Cultural interpreters, opening foreign worlds

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III, Waiting by Ha Jin, The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri, and The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

Several recent books focusing on foreign cultures have been remarkably successful. Interpreter of Maladies by Jumpa Lahiri won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Waiting by Ha Jin won the 1999 National Book Award for fiction and the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award. The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus was a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award for fiction. And all three of those books are still high in the best seller lists. The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama and The Death of Vishnu by Mail Suri have also done very well.

 None of these books are translations. The authors all live in America, write in English, address their works to an American audience, and focus on cultures that are very foreign to typical American experience: Interpreter and Death of Vishnu -- India (both Hindu and Moslem); Waiting -- China; House of Sand and Fog -- Iran; The Samurai's Garden -- both China and Japan

In all these books, the cultural assumptions of the main characters are essential to the plot

In Samurai's Garden, Stephen, the first-person narrator, is the son of a Chinese mother and a father who has lived so long in Japan that he is now "more Japanese than Chinese." Brought up in Hong Kong, Stephen finds himself in Japan while Japan is conquering China (prior to WW II). He falls in love with a Japanese girl, and becomes close friends with Matsu, the caretaker of his father's summer house. The heart of the book is a unique love-triangle story that he gradually uncovers involving Matsu and two other local villagers -- Matsu's best friend Sachi, and Kenzo, who suffers from leprosy and has been ostracized for many years.

Stephen acts as the interpreter of Japanese culture, gradually providing the reader with the context for understanding the values and assumptions of the other characters, and doing so dramatically, rather than didactically, helping us to identify and sympathize with people acting in ways that otherwise would have seemed totally bizarre.

In House of Sand and Fog, we follow two parallel story lines that intersect in a battle over a house. Colonel Behrani, head of a family of formerly wealthy Iranian immigrants, buys at an incredible bargain price a house mistakenly put up for auction for non-payment of taxes. Kathy Nicolo, a helpless and confused young woman, strives to regain her house, with the help of a married sheriff, who becomes romantically involved with her. The misunderstandings that move the plot along and prevent these well-meaning people from ever resolving their differences are all culturally based. Their misinterpretations of one another's actions and intentions lead from one crisis to another, and on to tragedy. And the author does an excellent job of helping the reader see, understand, and empathize with both sides.

In The Death of Vishnu, the frame of the story deals with a poor man, with the same name as a Hindu god, who lives and dies on steps of an apartment building in Bombay. But the main drama deals with two families -- one Hindu and the other Moslem -- that live in that building. The son of the one and the daughter of the other run off together, triggering a series of culture-based misunderstandings among well-intentioned people, leading to tragic violence. The author deftly introduces American readers to the religious, cultural, and caste assumptions of both sides.

The stories that make up the collection Interpreter of Maladies often deal with caste-based assumptions and aspirations of Indians in India and in America. In "A Real Durwan," the main character has a social role very similar to that of Vishnu in the Death of Vishnu, living on the steps of an apartment building, and acting as servant and helper of the residents. In "Sexy," a young American girl has an affair with a married Indian immigrant. (The most memorable line in that story is the definition of "sexy" provided by a young boy "It means loving someone you don't know." ) In the title story, we meet Mr. Kapasi, a tour guide in India and the Das family, of Indian descent, but living in New Jersey and looking at the world through American eyes. He explains to them his "other job," interpreting for a doctor. "He has a number of Gurjati patients. My father was a Gurjati, but many people do not speak Gurjati in this area, including the doctor. And so the doctor asked me to work in his office, interpreting what the patients say." Mr. Kapasi is old enough to be the father of Mrs. Das, but he is attracted to her and fantasizes that she might be interested in him. Then, when they have a brief moment alone together, she confesses to him that one of her children was conceived in a casual affair with a friend of her husband, during a brief visit. He is tempted to see such a confession as a gesture of intimacy. But she explains that she hopes that as an "interpreter of maladies, Mr. Kapasi can help. "I'm tired of feeling so terrrible all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I've been in pain eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better, say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy." "She did not resemble the patients in the doctor's office, those who came glassy-eyed and desperate, unable to sleep or breathe or urinate with ease, unable, above all, to give words for their pains. Still, Mr. Kapasi believed it was his duty to assit Mrs. Das... He decided to begin with the most obvious question, to get to the heart of the matter, and so he asked, 'Is it really pain you feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?'" In this story and others in the collection, Jhumpa Lahiri acts as cultural interpreter, helping us to understand people who misunderstand one another, helping us to see the world through very different eyes.

In Waiting, we come to know and care for a doctor and a nurse in modern China, whose love for one another grows and matures over the course of two decades. But cultural and government rules (in a time that overlaps the Cultural Revolution) prevent them from being able to marry or consummate their desire for one another, and severely restricts even social contact. Through the deft intepretation of the author, we come to accept the assumptions that the characters accept, to see the world through their eyes, and to thoroughly enjoy the story.

Another Faulkner-award winner, Snow Falling on Cedars by David Gutenberg helps us to understand and empathize with the plight of Japanese Americans during and after World War II. That plot, too, centers around culture-based misunderstanding.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden probably also belongs in this category -- but with broader scope, introducing us not just to Japan, but Japan in the process of change, through the course of the 20th century, where the cultural assumptions of the characters at the end of the story differ sharply from those at the beginning.

In all these books, the role of the author as a cultural interpreter for an American audience is key.

In contrast, consider Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian (winner of the Nobel Prize), The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, and Salman Rushdie's books, especially Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses. We read Soul Mountain in translation, but the others were written in English. And regardless of how excellent the quality of the writing, how original and striking we may find individual scenes and images, the stories and the cultures they represent remain foreign to us. The books are addressed to people who start with a different set of assumptions and beliefs than ours, and to fully appreciate them, we need to learn more about their history, religion, and culture. The author doesn't help us do that. We are looking in through a window at what is happening inside a house, rather than feeling like we are right there with the characters. We get a glimpse of a different world rather than -- as in the case of the cultural intepreter books discussed above -- seeing the world through new eyes.

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