Roman Stories, Jhumpa Lahiri
‘Exploring culture and tradition, family and belonging, while making space for her quiet, meandering, yet acutely inquisitive scenes, Lahiri brings colour to the otherwise faded inhabitants and lives lived in Rome. ’
In Jhumpa Lahiri’s Roman Stories, the Eternal City is in so many ways the central character which her short story collection orbits: at times simply a backdrop, in others the very fabric of the protagonists’ identities. Exploring culture and tradition, family and belonging, while making space for her quiet, meandering, yet acutely inquisitive scenes, Lahiri brings colour to the otherwise faded inhabitants and lives lived in Rome.
Having read Whereabouts previously, Lahiri’s writing once again reminds me of the curiosity of people watching depicted on a page – a pastime that one never tires of. While in some stories you remain on the peripheral, merely spectating, like in ‘The Boundary’, where a family discreetly watch the holidaymakers staying in the big house they look after, I also delighted in seeing Lahiri delve deeper into the minds and voices of many of key characters.
Some of my favourites of the collection were ‘P’s Parties’, which centres on a writer who observes the guests at an annual party, becoming infatuated with one woman who doesn’t appear quite as at home as the rest; ‘The Steps’, which documents the lives and footsteps that traverse the Spanish Steps landmark daily, from gaggles of teenagers to a screenwriter plucking inspiration, to the widow whose ghosts are brought to the surface the moment her sandalled feet approach the area; and ‘The Procession’, in which a married couple attempt to form new memories together while unable to let go of the grip of grief.
Able to create something vivid from the barest of sketches, Jhumpa Lahiri has a talent for breathing life into few pages and sparce prose, and equally, for making life’s margins so visceral and wholly fascinating.
