WORDS: Katie McFadden
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri is a strong contender for the Man Booker Prize this year. Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for her debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies. The Lowland is her fourth book and second novel.
Set in the 1960’s in the midst of violent revolutionary movements in India, this book is a moving and provocative meditation on family and loss in which Lahiri explores the devastating impact of a favorite son’s descent into terrorism.
Lahiri begins the book by describing two brothers growing up in Tollygunge, a town on the outskirts of Calcutta, whose lives are tightly entwined. Born only fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan are inseparable from childhood. Subhash describes how without Udayan ‘he had no sense of himself’ and ‘from his earliest memories, at every point, his brother was there.’ The opening passages provide touching episodes of brotherly affection and loyalty, and through their adventurous childhood games Lahiri depicts a fascinating portrait of India in the aftermath of British rule.
However, despite being inseparable, the brothers possess strikingly different personalities. Subhash is timid and bookish by nature, striving ‘to minimize his existence, as other animals merged with bark or blades of grass’, while Udayan is ‘blind to self-constraints, like an animal incapable of perceiving certain colors.’ Even in the first few pages, Lahiri’s evocative descriptions of the boys opposing characteristics creates a sense of foreboding. By the time they reach adulthood, their different ambitions cause them to part ways when Subhash leaves for America to study for his PhD and Udayan remains in Calcutta, joining the revolutionary Maoist Naxalite movement. It is Udayan’s commitment to this movement which finally drives an irrevocable wedge between the brothers, as Subhash’s disapproval leads Udayan to conceal his increasingly dangerous activities from him.
The pivotal moment of Lahiri’s plot occurs not even halfway through the novel, when Udayan becomes involved in a plot to kill a policeman leading to his tragic death at gunpoint. Subhash bitterly realizes that despite Udayan’s passionate plans for equality, ‘the only thing he’d altered was what their family had been’ and the rest of the book is dedicated to exploring the repercussions of Udayan’s terrorist beliefs as they continue to affect the increasingly fragmented Mitra family. Lahiri is adept at creating an extremely moving portrait of loss, especially through the almost sacred importance she bestows on the family before she tears its bonds apart.
Although the brave and charismatic Udayan captures the reader’s imagination more readily, it is Subhash’s integrity and astounding capacity for hope which keeps this novel going and which will be remembered. In stoic acts of kindness, Subhash dedicates his life to looking after Gauri, Udayan’s widow and the complex upbringing of Bela, Udayan’s daughter, bravely leaving behind his roots in India and emigrating to America. Born in London, to West Bengal Indian immigrant parents, and later growing up in New York, Lahiri has spoken of her own confusion over questions of identity which no doubt accounts for the deftness with which she depicts the emotional cost of emigration.
At times the prose lapses into listing historical events of 1960’s India and America, which although informative, detract from Lahiri’s storytelling. However, on the whole Lahiri’s writing is extremely enjoyable and even remarkable in its ability to be strikingly simple and weighted with importance at the same time. The Lowland is a compelling read and its stark yet beautiful exploration of human relationships makes it tough competition for the Man Booker Prize this year.
