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Cargando... La hondonada (2013)por Jhumpa Lahiri
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Los hermanos Subhash y Udayan viven en un humilde barrio de Calcuta donde, durante la temporada de lluvias, un lecho seco entre dos lagunas se transforma en un gran espejo de agua. Allí, en la hondonada, transcurre su infancia, jugando al fútbol o nadando a merced de la naturaleza. Pero la hondonada es algo más que un pedazo de tierra. Es el vacío en el corazón de los hermanos cuando empiezan a crecer y sus caminos se separan de forma inexorable, uno en la India y el otro en Rhode Island. Años después, cuando la tragedia irrumpe en sus vidas, Subhash regresa a su país con la esperanza de recomponer una familia desgarrada.
The Lowland is a novel about the rashness of youth, as well as the hesitation and regret that can make a long life not worth living. Darkly hued fiction is commonplace in contemporary writing, but The Lowlands is sombre in a distinctly old-fashioned way; it’s not late-stage capitalism and/or environmental collapse that generate the misery in the novel, but rather that quaint concept of fate, or at least character-as-fate. Which is one reason why contemporary readers might balk at this story, its position on the shortlist for the 2013 Man Booker Prize notwithstanding. These lives seem rigged. There is real story bravery at work here. It would have been much easier for Lahiri to keep us in the thrust and heave of political agitation — to fixate, perhaps, on the implied betrayal woven into Subhash’s rescue. Instead, in “The Lowland,” Lahiri tells a quietly devastating story about the nature of kindness. How it is never pure and often goes largely unrewarded. It simply is, and then the floodwaters rise and obscure its role in the landscape for a time. Her prose, as always, is a miracle of delicate strength, like those threads of spider silk that, wound together, are somehow stronger than steel.... Although writing this fine is easy to praise, it’s not always easy to enjoy. And there’s something naggingly synthetic about this tableau of woe. “They were a family of solitaries,” Lahiri writes. “They had collided and dispersed.” But real people are not such shiny billiard balls of sorrow. I couldn’t shake the impression that Subhash and Gauri are being subjected to the author’s insistence on creating a certain sustained effect, as though they were characters in a fable. The years pass like the pages of a calendar being blown between scenes of a silent movie. Every time we catch up with this sad couple, they seem not to have changed at all, except that the plaque of guilt and secrecy has grown thicker. The ordinary complications of daily life do not dilute their desolation or complicate their lives. Gauri spends decades studying philosophy, but somehow the world’s accumulated wisdom never offers her any solace or disruption or insight. She might as well have been studying accounting or geology. Perhaps these are petty complaints about a book that’s written with such poignancy. If parts of “The Lowland” feel static, it’s also true that Lahiri can accelerate the passage of time in moments of terror with mesmerizing effect. Lahiri has an uncanny ability to control and mold sentences and action, imbuing the characters with dignity and restraint. But for me, this was also the novel's weakness; too often the narration felt cold, almost clinical, leaving me longing for a moment of thaw. I felt ambivalent. It's an intelligently structured book and while the tone and the pace rarely vary, the reader is always sure she is in the hands of a writer of integrity and skill. Yet I still yearned to know more about these people, especially Gauri.... Lahiri is an accomplished writer and though I felt, at times, disappointed, in the end I was sure that there is an important truth here — that life often denies us understanding, and sometimes all there is to hold on to is our ability to endure. PremiosDistincionesListas de sobresalientes
Desde los años sesenta hasta el presente, y desde la India hasta América y a través de las generaciones, La hondonada es una apasionante saga familiar cargada de historia. Desde la publicación de su primera colección de relatos -ganadora del Premio Pulitzer el año 2000-, la trayectoria literaria de Jhumpa Lahiri ha ido en continuo ascenso, hasta el punto de que hoy ocupa un lugar incuestionable en el selecto grupo de los autores contemporáneos más destacados en lengua inglesa. Si su anterior obra, Tierra desacostumbrada, multiplicó el número de sus entusiastas lectores -fue considerado mejor libro de 2008 por The New York Times y se vendieron más de 700 mil ejemplares sólo en Estados Unidos-, esta nueva novela ha vuelto a concitar la admiración de la crítica y ha sido finalista del Premio Booker y del National Book Award. Los hermanos Subhash y Udayan viven en un humilde barrio de Calcuta donde, durante la temporada de lluvias, un lecho seco entre dos lagunas se transforma en un gran espejo de agua. Allí, en la hondonada, transcurre su infancia, jugando al fútbol o nadando, a merced de la naturaleza. Pero la hondonada es algo más que un pedazo de tierra. Es el vacío en el corazón de los hermanos cuando empiezan a crecer y sus caminos se separan de forma inexorable, uno en la India y el otro en Rhode Island. Años después, cuando la tragedia irrumpe en sus vidas, Subhash regresa a su país con la esperanza de recomponer una familia desgarrada a consecuencia de los actos de Udayan, que afectarán a los destinos de su joven esposa, de sus padres y de su hermano mayor. Críticas: «Su obra más ambiciosa hasta la fecha; un desbordamiento de dolor, amor y de toda la profunda belleza que alberga la vida.» -The Oprah Magazine «El talento de Lahiri brilla en su prosa lírica y contenida, y en una narración que avanza cronológicamente a la vez que emergen unos recuerdos que sobreviven al paso del tiempo. Un libro formidable, bellísimo.» -Publishers Weekly «Emocionante [...]. Su sigilosa intensidad nos recuerda a la exultante ficción de Alice Munro y William Trevor.» -Newsday «Lahiri es una estilista elegante, capaz de colocar sin esfuerzo aparente las palabras perfectas en el orden perfecto una y otra vez, hasta el punto de conducirnos sin que nos demos cuenta a un lugar en el que nunca hemos estado.» -Vanity Fair DESCRIPTION IN ENGLISH A New York Times Book Review Notable Book * A Time Top Fiction Book * An NPR "Great Read" * A Chicago Tribune Best Book * A USA Today Best Book * A People magazine Top 10 Book * A Barnes and Noble Best New Book * A Good Reads Best Book * A Kirkus Best Fiction Book * A Slate Favorite Book * A Christian Science Monitor Best Fiction Book * An Apple Top 10 Book National Book Award Finalist and shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize The Lowland is an engrossing family saga steeped in history: the story of two very different brothers bound by tragedy, a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past, a country torn apart by revolution, and a love that endures long past death. Moving from the 1960s to the present, and from India to America and across generations, this dazzling novel is Jhumpa Lahiri at the height of her considerable powers. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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