Interpreter of Maladies: Stories

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   9つの短い物語からなる短篇集。どの物語も読んだあとに、繊細な、人の心のひだに確かに触れたと思う感触と切ない余韻が残って、読後感がとてもいい。

   登場するのは一旗あげるためにインドから米国へ移民してきた人たちで、著者ラヒリにとっては父母の世代にあたるインド系1世と、その子ども世代。だから物語はインドと米国の間を行ったり来たりしながら展開する。

   さりげなく書き込まれる料理、スパイスのにおい、衣装や装飾、そして夫婦間のやりとりといった文化の機微のなかに、ひとりひとりの人物像が鮮やかに、しかし淡々とした筆致で描かれていく。どの物語にも共通するのは、インドにはあったけれど米国にはない濃密な人間関係、その喪失感とそのために起きる心の揺らぎや戸惑い、身の置きどころのなさといったものだ。

   たとえば最初に出てくる「停電の夜に」は、初めての子どもを死産した夫婦が、停電の夜に秘密の告白を始める物語で、そのゲームで夫婦のすきまが埋まるかもしれないと期待して読んでいくと、あっけない幕切れを迎えることになる。そのほか、バングラデシュ独立戦争のテレビニュースを、その土地に家族を残してきた客と見た少女時代の思い出「ビルザダさんが食事に来たころ」や、米国から子連れでインドへ観光旅行にやってきた倦怠期の夫婦をタクシー運転手が案内する「病気の通訳」、登場人物を絡ませながら2つの不倫を正反対の立場から巧みに描く「セクシー」など、いずれも男と女のすれちがう感情や考え方が、しなやかな、しかも抑制の利いた文章でつづられている。

   著者ジュンパ・ラヒリは1967年ロンドン生まれの米国在住の作家。カルカッタ出身の父親は、本書を締めくくる「三度目で最後の大陸」の主人公のように、大学図書館に勤めていたという。このデビュー作でO・ヘンリー賞、PEN/ヘミングウェイ賞など数々の賞に輝き、ピューリッツァー賞まで受賞した期待の新人である。（森 望）

Product Description

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant. She is an important and powerful new voice.

Amazon.com Review

Mr. Kapasi, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri's title story, would certainly have his work cut out for him if he were forced to interpret the maladies of all the characters in this eloquent debut collection. Take, for example, Shoba and Shukumar, the young couple in "A Temporary Matter" whose marriage is crumbling in the wake of a stillborn child. Or Miranda in "Sexy," who is involved in a hopeless affair with a married man. But Mr. Kapasi has problems enough of his own; in addition to his regular job working as an interpreter for a doctor who does not speak his patients' language, he also drives tourists to local sites of interest. His fare on this particular day is Mr. and Mrs. Das--first-generation Americans of Indian descent--and their children. During the course of the afternoon, Mr. Kapasi becomes enamored of Mrs. Das and then becomes her unwilling confidant when she reads too much into his profession. "I told you because of your talents," she informs him after divulging a startling secret.

I'm tired of feeling so terrible all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I've been in pain eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better; say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy.

Of course, Mr. Kapasi has no cure for what ails Mrs. Das--or himself. Lahiri's subtle, bittersweet ending is characteristic of the collection as a whole. Some of these nine tales are set in India, others in the United States, and most concern characters of Indian heritage. Yet the situations Lahiri's people face, from unhappy marriages to civil war, transcend ethnicity. As the narrator of the last story, "The Third and Final Continent," comments: "There are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept." In that single line Jhumpa Lahiri sums up a universal experience, one that applies to all who have grown up, left home, fallen in or out of love, and, above all, experienced what it means to be a foreigner, even within one's own family. --Alix Wilber