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Roman Stories is another example of Jhumpa Lahiri's ability to write some of the most controlled, considered and precise narratives you will ever read without sacrificing their emotional resonance. The nine stories collected here share themes of loss, grief and dissolved or dissolving relationships, alongside sharply depicted experiences of racism in Rome, and are very powerful and affecting. At the centre of the book is The Steps, the longest story, made up of a series of entangled narratives which embody the sentence with which the final story, Dante Alighieri, ends: "This city is shit... But so damn beautiful". A lovely and subtly powerful collection.
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"How long must we live to learn how to survive?
How many times incipit vita nova?"
These deceptively quiet and tonally undramatic stories hold more impactful happenings and emotions within themselves: a loyal husband faces a strange seduction, a happy refugee couple are excluded from their new home leading to the implosion of the family unit, a professional woman is confronted by a recalcitrant child and finds herself questioning her identity, a migrant woman is devastated by racist notes written by children in a school.
Literal stories of finding a home and sanctuary feature migrants and refugees in Rome, but there are also psychological displacements and the sense of alienation that can afflict anyone, though many of Lahiri's characters are women.
As with any collection of stories, this is somewhat uneven: I was less engaged by the central piece called 'The Steps' which uses place to jump into the lives of the city's inhabitants as they go about their daily lives, but that is balanced by the wonderful 'P's Parties'.
'Dante Alighieri', the final story, helps focalise the collection as it recalls both the 'dark wood' of middle age from Inferno and also the concept of <i>vita nova</i> or re-beginnings and a new life given added urgency here as a way of capturing the peripatetic nature of modernity, shifting identities and the crises of our moment of mass movement and migration.
Lahiri's prose is typically muted and elegant but there's a kind of subdued transformation that underpins these stories and which justifies the debt to Ovid noted at the start - quite different from some of her other work I've read which seems to centralise stasis. I've always admired Lahiri's poised, graceful style of writing - with this book I also tapped emotionally into her vision of the world.
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These stories by Jhumpa Lahiri are beautiful and they have a refreshing honesty. Some stories are more captivating than others, but they all share a focus on Rome. The stories are captivating, disillusioned, and filled with love. Lahiri's use of language is impressive.
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Gorgeous collection of short stories, each one enthralling. My favourite was P’s Parties. The stories had such a melon hot tone, but were simultaneously lyrical and soothing. I also really enjoyed some of the translation decisions taken.
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A beautifully.written, elegant collection of short stories set in Rome. The writing reflects the timeless beauty of the ancient city, snapshots of everyday people living.normal.lives but still compelling. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.
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There are nine stories in Jhumpa Lahiris’s exquisite new collection, at the heart of which is The Steps, a suite of interlinked pieces following characters who live or work close to the titular steps climbed by a mother every morning who thinks of her son on another continent while she cares for her employers' children. Later an expat wife runs up the steps, fending off worries about an impending operation; two brothers sit remembering their father after his funeral, a schoolgirl longs to be a part of a group of her peers; a screenwriter thinks about documenting the teenagers who sit on the steps at night unsettling the widow who can no longer sleep.
Written in elegant, precise language, these pieces are typical of the collection, vividly summoning up both the city and the many and varied people who live in it. Lahiri’s characters are often living far away from their family or have reached the middle of a life marked by loss or discontent. The experience of well-heeled professionals, some at a stage where they’re taking stock, contrasts with economic and political migrants, often homesick and struggling to pay the rent. Several of the stories explore racism - sometimes a subtle undercurrent, occasionally shocking - often accepted with a weary resignation by those at who its directed. Altogether an impressive collection, mostly translated by its author with three by Todd Portowitz, done so well I couldn’t see the join.
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A series of short stories with Rome at the heart of each one. In each of the stories Rome is a character.
To my knowledge this is the second book that she, as an English speaker, has written a book in her second language Italian. Someone else then translated it to English.
I enjoyed this a lot. As I said on a previous review her writing style is sparse but not thin. It was lovely to read a book that flowed with an easy structure. Wonderful short stories of everyday life.
Thanks to Netgallery for the ARC