Whereabouts
A novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER A marvelous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies her first in nearly a decade about a woman questioning her place in the world, wavering between stasis and...
Leider schon ausverkauft
versandkostenfrei
Buch (Kartoniert)
17.00 €
- Lastschrift, Kreditkarte, Paypal, Rechnung
- Kostenlose Rücksendung
Produktdetails
Produktinformationen zu „Whereabouts “
Klappentext zu „Whereabouts “
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER A marvelous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies her first in nearly a decade about a woman questioning her place in the world, wavering between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties.Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. In the arc of one year, an unnamed narrator in an unnamed city, in the middle of her life s journey, realizes that she s lost her way. The city she calls home acts as a companion and interlocutor: traversing the streets around her house, and in parks, piazzas, museums, stores, and coffee bars, she feels less alone.
We follow her to the pool she frequents, and to the train station that leads to her mother, who is mired in her own solitude after her husband s untimely death. Among those who appear on this woman s path are colleagues with whom she feels ill at ease, casual acquaintances, and him, a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. Until one day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun s vital heat, her perspective will abruptly change.
This is the first novel Lahiri has written in Italian and translated into English. The reader will find the qualities that make Lahiri s work so beloved: deep intelligence and feeling, richly textured physical and emotional landscapes, and a poetics of dislocation. But Whereabouts, brimming with the impulse to cross barriers, also signals a bold shift of style and sensibility. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, Lahiri has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement.
Lese-Probe zu „Whereabouts “
On the SidewalkIn the mornings after breakfast I walk past a small marble plaque propped against the high wall flanking the road. I never knew the man who died. But over the years I ve come to know his name, his surname. I know the month and day he was born and the month and day his life ended. This was a man who died two days after his birthday, in February.
It must have been an accident on his bike or his motorcycle. Or maybe he was walking at night, distracted. Maybe he was hit by a passing car.
He was forty-four when it happened. I suppose he died in this very spot, on the sidewalk, next to the wall that sprouts neglected plants, which is why the plaque has been arranged at the bottom, at the feet of passersby. The road is full of curves and snakes uphill. It s a bit dangerous. The sidewalk is vexing, crowded with exposed tree roots. Some sections are nearly impossible to negotiate because of the roots. That s why I, too, tend to walk on the road.
There s usually a candle burning in a container of red glass, along with a small bunch of flowers and the statue of a saint. There s no photograph of him. Above the candle, attached to the wall, there s a note from his mother, written by hand, encased in a milky plastic sleeve. It greets those who stop for a moment to ponder the death of her son. I would like to personally thank those who dedicate a few minutes of their time to my son s memory, but if that s not possible, I thank you anyway, from the bottom of my heart, it says.
I ve never seen the mother or any other person in front of the plaque. Thinking of the mother just as much as the son, I keep walking, feeling slightly less alive.
On the Street
Now and then on the streets of my neighborhood I bump into a man I might have been involved with, maybe shared a life with. He always looks happy to see me. He lives with a friend of mine, and they have two children. Our relationship never goes
... mehr
beyond a longish chat on the sidewalk, a quick coffee together, perhaps a brief stroll in the same direction. He talks excitedly about his projects, he gesticulates, and now and then as we re walking our synchronized bodies, already quite close, discreetly overlap.
One time he accompanied me into a lingerie shop because I had to choose a pair of tights to wear under a new skirt. I d just bought the skirt and I needed the tights for that same evening. Our fingers grazed the textures splayed out on the counter as we sorted through the various colors. The binder of samples was like a book full of flimsy transparent pages. He was totally calm among the bras, the nightgowns, as if he were in a hardware store and not surrounded by intimate apparel. I was torn between the green and the purple. He was the one who convinced me to choose the purple, and the saleslady, putting the tights into the bag, said: Your husband s got a great eye.
Pleasant encounters like this break up our daily meanderings. We have a chaste, fleeting bond. As a result it can t advance, it can t take the upper hand. He s a good man, he loves my friend and their children.
I m content with a firm embrace even though I don t share my life with anyone. Two kisses on the cheeks, a short walk along a stretch of road. Without saying a word to each other we know that, if we chose to, we could venture into something reckless, also pointless.
This morning he s distracted. He doesn t recognize me until I m right in front of him. He s crossing a bridge at one end and I m arriving from the other. We stop in the middle and look at the wall that flanks the river, and the shadows of pedestrians cast on its surface. They look like skittish ghosts advancing in a row, obedient souls passing from one realm to another. The bridge is flat and yet it looks as if the figures &
One time he accompanied me into a lingerie shop because I had to choose a pair of tights to wear under a new skirt. I d just bought the skirt and I needed the tights for that same evening. Our fingers grazed the textures splayed out on the counter as we sorted through the various colors. The binder of samples was like a book full of flimsy transparent pages. He was totally calm among the bras, the nightgowns, as if he were in a hardware store and not surrounded by intimate apparel. I was torn between the green and the purple. He was the one who convinced me to choose the purple, and the saleslady, putting the tights into the bag, said: Your husband s got a great eye.
Pleasant encounters like this break up our daily meanderings. We have a chaste, fleeting bond. As a result it can t advance, it can t take the upper hand. He s a good man, he loves my friend and their children.
I m content with a firm embrace even though I don t share my life with anyone. Two kisses on the cheeks, a short walk along a stretch of road. Without saying a word to each other we know that, if we chose to, we could venture into something reckless, also pointless.
This morning he s distracted. He doesn t recognize me until I m right in front of him. He s crossing a bridge at one end and I m arriving from the other. We stop in the middle and look at the wall that flanks the river, and the shadows of pedestrians cast on its surface. They look like skittish ghosts advancing in a row, obedient souls passing from one realm to another. The bridge is flat and yet it looks as if the figures &
... weniger
Autoren-Porträt von Jhumpa Lahiri
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.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Jhumpa Lahiri
- 2021, Internationale Ausgabe, 176 Seiten, Maße: 13,7 x 20,5 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: KNOPF
- ISBN-10: 1524711993
- ISBN-13: 9781524711993
- Erscheinungsdatum: 19.04.2021
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
A Most Anticipated Novel of the Year from: Buzzfeed O, The Oprah Magazine TIME Vulture Vogue LitHub Harper's BazaarA quietly bracing work of fiction . . . This is arguably Lahiri s most beautifully written novel.
Jennifer Wilson, The Nation
A gorgeous, contemplative read . . . Poetic prose that invites you to linger over the words.
Real Simple, Best Books of 2021 (so far)
Whereabouts is rendered in short, journal-like fragments so strongly and rightly voiced that other books sound wrong when you turn to them."
Claire Dederer, The Atlantic
Lahiri writes with subtlety and delicacy.
Heller McAlpin, NPR
Another masterstroke in a career already filled with them.
O, the Oprah Magazine
Whereabouts signals a new mode for Lahiri, and a daring transformation . . . It feels true and wise to the core.
Anderson Tepper, Los Angeles Times
Subtle and stirring . . . A fascinating departure in cadence and form for Lahiri. Whereabouts [is written with] the sort of deft hand so few can properly wield: it evokes the sort of slow thrum of despair and loneliness so few can manage well. But Lahiri is no ordinary writer. There s a calming sense of comfort one finds in the solitude experienced by our main character, largely due to the exactness of Lahiri s writing. Poetic as she is and always has been, seemingly innocuous turns of phrase cut to the core, while descriptions of light and darkness take you aback and make you swoon. Elegantly observed and often beautifully sad . . . Whereabouts will stay with you longer than you anticipate.
Alicia Lutes, USA Today
Hypnotic a book [whose] peculiar magnetism lies in its clash of candour and coyness.
Anthony Cummins, The Guardian
Skillful Lahiri's sentences are honed to minimalist beauty. A loose narrative emerges of an Italian
... mehr
woman at a crossroads in her life . . . The chapters detail encounters, but other humans are like passing shadows. The pain of the narrator s isolation feels extremely real.
Madeleine Thien, The New York Times Book Review
Lahiri s prose shimmers with precise detail. Whether it s an American-born son misunderstanding his Bengali father s wishes in The Namesake or an Indian guide seeing dangers that American tourists cannot in Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri has demonstrated that she is a master of cultural collisions. Whereabouts returns to her ever-present theme, now in an Italian setting, of the terrors and joys wrought by bridging worlds.
L.A. Taggart, San Francisco Chronicle
Fresh, unique . . . Lahiri [has] stretched the form of the novel. Wandering through an anonymous life, seeing things through one person s eyes, is enjoyable . . . At one point the narrator becomes as voyeuristic as her readers, following a stranger on the street and asking herself, What s her face like? Has she always lived here, like me? Each chapter floats by quickly, [with] sparse and lyrical prose.
Rob Merrill, Associated Press
Some books leave you with a feeling for which there are no words, or at least no words in English that you know of. Jhumpa Lahiri s Whereabouts is one of those books. The feeling closest to what is evoked by this beautifully crafted novel is a stroll during the blue hour on the first warm evening of spring. A jewel of a book.
Arlene McKanic, BookPage
Elegant . . . Lyrical . . . Beautiful.
Michael Magras, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"A meditative and aching snapshot of a life in suspension... Lahiri s poetic flourishes and spare, conversational prose are on full display. This beautifully written portrait of a life in passage captures the hopes, frustrations, and longings of solitude and remembrance."
Publishers Weekly [starred review]
Painterly exquisitely detailed [Lahiri s] language seems to have been sieved through a fine mesh, each word a gleaming gemstone. Such expressive refinement perfectly embodies Lahiri s narrator, who lives alone in an unnamed Italian city [and] examines her life in first-person vignettes There is melancholy here, but these concentrated, poignant, and rueful episodes also pulse with the narrator's devotion to observation and her pushing through depression to live on her terms. She exalts in her lively neighborhood, in the country beneath skies as moody as she is, and by the tempestuous sea, all while recording her stealthy battle against her tendency to burrow into her shell. An incisive and captivating evocation of the nature and nexus of place and self.
Donna Seaman, Booklist
"Elegant, subtle, and sad... Its spare, reflective prose and profound interiority recall the work of Rachel Cusk and Sigrid Nunez."
Kirkus
Madeleine Thien, The New York Times Book Review
Lahiri s prose shimmers with precise detail. Whether it s an American-born son misunderstanding his Bengali father s wishes in The Namesake or an Indian guide seeing dangers that American tourists cannot in Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri has demonstrated that she is a master of cultural collisions. Whereabouts returns to her ever-present theme, now in an Italian setting, of the terrors and joys wrought by bridging worlds.
L.A. Taggart, San Francisco Chronicle
Fresh, unique . . . Lahiri [has] stretched the form of the novel. Wandering through an anonymous life, seeing things through one person s eyes, is enjoyable . . . At one point the narrator becomes as voyeuristic as her readers, following a stranger on the street and asking herself, What s her face like? Has she always lived here, like me? Each chapter floats by quickly, [with] sparse and lyrical prose.
Rob Merrill, Associated Press
Some books leave you with a feeling for which there are no words, or at least no words in English that you know of. Jhumpa Lahiri s Whereabouts is one of those books. The feeling closest to what is evoked by this beautifully crafted novel is a stroll during the blue hour on the first warm evening of spring. A jewel of a book.
Arlene McKanic, BookPage
Elegant . . . Lyrical . . . Beautiful.
Michael Magras, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"A meditative and aching snapshot of a life in suspension... Lahiri s poetic flourishes and spare, conversational prose are on full display. This beautifully written portrait of a life in passage captures the hopes, frustrations, and longings of solitude and remembrance."
Publishers Weekly [starred review]
Painterly exquisitely detailed [Lahiri s] language seems to have been sieved through a fine mesh, each word a gleaming gemstone. Such expressive refinement perfectly embodies Lahiri s narrator, who lives alone in an unnamed Italian city [and] examines her life in first-person vignettes There is melancholy here, but these concentrated, poignant, and rueful episodes also pulse with the narrator's devotion to observation and her pushing through depression to live on her terms. She exalts in her lively neighborhood, in the country beneath skies as moody as she is, and by the tempestuous sea, all while recording her stealthy battle against her tendency to burrow into her shell. An incisive and captivating evocation of the nature and nexus of place and self.
Donna Seaman, Booklist
"Elegant, subtle, and sad... Its spare, reflective prose and profound interiority recall the work of Rachel Cusk and Sigrid Nunez."
Kirkus
... weniger
Kommentar zu "Whereabouts"
Schreiben Sie einen Kommentar zu "Whereabouts".
Kommentar verfassen