As today is the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, I can't help but think of what a monumental achievement that was. There have been many books written about it, and about the space race in general, but the piece of writing that has stuck with me the most through the years was actually a short story that was only tangentially related to the moon landing.
Jhumpa Lahiri's collection Interpreter of Maladies contains many excellent stories about the Indian-American experience, but my favorite story was "The Third and Final Continent." In it, a newly arrived immigrant finds a room to rent in the home of a 103 year old woman at the same time as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were landing on the moon. It was the woman's age that caught my attention. Even if she just barely missed it herself, the idea that it was possible for someone to be alive for both the Civil War and the moon landing fascinated me. Just over 100 years after a bloody war between the North and South, Americans went to the moon in a lander designed in New York, propelled by a rocket designed in Alabama. This story made me realize the potential of man to overcome differences in a short period of time to accomplish common goals.
As I mentioned above, the other stories in this collection are excellent as well, good enough to earn Lahiri a Pulitzer Prize. It is well worth reading.
