Jhumpa Lahiri finds her voice in Italian
In Roman Stories, an anthology of nine short stories, Jhumpa Lahiri once again chooses to give voice to her narrative in her adopted language, Italian. Beneath the veneer of tranquility are achingly haunting tales of love (or the loss of love), longing, and mourning, based in Rome, her adopted city. Translated into English by her and Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz, Lahiri once again evokes a feeling of beauty in contradiction within her seminal literary framework of departure, displacement, immigration, helplessness, solitude, and hope.
Three seminal works in Italian
After In Other Words (In Altre Parole), published in 2015, and Whereabouts or Dove Mi Trovo, published in 2018, Roman Stories is Lahiri’s third book penned in Italian. Each of the three works, while different, represents a chronology of her recent journey as an author who made a dramatic and bold transition from an Indian American writing in English to one who made Rome her home and chose to write in Italian.
In Altre Parole is an expression of Lahiri’s unequivocal struggle with her Indian American identity that draws her to a completely different continent and country of her choosing, one that is separate from that of her roots in India, or residence in the United States of America. However, that too was not without its own set of challenges and difficulties.
Dove Mi Trovo is a collection of forty-six short snapshots of a day’s goings-on in an ambiguous space or state of mind – “where I find myself” or “where I am”. It is a narrative of an individual still in transition trying to make sense of her new space and place.
Contrastingly, Roman Stories is a confident coming-of-age novel. As a writer well rooted in her new country, Lahiri has found her voice, weaving the tales with her delicate and nuanced, yet thought-provoking style of storytelling that she is acclaimed for. Achieving that in the language she recently embraced is in itself a huge feat!
Insightful stories
The tales in Roman Stories, although seemingly mundane at the onset, are deeply insightful. Each addresses an intrinsically relatable universal human void felt by us at various stages in our lives regardless of our creed or geographical boundaries.
These stories are not only about immigration and difficult transitions on foreign soil, but they also depict common human issues faced by native Italians in Rome and its outskirts. Lahiri’s characters, although nameless, tread two worlds and are often caught unaware by the circumstances they are faced with or their inner emotions that spur irrational actions.
Rome as the protagonist
Roman Stories is essentially about Rome. The anthology is steeped in the city’s historic splendor and its modern paradoxes. It is set amidst the idyllic Roman countryside, its busy trattorias, bustling piazzas, the imposing public spaces – stairways, fountains, streets, and alleyways. It would not be inaccurate to say that Rome itself is the novel’s protagonist. Rome is personified and noticeably so.
Every story is steeped in the intrigue of Rome, a city fraught with a myriad of cultures and communities. It’s a city where a variety of folks from diverse walks of life coexist – tourists, students, locals, immigrants, empty-nesters, professionals, and ex-pats – sometimes in parallel, at other times paths crossing, clashing or just brushing past. No matter what, Rome remains their home whether by choice or not – “Rome switches between heaven and hell. By now it’s chock-full of things that have been broken, mistaken, bent, tossed, killed, but I can’t cut my ties”.
Myriad themes
The themes include a quest to reinvent marital relationships as in the case of the empty nesters in The Procession; the life-altering conundrum faced by a young immigrant family as in Oh!; the crossing of paths of two middle-aged people – an expat wife and a Italian man in P’s Party; the bitter, unpleasant feeling of being “othered” on foreign land in Re-entry, Notes, or The Delivery; the public clash of civilizations on a flight of neighborhood steps in The Steps; a young American immigrant student deriving life-long strength from one of Italy’s celebrated medieval poets in Dante Alighieri, among others.
Thought-provoking universal narrative
Like in several of Lahiri’s other novels, Roman Stories provokes introspection. Its essence lies in the introspective spirit and the universality of the issues faced by those straddling two continents, as several characters in the novel do. Her love for Rome is obvious, but beneath it is a stinging depiction of the “otherness” her characters experience, for instance of the kind felt by the academic woman at a trattoria in Re-entry.
The stories make us think and reflect even after we’ve read the last line of the book’s last chapter – “This city is shit…But so damn beautiful.” Jhumpa Lahiri once again reacquaints us with the brutally harsh, yet fascinatingly multifaceted complexities of a large city like Rome.
