The Namesake: A Novel

The Namesake: A Novel
by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake: A Novel
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Book Summary Information

Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-01
ISBN: 0618485228
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Mariner Books
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Book Reviews of The Namesake: A Novel

Book Review: Half a Life; Half a Success
Summary: 3 Stars

Many new Americans have built novels on their experiences. So has Ms. Lahiri. But she chose to deal with only half her main character's life - what happens between sunset and sunrise. All other novels about the strains and torments of immigration have at least talked about the world men faced at work: grasping employers, labor union bureaucrats, life in the prize ring or in the mob. (Loansharking and thievery are both occupations,) Very little of this in Ms. Lahiri's novel. Mornings, her male characters go to work, go to school, or teach school. Then they leave work for the day, and the plotlines come alive. Gogol does find employment as an architect, and Ms. Lahiri does stick in some architectural terms. But nothing of the relationships between Gogol and his employer, Gogol and the firm's clients. Gogol goes from bed to bed, with one woman after another. That tires quickly, and I began anticipating what event what event would send Gogol spinning into a connection with another woman.

Her writing is luminous and poised. (But I do wish she had tipped in a page describing the dishes that Gogol's mother cooked. Ms. Lahiri clearly relished the pleasures of the table, and I wish she had taken her readers into account. I read the novel with my American Heritage Dictionary close at hand. Even consulting Google was not a great deal of help.)

Another small gripe: I can see no good reason for the unremitting use of verbs in the present tense to depict events that have already occurred. A little precious in my judgment.

Summary of The Namesake: A Novel

Jhumpa Lahiri's debut story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, took the literary world by storm when it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Fans who flocked to her stories will be captivated by her best-selling first novel, now in paperback for the first time. The Namesake is a finely wrought, deeply moving family drama that illuminates this acclaimed author's signature themes: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the tangled ties between generations.
The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of an arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ashoke does his best to adapt while his wife pines for home. When their son, Gogol, is born, the task of naming him betrays their hope of respecting old ways in a new world. And we watch as Gogol stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.
With empathy and penetrating insight, Lahiri explores the expectations bestowed on us by our parents and the means by which we come to define who we are.

Any talk of The Namesake--Jhumpa Lahiri's follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut, Interpreter of Maladies--must begin with a name: Gogol Ganguli. Born to an Indian academic and his wife, Gogol is afflicted from birth with a name that is neither Indian nor American nor even really a first name at all. He is given the name by his father who, before he came to America to study at MIT, was almost killed in a train wreck in India. Rescuers caught sight of the volume of Nikolai Gogol's short stories that he held, and hauled him from the train. Ashoke gives his American-born son the name as a kind of placeholder, and the awkward thing sticks.

Awkwardness is Gogol's birthright. He grows up a bright American boy, goes to Yale, has pretty girlfriends, becomes a successful architect, but like many second-generation immigrants, he can never quite find his place in the world. There's a lovely section where he dates a wealthy, cultured young Manhattan woman who lives with her charming parents. They fold Gogol into their easy, elegant life, but even here he can find no peace and he breaks off the relationship. His mother finally sets him up on a blind date with the daughter of a Bengali friend, and Gogol thinks he has found his match. Moushumi, like Gogol, is at odds with the Indian-American world she inhabits. She has found, however, a circuitous escape: "At Brown, her rebellion had been academic ... she'd pursued a double major in French. Immersing herself in a third language, a third culture, had been her refuge--she approached French, unlike things American or Indian, without guilt, or misgiving, or expectation of any kind." Lahiri documents these quiet rebellions and random longings with great sensitivity. There's no cleverness or showing-off in The Namesake, just beautifully confident storytelling. Gogol's story is neither comedy nor tragedy; it's simply that ordinary, hard-to-get-down-on-paper commodity: real life. --Claire Dederer

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