Year’s End by Jhumpa Lahiri
My rating: 5/5 cats
WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
boilerplate mission statement intro:
for the past two years, i’ve set december’s project aside to do my own version of a short story advent calendar. it’s not a true advent calendar since i choose all the stories myself, but what it lacks in the ‘element of surprise’ department it more than makes up for in hassle, as i try to cram even MORE reading into a life already overcrammed with impossible personal goals (live up to your potential! find meaningful work! learn to knit!) merry merry wheee!
since i am already well behind in my *regular* reviewing, when it comes to these stories, whatever i poop out as far as reflections or impressions are going to be superficial and perfunctory at best. please do not weep for the great big hole my absented, much-vaunted critical insights are gonna leave in these daily review-spaces (and your hearts); i’ll try to drop shiny insights elsewhere in other reviews, and here, i will at least drop links to where you can read the stories yourselves for free, which – let’s be honest – is gonna serve you better anyway.
HAPPY READING, BOOKNERDS!
links to all stories read in previous years’ calendars can be found at the end of these reviews, in case you are a person who likes to read stories for free:
2016: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
2017: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
scroll down for links to this year’s stories which i will update as we go, and if you have any suggestions, send ’em my way! the only rules are: it must be available free online (links greatly appreciated), and it must be here on gr as its own thing so i can review it. thank you in advance!
DECEMBER 13
“I was tired, Kaushik,” he said. “Tired of coming home to an empty house every night.”
I didn’t know which was worse—the idea of my father’s remarrying for love or of his actively seeking out a stranger for companionship. My parents had had an arranged marriage, but there was a touch of romance about it, too, my father seeing my mother for the first time at a wedding and being so attracted that he had asked, the following week, for her hand. They had always been affectionate with each other, but it wasn’t until her illness that he seemed fully, recklessly, to fall in love with her, so that I was witness to a courtship that ought to have faded before I was born.
okay, i’m cheating a little bit and doubling up, having missed yesterday’s short story read because of xmas shopping and exhaustion and because i am VERY BAD! and in the interests of trying not to repeat my being VERY BAD and missing tonight’s short story read, leading me down the thorny path of snowballing failure, i am going to be even briefer than usual with this “review.”
jhumpa lahiri is amazing at the short story form. i am a late bloomer in my appreciation of short stories, but Interpreter of Maladies was one of the first books that made me think, “hmmmmm, maybe short stories aren’t so bad after all!” this particular story is all win – it’s sad and real and as unpretty and messy as families are; not overdramatized for art nor romanticized for heart.
fantastic story and an ACTUAL christmas story, so have yourself a merry little christmas and check it out! while i scurry to fit another one in before i pass out. LGM!
read it for yourself here:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20…
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