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Title: in comparison to the great short story collection--not hot
Review: Paul Theroux, in his wonderful "Sir Vidia's Shadow," recorded V. S. Naipaul carping about how most modern novelists are mere "bringers of news." well, here's Lahiri, bringing news too. i agree with the reader below who said he skipped--and i don't skip!--a load of this novel. "Interpreter of Maladies"--i mean, i teach Literature at a major NY college--is real literature: lush, rich, ambiguous, deft, sweet, sour, "teachable." this novel's kind of a bore. you got the sense she plundered her own life instead of plumbed it. the most interesting character was the French major chick Gogol marries--and she's only in the book for fifty-odd pages. i wanted to like it so much. better luck next time, Jhumpa. i think she put this out just to get it out of the way, as it were. she'll recover.
