An elegant, economical look at the way families evolve
In The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri’s widely celebrated gifts are on full display. The book follows Subhash and Udayan, brothers in the Calcutta neighborhood of Tollygunge with opposite personalities: Subhash is cautious and insecure, while Udayan is arrogant and rebellious. In his early 20s, inspired by a peasant uprising, Udayan commits to the radical leftist activism that was growing in 1960s India as in many other parts of the world. Subhash follows the safer path of pursuing a graduate degree in Rhode Island, and after Udayan dies, Subhash reconsiders his original plan to move back to India. Instead, he establishes an unconventional family of his own in the United States.
Like Lahiri’s prior works, The Lowland examines family life, immigration, and loss in elegant and economical language. She excels at visual imagery; the novel transforms the natural scenery of Rhode Island — Lahiri’s home state — into some affecting metaphors. The titular lowland, too, resurfaces throughout the novel as a poignant reminder of the central family’s losses.
Though The Lowland spans four generations and two continents, the pacing remains measured throughout. The story would become melodramatic in less capable hands, but Lahiri lets the characters change slowly, over the course of decades. Even in their cruel moments, of which there are many — when a mother abandons her daughter, for example — the characters’ actions are motivated by recognizable human needs. As a result, The Lowland is surprising but never shocking, satisfying in its thorough inclusion of both historical facts and emotional truths.
