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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lyrical voyage of emotion and understanding.,
By
This review is from: The Unknown Errors of Our Lives (Paperback)
Divakaruni has done it again. The words simply flow as you read this book of short stories. I don't usually read short stories because it doesn't seem like there is enough time in 20 or so pages to become attached to a character but this author is the exception. Her stories are like short journeys that delve into the emotion of her characters leaving you closer to them than some authors can accomplish in an entire book. Each story is about a choice made, not always the best one for the moment but an adventure in living none-the-less. In the first story she writes of a Grandmother who has emigrated from Calcutta to live in Sunnyvale, California with her son, his wife, and their two children. We are faced with her loneliness and yearning for a culture that is lost to her in this new country. I also moved to Sunnyvale from my home in New England and remember the feeling of displacement and longing I felt. I was an outsider who dressed differently and spoke with an accent; people were not always kind or receptive. I can only imagine how life changing it must be to come from another country; it is this emotion that the author expresses so clearly in not just the first story but throughout the book. Divakaruni has enlightened us with her book of tales. She has made me feel at home in her characters heart. After reading her last book SISTER OF MY HEART, I realized that this author would always be my favorite, she is a master of her craft, and her new book has certainly not disappointed me. Kelsana 5/19/01
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Lives of Strangers,
By
This review is from: The Unknown Errors of Our Lives: Stories (Paperback)
"The Unknown Errors of Our Lives" is a collection of short stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni that focuses on Indian women and their immigrant experience in America. In many ways, the subject matter of these stories are similar to those of Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of the Maladies" (a favorite book of mine). Many of the stories in Unknown Errors also deal with marriages of different sorts and in different stages: arranged marriages, engagements, deteriorating relationships. The first story in the book is entitled "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter". This is a touching story about an older widow who moves from India to live with her son's family in America. Her son tells her "We want you to be comfortable, Ma. To rest. That's why we brought you here to America." Her attempts to share stories of India and cook traditional meals and help out around the house are looked down upon of by her daughter-in-law and she begins to feel un-welcomed. Life with her son and grandchildren in America isn't what Mrs. Dutta imagined it would be. Through Divakaruni's writing, the reader can feel Mrs. Dutta's pain and disappointment. As in "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter" the story "The Intelligence of Wild Things" brings up issues of keeping Old World traditions alive after immigrating versus becoming Americanized. "The Intelligence of Wild Things" is about a woman who visits her younger brother, Tarun in Vermont. She discovers that his girlfriend is an American girl with "freckled skin and reddish-gold hair." She wonders how her brother who "had never wanted to come to America" has become so Americanized while she, who agreed to an arranged marriage in order to move to America, still clings to traditions she learned growing up in India. "The Lives of Strangers" is one of my favorite stories from the collection. This story is about Leela, a young Indian woman from America who visits her aunt in India. They go on a pilgrimage in Kashmir with a group of women. One of these women is Mrs. Das whom the rest of the women believe was "born under an unlucky star" and therefor shun her due to a fear that her bad luck may rub off on them. Divakaruni does a fantastic job in this story portraying Leela's struggle with guilt and a conscience that is telling her to do what is right despite what others say. Some stories in this collection are definitely stronger than others, but overall, the book offered an excellent look at the Indian immigrant experience from the female point of view.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
deep insights on the immigrant experience,
This review is from: The Unknown Errors of Our Lives (Paperback)
This new collection of achingly beautiful stories from the author of Sister of my Heart is an elegant articulation of the immigrant experience and its varieties. It goes deeply into what it means to be displaced, uprooted, re-rooted either by time, place or relationships. The most touching story in the collection is entitled "Mrs Dutta Writes a Letter" which tells of a mother now joined to her beloved son's family in America. It depicts in such gorgeous details the mother's sense of dislocation, and her desire to put up a nice front for her son and those she left behind in India. When she finally got around to writing a letter as a response to a dear friend, she could not keep up with the "front" anymore and ended pouring out her real self to her friend in her letter. The story is a powerful evocation of the embodied interplay between duty and loyalty of a mother to a son, or son to a mother, love between them, tradition, the sense of being different, the sense of connection or absence thereof, and the pursuit of happiness, among others. It's got all the elements of what it means to be an immigrant, and how all these factors - love, compassion, duty, tradition, etc get into the mix. Another great moving story is "The Intelligence of Wild Things. It is a story of a sister who visited her brother to inform him, after long years of no communicaton between the brother and her mother, that their mother is dying. It is about failed communication, but it is also about the ways we communicate successfully without fully knowing it, as if inherent in us. Although "Indian" in setting, this could easily well be about anybody, for after all, the world has become so mobile, everyone becomes an "immigrant".
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