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µ˙The Museum of Fine Arts, HoustonMFAH Book Club

Interpreter of MaladiesStories by Jhumpa Lahiri

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 face 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.

—Amazon.com

How to Use This Discussion Guide

All art, whether literary or visual, arises from the context of its time. Creating bridges between the literary and visual arts is what makes the MFAH Book Club unique.

This discussion guide features questions about broad themes—love, longing, and the search for identity and place—all addressed in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, as well as questions about works of art in the Museum’s collections and exhibitions.

Read the book, discuss some or all of the questions with your group, and then reserve an MFAH Book Club tour online.

How to Book an MFAH Book Club Tour

For book clubs and other groups of six or more con-firmed participants, tours related to Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies are available on select days and times February 5–June 30, 2018. Tours are led by Museum docents and feature excerpts from the book to drive discussion about works on view at the Museum.

If you are not a member of a formal book club, but are interested in participating in engaging art and literature discussions inspired by this book, consider joining the MFAH Digital Book Club on the Goodreads web platform: mfah.org/goodreads.

For more information, visit mfah.org/bookclub. Please email bookclub@mfah.org with any questions.

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Rituals of Waiting and Longing

Perhaps one of the most relatable themes permeating Lahiri’s stories is the sense of tormented anticipation that can plague romantic relationships, especially in instances of unrequited love. Consider the two passages below, from “Sexy” and “Interpreter of Maladies.” Compare Miranda’s relationship with Dev to Mr. Kapasi’s relationship with Mrs. Das.

“ Miranda knew how to wait. In the evenings she sat at her dining table and coated her nails with

clear nail polish, and ate salad straight from the salad bowl, and watched television, and waited

for Sunday. Saturdays were the worst because by Saturday it seemed that Sunday would never

come.” [p. 97, “Sexy”]

“ As he stole glances at her in the rearview mirror, wrapping elastic bands around Tina’s hair, he

wondered how he might make the tour last a little longer.” [p. 60, “Interpreter of Maladies”]

There is interplay between fantasy and reality prevalent in both stories. How is Miranda’s longing for Dev similar to Mr. Kapasi’s longing for Mrs. Das? In what ways are they different?

Where do you see moments of waiting and longing in Pablo Picasso’s Two Women in Front of a Window and the Henry Fuseli painting of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from paradise? Which characters or elements from Lahiri’s stories are perhaps represented in these works?

Above: Pablo Picasso, Two Women in Front of a Window, 1927, oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore N. Law, 64.17, © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Right: Henry Fuseli, The Dismission of Adam and Eve from Paradise, 1796–1799, oil on canvas, Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston, BF.1985.14.

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Defining Love

Elie Nadelman, Tango, c. 1918–1924, cherry wood and gesso, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Meredith Long, 96.1751.A,.B.

Dance has often acted as a metaphor for love. The work above, Tango by artist Elie Nadelman, shows a dancing couple in the midst of the popular Latin American dance. Despite the tango’s seductive nature and characteristic sense of passion, this artwork seems to highlight the space between the two dancers. Nadelman has captured a charged moment of separation and anticipation. Think about the exchanges, or “dances,” that take place between the various couples featured in Lahiri’s stories. Where do you see similar moments of passion and seduction, or perhaps times of intense anticipation? How do these feelings relate to love?

Read the passage below from the story, “This Blessed House,” and reflect on Sanjeev’s perspective on love. In what ways do you relate (or not) to his view? How do you define love?

“ In truth, Sanjeev did not know what love was, only what he thought it was not. It was not, he had

decided, returning to an empty carpeted condominium each night, and using only the top fork in

his cutlery drawer, and turning away politely at those weekend dinner parties when the other men

eventually put their arms around the waists of their wives and girlfriends, leaning over every now

and again to kiss their shoulders or necks . . . . Now he had [a wife], a pretty one, from a suitably

high caste, who would soon have a master’s degree. What was there not to love?”

[p. 147–8, “This Blessed House”]

What Is Foreign?

“ ‘At home that is all you have to do. Not everybody has a telephone. But just raise your voice a bit, or

express grief or joy of any kind, and one whole neighborhood and half of another has come to share

the news, to help with arrangements.’ By then Eliot understood that when Mrs. Sen said home, she

meant India, not the apartment where she sat chopping vegetables.”

[p. 116, “Mrs. Sen’s”]

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Ideas of “home” surface again and again for the characters featured in Lahiri’s short stories. Consider the selec-tion of three prints shown below, from Indian-born, American artist Zarina Hashmi’s collection of 36 woodblock prints. The prints in this series, entitled Home is a Foreign Place, represent “idea-images,” and constitute a new visual vocabulary centering on notions of home, memory, and loss. The three selections below represent home, language, and distance, respectively. How do these pieces relate back to the various notions of foreignness that emerge in Lahiri’s stories?

Zarina Hashmi, Home is a Foreign Place (Home, Language, Distance), 1999, series of 36 woodcut prints; ink on Kozo paper; mounted on Somerset paper, edition 23/25, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by Anne and Albert Chao in honor of Nidhika and Pershant Mehta, and by Mr. and Mrs. Durga D. Agrawal and Nancy C. Allen, 2012.466. © Zarina; Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York, Photograph

Hashmi has said, “I understood from a very early age that home is not necessarily a permanent place. It is an idea we carry with us wherever we go. We are our homes.” (Theresa Harlan, “Zarina: Embodiments of Home/Imprints of Existence,” in Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes: Conversations on Asian American Art, ed. Elaine H. Kim [London: University of California Press, Ltd.], 173) Do you agree with this sentiment? Reflect for a moment on what home means to you. Are there any characters from the book who might relate to your vision/understanding of the word?

Navigating Communication Gaps

“ Something happened when the

house was dark. They were able

to talk to each other again.”

[p. 19, “A Temporary Matter”]

In the book’s opening story, “A Temporary Matter,” we see an attempt from Shoba and Shukumar toward reconciling the emotional divide left in the wake of an inconceivable trauma. In the line above, the notion of darkness is introduced, not as a barrier or obstacle, but almost as an

Maximilien Luce, Rue Ravignan, Paris, 1893, oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Audrey Jones Beck, 98.289.

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objective mediator. Darkness becomes a channel for communication, and ultimately revelation. The play between “light” and “dark” also emerges metaphorically in the act of confession. Take a moment to consider Maximilien Luce’s Pointillist interpretation of a night scene on Paris’s Rue Ravignan. In what ways does Luce’s treatment of light and dark in this painting connect with themes explained in “A Temporary Matter”?

Through Shoba and Shukumars’s series of ritual disclosures, we come to understand the delicate balance traversed in any relationship between healthy and harmful exchanges. In many of Lahiri’s stories in fact, when it comes to gaps in communication, the question emerges, when should one attempt to fill those gaps, and is the truth always the best road to reconciliation? In which of Lahiri’s other stories do we see characters attempting to navigate precarious communication gaps?

Wearing Identity: Significance of Dress in Character Development

The ways we choose to adorn ourselves—from clothing, to accessories, to makeup, even to posture and the physical gestures we take on—not only reflect our personal identities, but also are indicative of a curatorial exercise. We make decisions when determining how to dress, according to how we wish to come across to our communities and peers. We all however, operate within different spheres of influence: cultural, geographical, social, etc. Each arena is characterized by its own set of aesthetic standards. Think about your own personal style. How would you characterize it? What would you say are the major influences in your style choices?

Consider the women described in the three passages below. How would you classify the influences on their respective styles? What do their adornments tell us about the personalities of these women?

“ She wore a shimmering white sari patterned with orange paisleys, more suitable for an evening

affair than for that quiet, faintly drizzling August afternoon. Her lips were coated in a complementary

coral gloss, and a bit of the color had strayed beyond the borders.

Yet it was his mother, Eliot had thought, in her cuffed, beige shorts and her rope-soled shoes,

who looked odd. Her cropped hair, a shade similar to her shorts, seemed too lank and sensible,

and in that room where all things were so carefully covered, her shaved knees and thighs too

exposed.” [p. 112–3, “Mrs. Sen’s”]

“ He observed her. She wore a red-and-white-checkered skirt that stopped above her knees, slip-on

shoes with a square wooden heel and a close-fitting blouse styled like a man’s undershirt. The

blouse was decorated at chest-level with a calico appliqué in the shape of a strawberry. She was

a short woman, with small hands like paws, her frosty pink fingernails painted to match her lips,

and was slightly plump in her figure.” [p. 46, “Interpreter of Maladies”]

“ She wore a long black skirt that spread like a stiff tent to the floor, and a starched white shirt

edged with ruffles at the throat and cuffs. Her hands, folded together in her lap had long pallid

fingers, with swollen knuckles and tough yellow nails. . . . Her lips, chapped and faded, had

nearly disappeared, and her eyebrows were missing altogether. Nevertheless she looked fierce.”

[p. 177–8, “The Third and Final Continent”]

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Think about these descriptions in connection with the two works of art shown below. The author takes care to clearly describe the colors (or lack of color) that characterize each of the women’s ensembles. What role does color play for the women in Lahiri’s stories, and for the women featured in the works of art? Imagine the stories of the two women shown below. How would those stories change if a different color were featured in the compositions?

Left: Kees van Dongen, The Corn Poppy, c. 1919, oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Audrey Jones Beck, 98.279. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ ADAGP, Paris.

Above: Elinor Carucci, My Mother’s Lips, 1997, chromogenic print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Joan Morgenstern, 2007.1674.

Author Biography

Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of four works of fiction: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland; and a work of nonfiction, In Other Words. She has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize; the PEN/Hemingway Award; the PEN/Malamud Award; the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; the Premio Gregor von Rezzori; the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; a 2014 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama; and the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia, for In altre parole. – Random House

Learning and Interpretation programs receive generous funding from Melvyn and Cyvia Wolff; MD Anderson Cancer Center; Mitra Mujica-Margolis and Michael Margolis; the Sterling-Turner Foundation; Institute of Museum and Library Services; Houston Junior Woman’s Club; Mercantil Bank; Mr. William J. Hill; The Windgate Charitable Foundation; The Brown Foundation, Inc.; Sharon G. Dies; The Powell Foundation; and the Susan Vaughan Foundation.