Lahiri's other collections. Still, I think readers who aren't familiar with Rome or Italy might find this more enthralling than I was.
December 11, 2023
During my Pulitzer stage, when I felt compelled to read as many winners as possible, I first fell in love with Jhumpa Lahiri. She won for her first story collection Interpreter of Maladies as a younger writer becoming the first writer of Indian descent to do so. This set the stage for a now illustrious writing career. Lahiri has never been one to rest on her laurels. Even though she is fluent in both English and Hindi, in 2011 she made the decision to move her family to Italy merely because she wanted to learn Italian and be able to converse in the language fluently. As a lifelong learner of languages, I lauded this decision at the time because one is never to old to learn a new language. Lahiri was not content with speaking Italian; she desired to write in Italian as well. All her works since the move have been in Italian, her third language, and have been subsequently translated back to English. Roman Stories is her latest of these ventures, an ode to the city that Lahiri now calls home.
I have never been a fan of short stories or even novellas because as soon as I get to know a character the story is over. I devise full length stories featuring these characters because I want to know the backstory or how some of the more memorable characters end up. The great writers like Lahiri make short stories salvageable for me even if it is not my preferred genre. Roman Stories is not entirely memorable from a character perspective because in the collection the people seem pretty much the same: middle aged empty nesters searching for new meaning in their lives. The main character in any of these stories is not the people themselves but the city of Rome and the magnetic compass that pulls people to return even when they have long abandoned the city as their primary home. Lahiri pens an ode to Rome in this manner because she, too, is no longer a full time resident, also residing in New York in order to teach, much like one of the protagonists in these stories. What makes these stories stand out is not the characters or even the writing, which does move relatively quickly, but the relationship that Lahiri has with Rome, which is only her adopted city. Many of us only feel in such a manner toward our birthplace; Lahiri developed such a relationship with Rome, the place where she learned another language and became a new person, creating another layer to who she is as a person.
As aforementioned none of these stories standout as the centerpiece of the collection. They just are. She weaves themes consistently through all of the stories, many of them focusing on the treatment of Asian immigrants to Italy, a still hot button issue there. Indians could be educated people like Lahiri but are looked down upon by the native populace and are viewed as dirty or as other. In the story where a widow takes a temporary job at her sons’ former school, the children look down upon her simply because her skin color is different. In many of these stories, Asian tenants are looked at fearfully by their neighbors and politely asked to move by landlords. In other cases they find it difficult to obtain employment beyond the academic sector. This makes me wonder if Lahiri herself experienced feelings such as these, moving her to only live in Rome part time. The interesting thing I gleaned from these stories is that Indians still experienced that pull toward Rome even if they were maltreated by their communities, making me sense that the city’s ambience is indeed that strong.
The other theme I noticed is that all the characters appear to be middle aged. None of have first names, some have initials and others are the narrator and not mentioned at all. The majority appear to be middle aged, some widowed, some divorced, some still married and having affairs, all empty nesters. In the one story where children are still involved, they are conveniently sent back to their homeland in order to not face discrimination in Rome. These children are not the focal point but rather these middle aged people who are left to figure what to do with the second halves of their lives. It appears from these stories that love is constantly in the air in Rome and its surroundings, leading to much extramarital love. Whether it is the flora or the sea air, people whose marriage might have kindled out find love from acquaintances, colleagues, or even neighbors, often at the expense of a marriage which is that in name only. It makes me wonder what the divorce rate is in Italy compared to that of the United States. It also gives me pause for thought that Italy might not have the resources in place to deal with retirees or those contemplating a career change. Perhaps I am reading too much into these stories but the characters seem emotionless and void of my own wild imagination spinning its gears, I have little sympathy for the people I have met in Rome. Looking back, most of Lahiri’s characters are similar; her strength is in her prose and development of time and place. If one of her characters in one hundred becomes that memorable one then the story is overly satisfying.
Having finished this short story collection I am still convinced that it is not my genre. I am left thinking of new stories for the characters and wishing the author would write a full length novel featuring the people from the best stories in a collection. These stories would not fit in a full length story. The main character is Rome, and readers meet the protagonists at a specific juncture in their lives. Since living in Italy, Lahiri has written either short nonfiction pieces or short stories and novellas. She has not penned a full length novel since leaving the United States. Perhaps that is her impetus for living in America part time again. Or perhaps, Lahiri has found her niche as a short story master and desires to hone her craft in her new adopted country. Regardless she is one of the world’s best writers of this generation and anything she writes in any language is a gift to readers.
4 stars
I have never been a fan of short stories or even novellas because as soon as I get to know a character the story is over. I devise full length stories featuring these characters because I want to know the backstory or how some of the more memorable characters end up. The great writers like Lahiri make short stories salvageable for me even if it is not my preferred genre. Roman Stories is not entirely memorable from a character perspective because in the collection the people seem pretty much the same: middle aged empty nesters searching for new meaning in their lives. The main character in any of these stories is not the people themselves but the city of Rome and the magnetic compass that pulls people to return even when they have long abandoned the city as their primary home. Lahiri pens an ode to Rome in this manner because she, too, is no longer a full time resident, also residing in New York in order to teach, much like one of the protagonists in these stories. What makes these stories stand out is not the characters or even the writing, which does move relatively quickly, but the relationship that Lahiri has with Rome, which is only her adopted city. Many of us only feel in such a manner toward our birthplace; Lahiri developed such a relationship with Rome, the place where she learned another language and became a new person, creating another layer to who she is as a person.
As aforementioned none of these stories standout as the centerpiece of the collection. They just are. She weaves themes consistently through all of the stories, many of them focusing on the treatment of Asian immigrants to Italy, a still hot button issue there. Indians could be educated people like Lahiri but are looked down upon by the native populace and are viewed as dirty or as other. In the story where a widow takes a temporary job at her sons’ former school, the children look down upon her simply because her skin color is different. In many of these stories, Asian tenants are looked at fearfully by their neighbors and politely asked to move by landlords. In other cases they find it difficult to obtain employment beyond the academic sector. This makes me wonder if Lahiri herself experienced feelings such as these, moving her to only live in Rome part time. The interesting thing I gleaned from these stories is that Indians still experienced that pull toward Rome even if they were maltreated by their communities, making me sense that the city’s ambience is indeed that strong.
The other theme I noticed is that all the characters appear to be middle aged. None of have first names, some have initials and others are the narrator and not mentioned at all. The majority appear to be middle aged, some widowed, some divorced, some still married and having affairs, all empty nesters. In the one story where children are still involved, they are conveniently sent back to their homeland in order to not face discrimination in Rome. These children are not the focal point but rather these middle aged people who are left to figure what to do with the second halves of their lives. It appears from these stories that love is constantly in the air in Rome and its surroundings, leading to much extramarital love. Whether it is the flora or the sea air, people whose marriage might have kindled out find love from acquaintances, colleagues, or even neighbors, often at the expense of a marriage which is that in name only. It makes me wonder what the divorce rate is in Italy compared to that of the United States. It also gives me pause for thought that Italy might not have the resources in place to deal with retirees or those contemplating a career change. Perhaps I am reading too much into these stories but the characters seem emotionless and void of my own wild imagination spinning its gears, I have little sympathy for the people I have met in Rome. Looking back, most of Lahiri’s characters are similar; her strength is in her prose and development of time and place. If one of her characters in one hundred becomes that memorable one then the story is overly satisfying.
Having finished this short story collection I am still convinced that it is not my genre. I am left thinking of new stories for the characters and wishing the author would write a full length novel featuring the people from the best stories in a collection. These stories would not fit in a full length story. The main character is Rome, and readers meet the protagonists at a specific juncture in their lives. Since living in Italy, Lahiri has written either short nonfiction pieces or short stories and novellas. She has not penned a full length novel since leaving the United States. Perhaps that is her impetus for living in America part time again. Or perhaps, Lahiri has found her niche as a short story master and desires to hone her craft in her new adopted country. Regardless she is one of the world’s best writers of this generation and anything she writes in any language is a gift to readers.
4 stars
Read
February 1, 2023
There is a relatively new bookshop in Rome, Spazio Sette. It is near Largo Argentina, in an old palazzo, along a dark and narrow street where one could easily imagine that a Caravaggio, armed not with a brush, but with a sharp dagger, may be just around the corner.
I was very keen on visiting the place and realised quite happily that it is also very close to a restaurant that specialises in fired baccalà. So, there I went, and after admiring the fresco that hovers over two floors of book corridors, soon, while I was perusing over the books stacked on the tables, one of the sellers approached me and asked if we needed any help. I then explained that I was learning Italian (on my third word he must have realized this, though) and that I was looking for new Italian writers. I did not want any translations.
I had seen Lahiri’s book around, but since I had already her books, including her bilingual In Other Words, I was not particularly keen on buying her latest. The bookseller, however, immediately picked up this book arguing that I would find myself in a related position to Lahiri, in the sense of being a foreigner who loved the Italian language and that maybe I could feel more comfortable in her Italian given that it was that of a foreigner (implying that it was not quite there – or so it seemed to me). So, I was convinced and I started reading it as soon as I got to the hotel that night.
Using Alberto Moravia’s title, Racconti romani, Lahiri has put together a series of stories previously published in various magazines. They are grouped in three parts, with no discernible reason.
Lahiri’s writing is very fluid in the sense that the construction of the sentences is not convoluted, with strings of subordinate clauses as can be encountered in Italian, but instead her vocabulary is enviously rich. I showed to my Italian teacher the list of new words I knotted down to make sure that my translation was correct, and she exclaimed. “What a vocabulary!!”. Maybe this exuberant vocabulary comes hand in hand with her very descriptive. And noticing made me wonder if she is part of a trend that I suspect comes out of Creative Writing courses and workshops.
Some themes stand out. In most of the stories there is a concern for the sense of displacement that immigrants feel, whether the estrangement is provoked when confronted by unfamiliar customs, when nasty racism is encountered. The stories are rarely plot driven and most of the weight is carried by impressions, by settings, by circumstances, by feelings, by thoughts and by revealing and subtle epiphanies. Strangely, I did not feel Rome came to the fore in three dimensions. Very rarely are places, churches, streets, rioni, explicitly named. The layered history of the city that so bluntly confronts visitors, is not drawn out. Most of the stories could have taken place in any other Italian city. And neither are the nationalities of the immigrants specified – maybe to point out that this is entirely irrelevant.
When I want to the cashier to pay for this book (and a couple others), I was told that Jhumpa Lahiri would be in the bookshop the following week, to present her works.
Peccato! By then I would have left the city.
September 28, 2025
There’s much to enjoy in this month’s Book Club choice, yet I find it hard to warm to Lahiri’s meandering and lukewarm collection of stories. They feel like experimental extensions of herself in which backstories are explored for a greater purpose; preliminary backstories for characters who will be developed on a greater scale.
But for now these histories are timid and exploratory, lacking depth and momentum. The writing is fresh and natural but the effects are not. They feel constrained and flat.
Time to return to the author’s earlier works.
But for now these histories are timid and exploratory, lacking depth and momentum. The writing is fresh and natural but the effects are not. They feel constrained and flat.
Time to return to the author’s earlier works.
May 26, 2023
How long must we live to learn how to survive?
How many times incipit vita nova?
These deceptively quiet and tonally undramatic stories hold more impactful happenings and emotions within themselves: a loyal husband faces a strange seduction, a happy refugee couple are excluded from their new home leading to the implosion of the family unit, a professional woman is confronted by a recalcitrant child and finds herself questioning her self-identity, a migrant woman is devastated by racist notes written by children in a school.
Literal stories of finding a home and sanctuary feature migrants and refugees in Rome, but there are also psychological displacements and the sense of alienation that can afflict anyone, though many of Lahiri's characters are women.
As with any collection of stories, this is somewhat uneven: I was less engaged by the central piece called 'The Steps' which uses place to jump into the lives of the city's inhabitants as they go about their daily lives, but that is balanced by the wonderful 'P's Parties'.
'Dante Alighieri', the final story, helps focalise the collection as it recalls both the 'dark wood' of middle age from Inferno and also the concept of vita nova or re-beginnings and a new life given added urgency here as a way of capturing the peripatetic nature of modernity, shifting identities and the crises of our moment of mass movement and migration.
Lahiri's prose is typically muted and elegant but there's a kind of subdued transformation that underpins these stories and which justifies the debt to Ovid noted at the start - quite different from some of her other work I've read which seems to centralise stasis. I've always admired Lahiri's poised, graceful style of writing - with this book I also tapped emotionally into her vision of the world: 4.5 stars.
Many thanks to Picador for an ARC via NetGalley
October 15, 2023
I’ve had a mixed reaction to this author’s work. I’ve loved some of her books, but others not so much. This collection of short stories definitely falls into the blah category for me. The only story that really resonated with me was “Notes”, about an immigrant woman in Rome experiencing hateful treatment. The other stories were very slight. I was annoyed by the author’s affectation of never giving a character a name and never naming the countries from which characters emigrated. Also, I don’t need to keep hearing that the author wrote the stories in Italian (not her native language) and then translated them into English. That gimmick doesn’t really impress me or add anything to my enjoyment of the writing.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
October 22, 2023
Jhumpa Lahiri has lived in Italy for some time now and has made the decision to write only in Italian. Thus her new book, Roman Stories, a collection of tales set in Rome, are all translations, with all but three translated by the author herself. I mention this at the start because I wonder if this has had any impact on my reaction to these stories. My past experiences reading her books have been more easy and I entered into their world quickly.
My feelings here were quite mixed with four of the nine stories rated very good to excellent: Well-lit house, The Procession, Notes, and Dante Alighieri. All of the stories revolve around general themes of sadness, loneliness, other-ness and there are common threads of migration, travel, being separate or apart from society, especially Roman life. In the stories that I preferred, I felt the characters and their stories were developed more fully, that I could understand them on some level. Some of the others just didn’t excite or connect with me. Part II, The Steps, is a six part story, more a novella, set around public steps that various people pass through during their days/lives. The Two Brothers was my favorite here.
My rating 3.5* raised to 4* Those stories that I liked were very good.
Thank you to Alfred A. Knopf and NetGalley for a review copy of this book for the purpose of an honest review.
My feelings here were quite mixed with four of the nine stories rated very good to excellent: Well-lit house, The Procession, Notes, and Dante Alighieri. All of the stories revolve around general themes of sadness, loneliness, other-ness and there are common threads of migration, travel, being separate or apart from society, especially Roman life. In the stories that I preferred, I felt the characters and their stories were developed more fully, that I could understand them on some level. Some of the others just didn’t excite or connect with me. Part II, The Steps, is a six part story, more a novella, set around public steps that various people pass through during their days/lives. The Two Brothers was my favorite here.
My rating 3.5* raised to 4* Those stories that I liked were very good.
Thank you to Alfred A. Knopf and NetGalley for a review copy of this book for the purpose of an honest review.
September 14, 2023
[Thank you to Knopf for the early copy for review. All thoughts & opinions are my own.]
Release date: October 10, 2023
Arguably one of the 21st centuries most renowned short story writers returns in new form in a collection originally written in Italian, and self-translated along with Todd Portnowitz into English.
Jhumpa Lahiri's career evolution due to her study of Italian has been intriguing, to say the least. While these stories absolutely show the mastery of her skills in crafting short, powerful narratives, this isn't a collection I'd recommend simply because someone was a fan of Lahiri in the past. With a new primary language she's writing in, Lahiri has seemed to tap into a new voice and tone, a new style. It was first seen in the short novel, Whereabouts, which unfortunately didn't work for me. However, I've never been much of a fan of her longer works, preferring her ability to say more with less in her short stories.
In this collection, due out in a few weeks, she's in fine form. The stories are rarely specific—characters names are reduced to their first letter, places are seldom named properly and instead referred to in the general ("the piazza" "the steps" etc). And yet the feelings, the emotions are so focused.
She seems to be especially focused on marriages (and infidelity), otherness through both immigrants in Rome/Italy as well as individuals as separate from a larger community they feel urged to integrate into, and grief.
Standout stories for me were 'P's Parties,' 'The Steps,' and 'Dante Alighieri'
Release date: October 10, 2023
Arguably one of the 21st centuries most renowned short story writers returns in new form in a collection originally written in Italian, and self-translated along with Todd Portnowitz into English.
Jhumpa Lahiri's career evolution due to her study of Italian has been intriguing, to say the least. While these stories absolutely show the mastery of her skills in crafting short, powerful narratives, this isn't a collection I'd recommend simply because someone was a fan of Lahiri in the past. With a new primary language she's writing in, Lahiri has seemed to tap into a new voice and tone, a new style. It was first seen in the short novel, Whereabouts, which unfortunately didn't work for me. However, I've never been much of a fan of her longer works, preferring her ability to say more with less in her short stories.
In this collection, due out in a few weeks, she's in fine form. The stories are rarely specific—characters names are reduced to their first letter, places are seldom named properly and instead referred to in the general ("the piazza" "the steps" etc). And yet the feelings, the emotions are so focused.
She seems to be especially focused on marriages (and infidelity), otherness through both immigrants in Rome/Italy as well as individuals as separate from a larger community they feel urged to integrate into, and grief.
Standout stories for me were 'P's Parties,' 'The Steps,' and 'Dante Alighieri'
February 8, 2024
A deceptively simple chiaroscuro of experience, burdens, hopes, and dreams.
In 1954, Alberto Moravia published a series of 61 short stories in the Il Corriere della Sera. They may be loosely called morality tales featuring common people, Romans.
This time round, Lahiri too writes about common people, in a way Romans too because they live in Rome, but then the diversions begin. Because to be a true Roman, you need to be born Roman from Roman stock dating back generations. It's in the blood.
So Lahiri's people, those that live in her stories, can not really be called Roman because although they live in Rome, they are outsiders too, all with their own stories. So the stories show us these people, giving them a voice, a story. She shows us how they have to integrate their personal histories, country of origin, culture, past, needs together while trying to integrate in a city which does not always have it's arms wide open in welcome.
An ARC kindly given by author/publisher via Netgalley.
In 1954, Alberto Moravia published a series of 61 short stories in the Il Corriere della Sera. They may be loosely called morality tales featuring common people, Romans.
This time round, Lahiri too writes about common people, in a way Romans too because they live in Rome, but then the diversions begin. Because to be a true Roman, you need to be born Roman from Roman stock dating back generations. It's in the blood.
So Lahiri's people, those that live in her stories, can not really be called Roman because although they live in Rome, they are outsiders too, all with their own stories. So the stories show us these people, giving them a voice, a story. She shows us how they have to integrate their personal histories, country of origin, culture, past, needs together while trying to integrate in a city which does not always have it's arms wide open in welcome.
An ARC kindly given by author/publisher via Netgalley.
December 27, 2024
This is my last Jhumpa Lahiri. I know she's popular and highly awarded, but I'm tired of trying to like her books. They don't resonate with me. I don't like the characters, and often, I'm not really sure what the point of the story is. The only good thing was that it was easy to read and quick to end. Plus, being a collection of short stories, I didn't need to suffer through too much. Whatever it is that most people like about her is lost on me. Happy for all those who love her work. For me, I know better than to try again.
November 5, 2023
Jhumpa Lahiri has long been an author that has intrigued me with her beautiful and diverse writing. Ms. Lahiri, an Indian-American, adopted Italy as her home immersing herself in the Italian language. She not only wrote a recent book, Whereabouts in the Italian language but then translated her novel into English. Ms. Lahiri has again done the same with her new release, Roman Stories. This is a compilation of short stories about Rome as well as the Roman countryside, but what pulses throughout the stories is the rhythm of the city. The book is divided into three parts. One of the most intriguing group of short stories entitled The Steps was a set of public steps overlooking a panoramic view and connecting two different neighborhoods. The many diverse stories, with the steps as a commonality, reflected the tensions of a changing city and the changing diverse populations and cultures and particularly the meaning of home. The predominant theme is one of otherness and sorrow. It is a very engaging collection.
"Now and then she lifts her head and looks intently at the landscape that surrounds us. She stares at the various greens of the lawn, the hills, the woods in the distance. The glaring blue of the sky, the yellow hay. The bleached fence, and the low stone wall that marks the property line. She looks at all things I look at every day. But I wonder what she sees in them."
And he'll think, with a certain melancholy, when he watches the water clamber up the shore, that every effort, and even every pleasure in life, every goal that's reached and achieved, every recollection, lasts only for an instant, just like the water that throws itself onto the beach, leaving a spontaneous imprint whose wavering contours, like the line drawn by a heart monitor, are never quite the same."
November 3, 2023
As with her previous Italian collection, the writing is well done, the observations of people and place exemplary and even some emotionally engaging stories. Ultimately ok, I miss her earlier works very much. Library ebook 3 stars.
July 12, 2023
An interesting collection of stories centring around Rome from Jhumpa Lahiri, an author whose name I know well but have never read anything she's written before.
There is a mix of stories but all have the common themes of Rome, family, belonging and immigrant status or that's the way it appeared to me at least. I can only assume that these are all (to some extent) fictional renditions of stories that Ms Lahiri has experienced at first hand or amongst friends/relations. They certainly read like true stories in part.
I thought the longer stories might be too samey but one of my favourites was The Steps, which gives differing accounts of various people who use the same long flight of steps every day. Other favourites were Well-Lit Room and The Deliverydescribing the experiences of an immigrants subjected to increasing degrees of violence, The Boundary which tells the story of a rental property and its caretakers, The Reentry and Notes which describe the casual racism of children.
In fact I liked almost all the stories although I wasn't as carried away as I felt I should have been given Ms Lahiri's almost mythic status as an author. Still I would recommend this volume of short stories and will look out for more by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the advance review copy.
There is a mix of stories but all have the common themes of Rome, family, belonging and immigrant status or that's the way it appeared to me at least. I can only assume that these are all (to some extent) fictional renditions of stories that Ms Lahiri has experienced at first hand or amongst friends/relations. They certainly read like true stories in part.
I thought the longer stories might be too samey but one of my favourites was The Steps, which gives differing accounts of various people who use the same long flight of steps every day. Other favourites were Well-Lit Room and The Deliverydescribing the experiences of an immigrants subjected to increasing degrees of violence, The Boundary which tells the story of a rental property and its caretakers, The Reentry and Notes which describe the casual racism of children.
In fact I liked almost all the stories although I wasn't as carried away as I felt I should have been given Ms Lahiri's almost mythic status as an author. Still I would recommend this volume of short stories and will look out for more by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the advance review copy.
January 16, 2024
4,5*
"This city is shit", one of us says, breaking the silence. "But so damn beautiful".
Labai tinkamu metu perskaityta knyga - per patį švenčių įkarštį ir jį lydintį pamišimą. Šis naujas Lahiri apsakymų rinkinys man suveikė, kaip meditacinė terapija.
Londone gimusi, augusi JAV indų kilmės autorė nuo 2012-tų gyvena Romoje ir jau išleido antrą apsakymų rinkinį parašytą italų kalba (dėl ko kartais yra kritikuojama ). Pirmas - 2018-ais išleistas ir pačios autorės išverstas į anglų k. Dove mi trovo (angl. –Whereabouts) – man labai patiko. Ir šis – verstas autorės ir Todd Portnowitz savo melancholiška nuotaika labai panašus. Abu rekomenduoku :)
Apsakymai apie Romą ir romiečius – čia gimusius ir atvykusius iš svečių šalių. Istorijos pasakojamos derinant atvykėlių (trumpam-ilgam-visam) į Romą su vietinių romiečių pasakojimais. Nors dominuoja labiau ne vietinių, kaip ir pačios autorės, perspektyvos. Pagrindinės temos nelabai ramios - kultūrų, socialinės padėties skirtumai ir problemos, bet autorės balsas skambėjo labai raminančiai. Gal kiek šaltokai, lyg laikantis saugios distancijos, bet man būtent tai ir patiko.
"This city is shit", one of us says, breaking the silence. "But so damn beautiful".
Labai tinkamu metu perskaityta knyga - per patį švenčių įkarštį ir jį lydintį pamišimą. Šis naujas Lahiri apsakymų rinkinys man suveikė, kaip meditacinė terapija.
Londone gimusi, augusi JAV indų kilmės autorė nuo 2012-tų gyvena Romoje ir jau išleido antrą apsakymų rinkinį parašytą italų kalba (dėl ko kartais yra kritikuojama ). Pirmas - 2018-ais išleistas ir pačios autorės išverstas į anglų k. Dove mi trovo (angl. –Whereabouts) – man labai patiko. Ir šis – verstas autorės ir Todd Portnowitz savo melancholiška nuotaika labai panašus. Abu rekomenduoku :)
Apsakymai apie Romą ir romiečius – čia gimusius ir atvykusius iš svečių šalių. Istorijos pasakojamos derinant atvykėlių (trumpam-ilgam-visam) į Romą su vietinių romiečių pasakojimais. Nors dominuoja labiau ne vietinių, kaip ir pačios autorės, perspektyvos. Pagrindinės temos nelabai ramios - kultūrų, socialinės padėties skirtumai ir problemos, bet autorės balsas skambėjo labai raminančiai. Gal kiek šaltokai, lyg laikantis saugios distancijos, bet man būtent tai ir patiko.
December 30, 2023
The author is new to me, but a quick internet search tells me that she’s London born, American raised but with Indian heritage. She moved to Rome around 2011 and fell in love with the city, and though work means that these days she’s not always in the city, emotionally she’s never left.
This collection of short stories, each set in or around the Eternal City, are of variable length, but share an ability to stir the emotions. There’s everything here from hopefulness, lust and longing to regret, betrayal and death – and all points in between. Interestingly, each tale is de-personalised in the sense that no names are used, just ‘the woman’, ‘the mourner’, or simply a capitalised letter which presumably denotes the beginning of a Christian name. Is this because the author believes the players in her stories don’t matter, it’s the situation she wants us to focus on? Or perhaps I’m over thinking it, or just failing to grasp Jhumpa’s true motivation. Either way, I suppose this devise does bring another kind of uniformity to the tales.
A number of the stories feature immigrants living in the city. These people tend to be in low paid employment and struggling to get by or at least conflicted, accepting why they’re no longer living in their homeland but anxious and conflicted regarding the cultural values in this place they now find themselves. The stories are told from multiple viewpoints: both male and female, the young and the old, a middle aged man stirred by thoughts of an affair and a couple lamenting the loss of a young son. As always with such a collection, some grabbed me more than others, but the quality of the writing here, the insights provided and the emotions provoked, is consistently high.
My favourite story concerns a man who briefly meets a woman under unusual circumstances at a party and thereafter becomes somewhat obsessed by her. I read it twice, so taken was I with it. In fact, this is a collection I could readily read through again – I’m sure I’d find things I overlooked first time around and appreciate details that previously passed me by. It’s a superb collection, one that I’d urge all lovers of short fiction to seek it out. I’ll certainly be looking out for more offerings from this exceptionally gifted writer.
My sincere thanks to Pan Macmillan for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This collection of short stories, each set in or around the Eternal City, are of variable length, but share an ability to stir the emotions. There’s everything here from hopefulness, lust and longing to regret, betrayal and death – and all points in between. Interestingly, each tale is de-personalised in the sense that no names are used, just ‘the woman’, ‘the mourner’, or simply a capitalised letter which presumably denotes the beginning of a Christian name. Is this because the author believes the players in her stories don’t matter, it’s the situation she wants us to focus on? Or perhaps I’m over thinking it, or just failing to grasp Jhumpa’s true motivation. Either way, I suppose this devise does bring another kind of uniformity to the tales.
A number of the stories feature immigrants living in the city. These people tend to be in low paid employment and struggling to get by or at least conflicted, accepting why they’re no longer living in their homeland but anxious and conflicted regarding the cultural values in this place they now find themselves. The stories are told from multiple viewpoints: both male and female, the young and the old, a middle aged man stirred by thoughts of an affair and a couple lamenting the loss of a young son. As always with such a collection, some grabbed me more than others, but the quality of the writing here, the insights provided and the emotions provoked, is consistently high.
My favourite story concerns a man who briefly meets a woman under unusual circumstances at a party and thereafter becomes somewhat obsessed by her. I read it twice, so taken was I with it. In fact, this is a collection I could readily read through again – I’m sure I’d find things I overlooked first time around and appreciate details that previously passed me by. It’s a superb collection, one that I’d urge all lovers of short fiction to seek it out. I’ll certainly be looking out for more offerings from this exceptionally gifted writer.
My sincere thanks to Pan Macmillan for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
December 8, 2022
Belli, davvero belli e, per certi versi, se si considera che Jhumpa Lahiri li ha scritti in italiano, sorprendenti nel loro tagliente candore. Alcuni più di altri, ma questo è inevitabile, tutti però accomunati da questo sguardo su Roma, di cui a ogni pagina si riescono a vedere luci e, per contrasto, calore, e sulla nostra incapacità di accogliere fino in fondo, che si fa indagatore, magnetico, disincantato, innamorato. Un uso della nostra lingua, come dicevo, sorprendente.
November 22, 2025
i enjoyed this collection of stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, who I'd been wanting to read something by for a while - this was what turned up at one of the libraries 🙂
❗spoilers beyond ❗
🏠 Part 1 🏡
The Boundary
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
a cottage rented for the summer. the family who tend it and greet them. the family who come to stay. told by the child of the family who tend the cottage and guests, whom the job falls to this summer. mothers, fathers. children. the difference between holidaying there, and living there. how the family came to live there, leaving violence experienced in the city.
told in short numbered parts.
the language nicely sparse and full 🙂
The Reentry
🌟 🌟
two women meet, their different circumstances. loss.
living/moving between the city and the countryside again.
P's Party
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
couples meeting on vacation. families, friendship, P's party 🙂
Well Lit House
🌟 🌟 🌟 +
a family, a flat... but prejudice forces them out, his wife and children return to their home country, and he lives on the streets, and in overcrowded housing... waiting for a basement someone says might become free. moving into an underpass, where he finally gets some sleep. then roaming the streets and parks... the close is a little ambiguous, tho unambiguously sad. 💔
🪜 Part 2 🏘
The Steps
🌟 🌟 🌟 +
nicely descriptive, creating a good feel of place. "...covered with discoloured Jasmine that has lost its scent". and effectively evocative wrt the thoughts and feelings of a woman, working in another's home, caring for their children, while her own son turns 13 on another continent with his grandparents ♥
The Widow
🌟 🌟 🌟
again the steps, a different woman. worried about the shattered glass on the steps (from the bottles left by the kids drinking on the steps) - that they'll hurt her, or her dog. she also doesn't sleep well cos of the kids. feels assaulted, and insulted, by the writing the kids leave.
a completely different response to the young people than the woman in the first story 🙂
The Expat Wide.
🌟 🌟 🌟
due to have a surgery, after which she'll have to stay in and do very little - a hysterectomy. recalling her past in Rome and the US before that. thinking forward to after the surgery - the loss, that she won't be able to have anymore children.
The Girl
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
descending the steps with the other school girls... tho not a part of their groups/cliques, and doesn't dress in the same revealing clothes. the differences between her and them are described in specific, but slightly ambiguous, ways from the girls point of view.
her family, the pizza-making chemist uncle she swam with and never saw again.
alot of water imagery in this story 🙂
Two Brothers
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 ♥
two brothers sitting on the steps at sunset, to drink a beer, recalling when they first moved to Rome with their parents decades previously. their different memories. memories of precise moments in time. a story of location and dislocation. their mother and father separating, their father in love with the other father and staying in Rome, their mother returning to America. the boys spending summers in Rome, and then with the two fathers in the place the moved to abit outside of Rome. they're back for their father's funeral, visiting Rome while the rest of their families are doing other things 🙂
The Screenwriter
🌟 🌟 .5
who lives at the foot of the steps, and spends the bulk of the day in his apartment, in the heat of the summer, heading out in the mornings and evenings. his wife away at the beach with their children and her friends.
🚪 Part 3 🪑
The Delivery
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 ♥
a really mixed story, shifting narrators part way thru. an (immigrant) woman working for another woman. walking back from the post office, wearing a polka dot skirt her employer passed down to her. switches to the two local boys on the moped.
back to the woman, at the hospital. the dots of the air pistol pellets like the dots on the skirt. recovering at home, while one of her cousins is helping the signora, happy not to go back to her. helping instead in a cousins convenience store. watching the young people outside the store, late at night 🙂
I liked her strand more than the young men.
The Procession.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 ♥
1. a couple visiting Rome, for her birthday - somewhere from her past. their age suggested by the silver of her hair. the apartment they're renting.
her wanting to see the precession of The Virgin, choosing the apartment for its location.
2. a triangular piata. people gradually gathering for the procession. each of the couple having very different memories of their sons first steps.
3. back at the apartment. the crashing noise and shattered glass... and a kind of resolution ♥
Notes
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 +
a woman recalls aspects of her work, home, marriage, children...
the note found in her pocket 😕😢 microaggressions.
excellent ending 😁
Dante Alligeri
🌟 🌟 🌟 +
1. recounting high school, and her friend dating S, waiting her turn. her friends boyfriend suddenly being in love with her. the complexities of emotion, decision.
2. today, at the funeral of her mother in law. her ex husband. her time in Rome, regular movements between continents.
3. her parents when she was young. her loss of both her best friend and the possibility of a relationship with S (who she turned down not to betray her friend). studying the real Dante. her first relationship, and marriage.
I think we're still in part three... this part seems to meander, tho no, it was part five!!!.
5. meetings at the hotel
6.
7. the funeral
8.
9.
not sure how many parts now. and which relationship she's talking about after a while... the first Dante, her husband, someone she had an affair with while married.
moving between relationships, and funerals... not entirely linear, tho also kinda linear.
ends nicely 🙂
and ends the collection 🙂
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
accessed as a library audiobook, read by 5 people: Deepti Gupta 🌟🌟, Carlotta Brenton, Cassandra Campbell, Ari Theagos and Michael Obiora 🌟.
translated from the Italian by the author, with Tod Courtnowitz.
❗spoilers beyond ❗
🏠 Part 1 🏡
The Boundary
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
a cottage rented for the summer. the family who tend it and greet them. the family who come to stay. told by the child of the family who tend the cottage and guests, whom the job falls to this summer. mothers, fathers. children. the difference between holidaying there, and living there. how the family came to live there, leaving violence experienced in the city.
told in short numbered parts.
the language nicely sparse and full 🙂
The Reentry
🌟 🌟
two women meet, their different circumstances. loss.
living/moving between the city and the countryside again.
P's Party
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
couples meeting on vacation. families, friendship, P's party 🙂
Well Lit House
🌟 🌟 🌟 +
a family, a flat... but prejudice forces them out, his wife and children return to their home country, and he lives on the streets, and in overcrowded housing... waiting for a basement someone says might become free. moving into an underpass, where he finally gets some sleep. then roaming the streets and parks... the close is a little ambiguous, tho unambiguously sad. 💔
🪜 Part 2 🏘
The Steps
🌟 🌟 🌟 +
nicely descriptive, creating a good feel of place. "...covered with discoloured Jasmine that has lost its scent". and effectively evocative wrt the thoughts and feelings of a woman, working in another's home, caring for their children, while her own son turns 13 on another continent with his grandparents ♥
The Widow
🌟 🌟 🌟
again the steps, a different woman. worried about the shattered glass on the steps (from the bottles left by the kids drinking on the steps) - that they'll hurt her, or her dog. she also doesn't sleep well cos of the kids. feels assaulted, and insulted, by the writing the kids leave.
a completely different response to the young people than the woman in the first story 🙂
The Expat Wide.
🌟 🌟 🌟
due to have a surgery, after which she'll have to stay in and do very little - a hysterectomy. recalling her past in Rome and the US before that. thinking forward to after the surgery - the loss, that she won't be able to have anymore children.
The Girl
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
descending the steps with the other school girls... tho not a part of their groups/cliques, and doesn't dress in the same revealing clothes. the differences between her and them are described in specific, but slightly ambiguous, ways from the girls point of view.
her family, the pizza-making chemist uncle she swam with and never saw again.
alot of water imagery in this story 🙂
Two Brothers
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 ♥
two brothers sitting on the steps at sunset, to drink a beer, recalling when they first moved to Rome with their parents decades previously. their different memories. memories of precise moments in time. a story of location and dislocation. their mother and father separating, their father in love with the other father and staying in Rome, their mother returning to America. the boys spending summers in Rome, and then with the two fathers in the place the moved to abit outside of Rome. they're back for their father's funeral, visiting Rome while the rest of their families are doing other things 🙂
The Screenwriter
🌟 🌟 .5
who lives at the foot of the steps, and spends the bulk of the day in his apartment, in the heat of the summer, heading out in the mornings and evenings. his wife away at the beach with their children and her friends.
🚪 Part 3 🪑
The Delivery
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 ♥
a really mixed story, shifting narrators part way thru. an (immigrant) woman working for another woman. walking back from the post office, wearing a polka dot skirt her employer passed down to her. switches to the two local boys on the moped.
back to the woman, at the hospital. the dots of the air pistol pellets like the dots on the skirt. recovering at home, while one of her cousins is helping the signora, happy not to go back to her. helping instead in a cousins convenience store. watching the young people outside the store, late at night 🙂
I liked her strand more than the young men.
The Procession.
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 ♥
1. a couple visiting Rome, for her birthday - somewhere from her past. their age suggested by the silver of her hair. the apartment they're renting.
her wanting to see the precession of The Virgin, choosing the apartment for its location.
2. a triangular piata. people gradually gathering for the procession. each of the couple having very different memories of their sons first steps.
3. back at the apartment. the crashing noise and shattered glass... and a kind of resolution ♥
Notes
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 +
a woman recalls aspects of her work, home, marriage, children...
the note found in her pocket 😕😢 microaggressions.
excellent ending 😁
Dante Alligeri
🌟 🌟 🌟 +
1. recounting high school, and her friend dating S, waiting her turn. her friends boyfriend suddenly being in love with her. the complexities of emotion, decision.
2. today, at the funeral of her mother in law. her ex husband. her time in Rome, regular movements between continents.
3. her parents when she was young. her loss of both her best friend and the possibility of a relationship with S (who she turned down not to betray her friend). studying the real Dante. her first relationship, and marriage.
I think we're still in part three... this part seems to meander, tho no, it was part five!!!.
5. meetings at the hotel
6.
7. the funeral
8.
9.
not sure how many parts now. and which relationship she's talking about after a while... the first Dante, her husband, someone she had an affair with while married.
moving between relationships, and funerals... not entirely linear, tho also kinda linear.
ends nicely 🙂
and ends the collection 🙂
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
accessed as a library audiobook, read by 5 people: Deepti Gupta 🌟🌟, Carlotta Brenton, Cassandra Campbell, Ari Theagos and Michael Obiora 🌟.
translated from the Italian by the author, with Tod Courtnowitz.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 24, 2023
3.5, rounded up. Lahiri is one of my all-time favorite writers, and this is her first collection of short stories since 2008's Unaccustomed Earth. It's also her second work of self-translated fiction since she started writing exclusively in Italian, after 2018's Whereabouts, an episodic short novel about a clinically depressed middle-aged woman coming unmoored from emotional ties.
Lahiri's smooth, lapidary prose style flows throughout these nine stories, but the execution is especially uneven. All the stories are set in her sometimes-home of Rome, whose steps, piazzas, basilicas, and apartment buildings are the backdrop for hushed and melancholy narratives of emotional displacement and cultural alienation. They feature protagonists who are frequently unnamed (except for an initial) or known by their professions, and their ethnicity is rarely identified unless they're Italian or American.
Some of these are educated, bourgeois lifelong Romans who work in academia or medicine, and are beset by the usual package of middle-aged ennui, nagging unfulfillment, and collapsing marriages. The strongest story of this type was "P's Parties," about a middle-aged married man's attraction to a female party guest he only meets every year or so. And I also enjoyed "Dante Alighieri," about a middle-aged American professor specializing in Dante who ruminates on a youthful love that she never consummated and the accumulation of betrayals in her marriage to a much older man.
Less successful stories, such as "A Well-Lit House," "The Delivery," and "Notes" are slighter and cruder, with point-of-view characters who are recent immigrants to Italy, ostensibly from South Asia or Africa, who suffer from implicit racist abuse and acts of xenophobic violence. The long story "Steps" attempts to juxtapose these two worlds, with a series of protagonists sharing the same urban staircase but living in different thought-worlds that make living with empathy impossible.
Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for giving me an ARC of this collection, in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Lahiri's smooth, lapidary prose style flows throughout these nine stories, but the execution is especially uneven. All the stories are set in her sometimes-home of Rome, whose steps, piazzas, basilicas, and apartment buildings are the backdrop for hushed and melancholy narratives of emotional displacement and cultural alienation. They feature protagonists who are frequently unnamed (except for an initial) or known by their professions, and their ethnicity is rarely identified unless they're Italian or American.
Some of these are educated, bourgeois lifelong Romans who work in academia or medicine, and are beset by the usual package of middle-aged ennui, nagging unfulfillment, and collapsing marriages. The strongest story of this type was "P's Parties," about a middle-aged married man's attraction to a female party guest he only meets every year or so. And I also enjoyed "Dante Alighieri," about a middle-aged American professor specializing in Dante who ruminates on a youthful love that she never consummated and the accumulation of betrayals in her marriage to a much older man.
Less successful stories, such as "A Well-Lit House," "The Delivery," and "Notes" are slighter and cruder, with point-of-view characters who are recent immigrants to Italy, ostensibly from South Asia or Africa, who suffer from implicit racist abuse and acts of xenophobic violence. The long story "Steps" attempts to juxtapose these two worlds, with a series of protagonists sharing the same urban staircase but living in different thought-worlds that make living with empathy impossible.
Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for giving me an ARC of this collection, in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
did-not-finish
November 22, 2023DNF 70 pages in
I just need one book that can hold my attention please im begging
I just need one book that can hold my attention please im begging
October 16, 2023
unfortunately, none of the short stories worked for me. i could not feel for any of the characters and the stories felt a bit disjointed and the story collection was not as cohesive as a whole. however, that being said, the writing in this book is beautiful and lyrical and gorgeous.
thank you knopf for the arc!!!
thank you knopf for the arc!!!
May 5, 2024
I didn't love this collection of stories set in contemporary Rome. Until, quite suddenly, I did. As a collection, it is melancholy and cool, like the end of a wet day in autumn. There is a remoteness to the characters that renders their stories in sharp-edged black and white, with all the soft nuances of gray in-between. Elegant. Nearly noir.
As a fan of Jhumpa Lahiri since her first collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, knocked my socks clean off (and won the Pulitzer Prize) twenty-five years ago, I have followed her writing career and knew she began studying Italian with single-minded intensity in the mid-2000s, eventually moving to Italy. She now lives between New York, where she directs the creative writing program at Barnard College, and Rome. These stories, like all her work since 2015, were first written in Italian and translated, mostly by Lahiri herself.
Nearly all feature an outsider's perspective. Although we can intuit the narrator or protagonist to be an immigrant fleeing poverty or political strife, or in a few cases, an American chasing language or love, no place other than Rome is named. Other origin or destination locations are left ambiguous, as if Lahiri were leaning heavily into the proverb, All roads lead to Rome. In this collection, they most certainly do.
It was the initial detachment of voice that put me off, particularly in the two opening stories, The Boundary—so haunting and sad— and The Reentry, which features a creepy little girl and two old friends who are awkwardly referred to as "the woman in mourning" and "the professor." But I fell for the depths of P's Parties and its tender exploration of marriage and the accidental longing for another, and The Steps, which is like a stage play, featuring six characters who share a glimpse of their lives via the same flight of 126 stone steps they traverse regularly.
There is a longing to belong to Rome, to be of it, to be at peace once one surrenders to it, that must mirror the author's own relationship with her adopted city. Lahiri, who has so often explored the theme of being an outsider in her works that feature South Asian immigrants living in the United States, offers a series of stylized portraits that unfold in this ancient, storied city, a city that will endure long after we all have moved on to our own next chapters.
Highly recommended.
As a fan of Jhumpa Lahiri since her first collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, knocked my socks clean off (and won the Pulitzer Prize) twenty-five years ago, I have followed her writing career and knew she began studying Italian with single-minded intensity in the mid-2000s, eventually moving to Italy. She now lives between New York, where she directs the creative writing program at Barnard College, and Rome. These stories, like all her work since 2015, were first written in Italian and translated, mostly by Lahiri herself.
Nearly all feature an outsider's perspective. Although we can intuit the narrator or protagonist to be an immigrant fleeing poverty or political strife, or in a few cases, an American chasing language or love, no place other than Rome is named. Other origin or destination locations are left ambiguous, as if Lahiri were leaning heavily into the proverb, All roads lead to Rome. In this collection, they most certainly do.
It was the initial detachment of voice that put me off, particularly in the two opening stories, The Boundary—so haunting and sad— and The Reentry, which features a creepy little girl and two old friends who are awkwardly referred to as "the woman in mourning" and "the professor." But I fell for the depths of P's Parties and its tender exploration of marriage and the accidental longing for another, and The Steps, which is like a stage play, featuring six characters who share a glimpse of their lives via the same flight of 126 stone steps they traverse regularly.
There is a longing to belong to Rome, to be of it, to be at peace once one surrenders to it, that must mirror the author's own relationship with her adopted city. Lahiri, who has so often explored the theme of being an outsider in her works that feature South Asian immigrants living in the United States, offers a series of stylized portraits that unfold in this ancient, storied city, a city that will endure long after we all have moved on to our own next chapters.
Highly recommended.
February 14, 2024
A beautiful examination of life in an ancient city that can be both enchanting and threatening, welcoming and hostile. It’s a story of natives and outsiders, of being alone in a crowd yet finding a small measure of community and hope.
November 1, 2023
Few things are better than a good short story collection, and this one is very good.
These are slice of life stories, set in and around Rome, mostly about the immigrant experience. You get an insight in the lives of the people who left their home country for economic or political reasons, their often poor working and living conditions, and especially the subtle (and not so subtle) racism they are inevitably confronted with.
The book makes a good pairing with Nicola Lagioia's City of the Living that I just read - both portraying today's Rome as a city of incredible contradictions, deeply rooted problems surrounded by extreme beauty and extreme ugliness. Lahiri's calm and pleasant style is very different from Lagioia's urgency though.
The stories are very well written, but no 5 stars because I found the best stories the first ones, and missed tension in the second half.
These are slice of life stories, set in and around Rome, mostly about the immigrant experience. You get an insight in the lives of the people who left their home country for economic or political reasons, their often poor working and living conditions, and especially the subtle (and not so subtle) racism they are inevitably confronted with.
The book makes a good pairing with Nicola Lagioia's City of the Living that I just read - both portraying today's Rome as a city of incredible contradictions, deeply rooted problems surrounded by extreme beauty and extreme ugliness. Lahiri's calm and pleasant style is very different from Lagioia's urgency though.
The stories are very well written, but no 5 stars because I found the best stories the first ones, and missed tension in the second half.
February 14, 2024
Jhumpa Lahiri is a heavy hitter of a writer. She always has been. There's a beauty to her prosaic voice, which makes her writing look as though it's effortless. She's not an acrobatic show off. Precise. Contained. Jhumpa's the author that reminds me of a figure skater who glides with straight edges and sticks the landing of each jump without making a sound. She makes writing look easy, and great writing is anything but "easy." Another lovely addition to her gorgeous resumé, now at home upon my bookshelf next to her former works. Just lovely. ~
January 6, 2024
Pa, ovo je bilo prijatno iznenađenje.
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