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Why Jhumpa Lahiri writing on book jackets is bad news for the writer and the reader

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Utpal Kumar
Utpal KumarFeb 11, 2017 | 22:50

Why Jhumpa Lahiri writing on book jackets is bad news for the writer and the reader

Jhumpa Lahiri’s latest book, The Clothing of Books, is all about book covers. Advocating what she calls “the naked book”, the Pulitzer winner emphasises that “the dressed book no longer belongs to me”.

She writes, “Today the relationship between the reader and book is far more mediated, with a dozen people buzzing around. We are never alone together, the text and I. I miss the silence, the mystery of the naked book: solitary, without support.”

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A closer look shows the preference for a naked book also marks the transition of the author.

Lahiri thinks she isn’t just another writer now. She seems to have graduated to the league of extraordinary authors who doesn’t need any introduction. The very things that would fascinate a budding writer now, annoy her boundless.

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The Clothing of Books is a 'naked book'. 

For a new writer, the cover with a "blurb" is the most fascinating thing. It marks the writer's arrival. But when the writer is established, the "blurb" becomes “one of the most repugnant words in English”. She starts missing “the silence, the mystery of the naked book”, which allows one to “read in freedom, without previews or introduction”.

Lahiri writes how American book jackets reflect the spirit of the country — little homogeneity, lots of diversity, with few “now untouchable authors” being allowed to wear “uniforms”.

She adds, “Jackets of this kind are a strong recognition, a sort of prize, almost always conferred posthumously... A contemporary book by a young author would not be worthy.”

Lahiri then reminds how, unlike the European series, “where living and dead authors coexist, the American series “seems to me almost a mausoleum”.

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It’s not that Lahiri hasn’t attempted to reinvent herself. Her previous book, In Other Words, was about her love affair with the Italian language. But by the end of the book, she found herself again at a crossroads, as she left Rome for New Jersey in the US.

She reached out to Italian when English stopped offering her the sense of solitude — something she sorely missed after her first collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the Pulitzer.

Now that she is back in the predictable English world, she seems to have given up. She wants to be among the “now untouchable authors”, in their mausoleum.

Lahiri’s newfound love for naked books may also have been due to her discomfort with twin identity. She writes, “Upon close inspection, my covers tend perfectly to mirror my own double identity, bifurcated, disputed. As a result they are often projections, conjectures.”

She recalls how her name and photos were enough for the commissioning of a cover teeming with stereotyped references of India — elephants, exotic flowers, the Ganges, et al — even when the stories were based in the US.

“For me, therefore, a wrong jacket is not just an aesthetic issue, because it retriggers a series of anxieties felt ever since I was a child. Who am I? How am I seen, dressed, perceived, read?”

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It’s this identity-related dilemma that seems to have driven her to Italy — in search of a clean slate.

But the endeavour wasn’t truly successful and as Lahiri came back to the English world, the old ghost reappeared to haunt her.

She failed to build a new identity in Rome, so in New Jersey, she aspires to wipe them all out.

The naked book symbolises Lahiri’s own attempt to have a naked identity. But what’s worrisome is her desire to be among the dead. The literary scene flourishes along the river, ever flowing, ever renewing, and not in the mausoleum.

The book is a reminder that the author’s search for identity isn’t over yet. One hopes she doesn’t snuff herself out in the process.

As for book jackets, this reviewer would go by what Tim Kreider wrote in The New Yorker in support of the covers, “Even if you love your wife for who she is as a person, it’s still nice when she breaks out a sexy new outfit.”

Covers, if done aesthetically, only make the book better and smarter.

Last updated: February 11, 2017 | 22:50
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