The beginning of my reader-author relationship with Jhumpa Lahiri was not pleasant. I read The Namesake for an assignment for my MA, and while I was struck by her beautiful usage of the language that formed a charming writing style, my interaction with the story and the characters was poor. I read only to feel the beauty of her language and her writing style. So, when I came across Whereabouts, I was nervous. I knew I’d enjoy her writing, but I wasn’t sure if I’d like the story. But since the novel thematically touched on a woman’s solitary life and the choices that she’d made in life, I felt a pull towards the book. And here I am, having read it and being happy that I wasn’t disappointed with my decision to read it.
Whereabouts tells us the choices a woman had made in life; some choices she had made consciously but many were made for her. Family and society had subtly navigated her life in a particular direction and she has neither strength nor tools, not even a sense of direction to which she should steer her life.
The unnamed protagonist who is also the narrator is a woman in her forties. She lives a solitary life. She works but not energetically or enthusiastically; she socialises but has no social life; her relationship with her aging mother is strained; and the past looms over her like a dark shadow. The story is told through a collection of events and incidents of the protagonist’s life. Her reflections as she goes about life gives the readers an insight into her present situation. Not only we learn that she leads a solitary life but also why she leads such a life. The invariable pressures to which she was subjected by her family from a young age play a major role of her present lonely existence. She says: “What did I do? I read books and studied. I listened to my parents and did what they asked me to. Even though, in the end, I never made them happy. I didn’t like myself, and something told me I’d end up alone.”
This quotation struck a chord in me. Aren’t we women subjected to this kind of pressure by our families? Isn’t a woman expected to be a mother, sister, friend, caregiver, adviser, protector from a very young age? Girls are burdened more with family duty. And the worst is the expectation of playing the companion to the mother as she seeks affection, understanding and caring which her husband doesn’t provide. How the distance between husband and wife and wife’s turning towards the child for affection and understanding impact a young mind negatively is demonstrated through the protagonist’s reflections. She says: “When I was young, even when my father was alive, she kept me close to her side, she never wanted us to be apart, not even briefly…” and “How can I link myself to another person when I’m still struggling, even after your death, to eliminate the distance between you and my mother? Even today I see you walking three feet ahead of her.” The psychological struggle of this grown up woman, who finds it difficult to cast off the burden that was unfairly enforced on her when still a child, finds proper expression when she says: “There is no escape from the shadows that mount, inexorably, in this darkening season. Nor can we escape from the shadows our families cast. That said, there are times I miss the pleasant shade a companion might provide.”
One can choose solitude by one’s own accord. But sometimes a solitary existence is imposed on you due to various reasons. When solitude chooses you without you choosing it, you’d find that it is a difficult discipline to maintain. Solitude: it’s become my trade. As it requires a certain discipline, its condition I try to perfect. And yet it plagues me, it weighs on me in spite of my knowing it so well.” And in that imposed solitude one can be “disorientated, lost, at sea, at odds, astray, adrift, bewildered, confused, uprooted”.
Jhumpa Lahiri highlights beautifully and emotionally a woman’s lonely existence, the reasons behind it, its positive and negative impact on her life, creating a strong connection between this unnamed woman protagonist and the reader. The amazing fact is that she achieves this feat by demonstrating the woman’s life through events and incidents without getting into a direct narrative. I truly enjoyed her style.
Rating: 4/5
