In her third novel, Lahiri shares in anecdotes the life of a lonesome woman living in Italy, which manifests the habitat of a modern working woman.
Jhumpa Lahiri is an author born in London to Bengali parents. She moved to the United States at the age of three. It will not be wrong to say that throughout her life she has witnessed multiculturalism, yet stuck to her Bengali roots, as her parents often visited West Bengal. Her novels are a reflection of her itinerant, cosmopolitan life. In Whereabouts, she also does the same. However, she does not follow the same convention of writing novels. It is small and easy to read, but nonetheless, it is filled with deeper meanings.
After The Namesake and The Lowland, Lahiri published her third novel Whereabouts in 2021, originally published in 2018 as Dove Mi Trovo in Italian, which translates to “Where I am.” For the English translation, she chose the title Whereabouts, which beautifully resonates with the theme of the novel, as the narrator herself is describing her emotions being in certain places. The novel has 46 chapters, which seem like journal entries arranged over the span of a year. Some of the chapters are titled “On the Sidewalk,” “In the Bookstore,” “ At My House,” and so on, each drawing a picture of the mind of the narrator.
The novel is written from a first person point of view, where “I” takes the helm of almost every chapter, if not sentence, describing the loneliness of the narrator. The narrator is a teacher who lives alone in Italy. She has a mother who she is not quite fond of, yet she visits from time to time out of courtesy. She has a few friends, but she is not close to them either. She found her confidante in a barista at a restaurant, whom she visits frequently and shares events of her daily life with. Moreover, the speaker is shown to be single because she gives unfriendly vibes to the people she meets, which could be due to her traumatic past and her unsuccessful relationships, which the readers would find out eventually.
Unlike Lahiri’s previous novels, the speaker of this novel is Italian, not Indian, which is a shift for Lahiri from the Indian diaspora. Lahiri moved to Italy and fell in love with the language and culture. Now she writes literary pieces in Italian.
Whereabouts beautifully paints a picture of a modern working woman living in the city, embraced by loneliness. There is no passion or devotion for anything. She follows the same cliched routine without being able to generate any color in her life. One of the chapters begins with the narrator saying, “Solitude: it’s become my trade.” In modern settings, the protagonists are often lonely. They live in cities where they are surrounded by people, yet they are alone. In a way, the speaker is an outsider, and there are many others like him.
Leading a monotonous life, the speaker overhears conversations of people while travelling. It is the oral equivalent of voyeurism. They share their loneliness with the people they are overhearing.
The novel ends on a good note, showing the narrator leaving the city for a fellowship at a university.
Whereabouts has the ability to put the reader into the speaker’s mind and take them to places. Even though the novel does not really have a plot or layered characters, it shines because of Lahiri’s beautiful diction, which keeps the reader hooked on the novel.
Writer:
Risalat Rahman Hridoy
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE