The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahari

Jhumpa Lahari’s novel, The Lowland is a story of two brothers.

Plot: The story is based in Tollygunge, Calcutta. It starts with how the brothers, Subhash and Udayan spend their childhood in Tollygunge. In their teens Udayan joins the budding Naxalite Movement in Calcutta and Subhash goes to do a Ph.D. in the U.S. The rest of the story is about how Udayan’s life changes and how it affects Subhash who is in Rhode Island. He is far away from Tollygunge, yet not that far.

It is also a novel about relationships. The novel tells about how one brother, Udayan gets more love from their parents than Subhash, the complicated relationship between Udayan’s wife and her daughter and the scars each person carries in their hearts, yet on the surface they pretend that everything is going to fall into place. Reading this novel, I felt that each of the characters is so complicated. The decisions of one character affect another like ripples in the pond and the effect is farfetched

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What I liked: The description of Calcutta through the eyes of Jhumpa Lahari. In India, Tollygunge and the lowland in Tollygunge was the focus of the novel. In the U.S., the beaches of Rhode Island get a good showing. I loved the way the author jumped across different timelines and the way she wrote about different points of view from each character. You get an insight into the character’s personality and why each character behaved the way he/she does.

What I did not like: The novel had too much showing and very less dialogue between the characters. After a certain point of time, I skipped all the descriptions of the cities, the universities, the houses in which the characters lived and jumped right into the story. The main twists in the plot were predictable.

Rating: If you are a budding writer, this book is a must read. For all others 3/5