The Namesake: A Novel
by Jhumpa Lahiri
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Book Reviews of The Namesake: A Novel
Book Review: An Ambitious Melodrama
Summary: 5 Stars
For a country like India which has witnessed the worst of times---and so inevitably the best of times---and is striving to stamp its mark on the world map in parameters pertaining to economic,social and cultural development,Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" arrives with a fair portrayal of the transition period this nation has been,and perhaps is still,going through since its Independence in 1947. The novel commences in August,1968 when a young Ashoke Ganguli's wife Ashima,both Bengali,living in Cambridge,USA is rushed to the hospital to give birth. Composed in present tense narrative punctuated by retrospection of various characters,"The Namesake" traces thirty-two years in the life of this Bengali family residing in the States,a family caught between two worlds on the extreme ends of the scale,a family enceavouring to be a paradox,a family urging itself to retain its rooted culture in parallel to imbibing some foreign features.
This novel is the tale of a set of Bengali immigrants in America who're forever cahsed by a typical.and at times naively ideal,Indian culture and always lured by American fast-paced and unpolioshed,disquiet lifestyle. This is their story of their self-denial,of self-assertion and of finding the right dooting in a land where relationships terminate faster than the blow of the West Wind. Finding one own's space in aworld is never the easiest of tasks and ekeing out a private,restricted area in a foreign nation is a burden always tempting to let go. Jhumpa Lahiri's principle characters in herr novel,Ashoke,Ashima and their children Gogol and Sonali,all try to cope with the magnanimous demands that a cultural shift asks for and in doing so,whilst a couple refuses to accept the new environ in a hush mitigated tone,the other is oblivious of their roots until it's too late to reform.
Ashoke Gabguli is in the engineering department at MIT and has been there since he was 23. He almost got killed in a train journey in India and this return from the jaws of Death had given him a rejuvenated impetus to leave his home in Calcutta and study abroad in the US. But Ashoke doesn't shun off his own culture and marries a typical,quiet,sombre,dignified Bengali girl Ashima. But Ashima is disinclined to embrace the new and outlandish customs she perceives in America and follows her own way of living. Or rather tries to follow her own way of living. Whilst Ashoke busies himself at the University,Ashima stays alone at their 67 Pemberton Road house with her old Bengali books and reflections. Ashima realises that she now abodes in "a country where she is related to no one,where she knows so little,where life seems so tentative and spare" and "cannot bring herself to refer to Pemberton Road as home".
But the second generation of the Ganguli family in America are diammetrically opposite to the first. Gogol is their son,the elder child,and Sonali their daughter and both mirror the American culture. Both are reluctant to visit their true family in Calcutta once a year,can;t accept their parents's traditionalism---and indeed Gogol even feels of this attribute when he brings his second girlfriend Maxina to his house---and see themselves as American citizens. This influence is most vividly deciphered in Gogol who hates his "petname" and takes up "Nikhil" when he turns eighteen but realises that changing names don't help at all. On thec contrary this deceptive notion makes life all the more disruptive. It's changing the personality and accepting as well as enduring the truth that accelerate the endearing of life to us. As the cultural,social and familial responsibility in transferred from Ahoke to "the namesake",Gogol,named after the famous Russian writer Nikolai Gogol for a reason that he comes to know years later from his father in a situation that is a fantastic exemplar of melodrama,realises in introspective glances at his past that he has previously been ignoring.
"The Mamesake" is a fantastic novel steeped in emotions,implied feelings and stark relations. Jhumpa Lahiri spuns a familial story against a backdrop of cultural shift in which her smooth narration occasioned with reflections and broodings of Ashoke,Ashima and Gogol lends a touch of novelty to the central idea. The plot revolves around a very much contemporary theme,that of the plight and indecision of Bengali immigrants in America and the dramatic turn of events accentuate the sensationalism of the book. The reader cannot help but feel the abrupt and sudden pang of death when he stumbles upon AShoke's demise and in capturing the human emotions and intricate feelings in the darkest of hours does the sorcery of the authoress reveal itself.
Nevertheless the reader is bound to find the language invoked in the novel a bit too regular,if not ordinary. Jhumpa Lahiri's narration is pretty straightforward,plain and not exceptional and the strength in her language in this book is far from that in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel "Interpreter of Maladies". There are flashes of elaboration of sentimentality in "The Namesake" and though the book evokes a compact and heartening idea,the structure of the plot is scantily dressed in decoratiuve language despite the telling psychological foray into the characters. Moreover,a Bengali reader of this book would discern the blatant usage of Bengali terms "pradeep","chanachur" and "almari" in the book,an absurdity capped by this hopeless translation:"Didi,I'm coming",Ashima had said. For this was the phrase BEngalis always used in place of good-bye". That Lahiri is trying to present Bengali culture to the outside world is laudable enough but that presentation just falls short of the idea.
Indeed these defects do mar the quality of the book to a certain degree but such blights are somewhat overshadowed by the authoress's intension of revealing a subtle truth in an equally poigant style. The writer makes a stupendous and measured calculation of the contrast between the Indian and the American lifestyles without attempting to judge them on preconceived parameters. In Ashoke and Ashima's relation,Lahiri illustrates an ideal test-book typical Bengali husband-wife relation with excellent,vibrant and correct interpretation and understanding between them and side by side hangs the American version of the painting:Maxina's parents may be aged but they're flambuoyant,noble but daring,posh but messy. "The Namesake" provokes a rippling cry to revive the obsolete,to turn the tide and in this endeavour te authoress doesn;t keep even herself in the backstage:Jhumpa Lahiri is stubborn enough to rtefer Gogol as "Gogol" even when he has changed his name to "Nikhil". And these thoughts of Ashima would forever haunt the reader whoever and wherever he or she might be:"For being a foreigner,Ashimam is beginning to realise,is a sort of lifelong pregnancy---a perpetual wait,a constant burden,a continous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility,a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life,only to discover that that previous life has vanished,replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy,being a foreigner,Ashima believes,is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers,the same combibation of pity and respect".
Book Review: Self-Acceptance Is The Key (4.5 stars)
Summary: 4 Stars
"What's in a name? Everything, if you find to whom it belongs." - Jonathan Gardner
From Nikolai Gogol's short story "The Overcoat":
"The reader should realize himself that it could not have happened otherwise, and that to give him any other name was quite out of the question."
The second quote, seemingly simplistic, is yet prophetic to "The Namesake" and only when one reads the entire novel can one derive the pleasure of knowing what it truly means in relativity to the story. It is a befitting quotation that is included in the first few pages of author Jhumpa Lahiri's second novel.
The beginning chapters pit Ashoke Ganguli in the frigid Northeast of Boston, MA, the young Bengali man having survived a horrible train wreck and seeking a clean slate in the Americas with his young bride Ashima. After discovering they are expecting their first child, Ashima eagerly anticipates a letter from her grandmother, who has indicated that she will choose a name for their baby. When her letter never arrives and Ashima receives word from her family back in Calcutta of her grandmother's failing health, she is beside herself and with no name in the wings for their new son, Ashoke dubs his firstborn Gogol after a favored Russian author (Nikolai Gogol). Gogol soon resents his father's choice once he is of school age and he will not even begin to understand the reason behind it for many years, the utter significance and emotional attachment his namesake holds.
In having just finished the book this very day that I write my critique, I take from Lahiri's tale of Gogol is that no matter whether we abandon or embrace tradition, it will not guarantee our happiness. I also believe that it forewarns that when we wage a constant war against ourselves, no relationship we have - be it familial or romantic - will endure. However it comes across to those who read it, Lahiri's writing style is simplistic yet thought provoking. Sometimes one cannot be sure of the motivation of certain characters, but in the end all will be seen as either victims or victors of their own circumstance.
(WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS) Gogol experiences both the American way and the Indian way to equal degrees and has romantic relationships which at first ignore Bengali tradition and values and predictably disintegrate, particularly when cultures begin to clash in unexpected ways. But even when he falls in love with and marries a fellow Indian-American and childhood acquaintance, the commonality of their cultures and families still cannot placate their bewildered and embittered souls. (END SPOILERS)
Lahiri, now 40 and married with two children, (who was 36 at the time "The Namesake" was first published) can now be proud of her "pet name"; this name not only adorns her publications but also her 2000 Pulitzer Prize for her debut novel Interpreter of Maladies. Her inspiration for Gogol was found in her own childhood when her teacher decided to use her "pet name" for its easier pronunciation instead of her "good name" (an event that she relives through Gogol when he first goes to school). Good names and pet names are a Bengali tradition that is difficult to understand. Good names are your given name, the one that appears on your birth certificate and other documents of importance, such as driver's license, social security card and college degrees (Lahiri's good name is Nilanjana Sudeshna). Pet names are names spoken only by those who know you best - your family. She is quoted as saying about her teacher's decision: "I always felt so embarrassed by my name; you feel like you're causing someone pain just by being who you are." Her struggle with her identity would be the brainchild for "The Namesake" and Gogol Ganguli a portrayal of Lahiri herself and her inner turmoil.
Gogol spends the entirety of the novel resisting his identity and his name, even going so far as to legally change it to demonstrate his distaste for not only his strange moniker but also the life his parents chose for him. It is only when he discovers the reason behind it and embraces it that he experiences the inner peace he has been seeking all along. Perhaps this is a message to Lahiri herself and others who have felt the same inner conflict. To quote once again in the words of a renowned Indian author and erstwhile philosopher:
"Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted." - Deepak Chopra
Book Review: "It was for their sake that it had come to all this."
Summary: 4 Stars
In The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Gogol Ganguli is born of Bengali parents in America, grows up immersed in two worlds (his parents and his own), attends college at Yale and changes his name to Nikhil, has various relationships, deals with grief within his own family, and (repeat last two issues over and over).
That's the story. As a tale, it really isn't exciting, a page-turner, nor very enlightening. Gogol doesn't like his name very much, and he resents it throughout his life: "'I hate the name Gogol,' he says. 'I've always hated it'" (p. 102). It's origin is Russian, not Indian or Bengali. Too bad it wasn't "Google".
What it is is beautiful, descriptive prose:
"He is eleven years old, in the sixth grade, on a school field trip of some historical intent. They set off in their school bus, two classes, two teachers, two chaperones along for the ride, driving straight through the town and onto the highway. It is a chilly, spectacular November day, the blue sky cloudless, the trees shedding bright yellow leaves that blanket the ground. The children scream and sing and drink cans of soda wrapped in aluminum foil" (p. 68).
"It is the day before Christmas. Asima Ganguli sits at her kitchen table, making mincemeat croquettes for a party she is throwing that evening. They are one of her specialties, something her guests have come to expect, handed to them on small plates within minutes of their arrival. Alone, she manages an assembly line of preparation. First she forces warm boiled potatoes through a ricer. Carefully she shapes a bit of potato around a spoonful of cooked ground lamb, as uniformly as the white of a hard-boiled egg encases its yolk. She dips each of the croquettes, about the size and shape of a billiard ball, into a bowl of beaten eggs, then coats them on a plate of bread crumbs, shaking off the excess in her cupped palms. Finally she stacks the croquettes on a large circular tray, a sheet of wax paper between each layer. She stops to count how many she's made so far. She estimates three for each adult, one or two for each of the children. Counting the lines on the backs of her fingers, she reviews, once more, the exact number of her guests. Another dozen to be safe, she decides" (p. 174).
This novel is about Gogol's journey, and the people he meets and interacts with along the way. His father and mother reflected constantly on their journeys as well. His father once told Gogol during a visit to Cape Cod: "'Try to remember it always,' he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia [his sister] stood waiting. 'Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go'" (p. 187).
In the end, as Gogol reflects on his life, "In so many ways, his family's life feels like a string of accidents, unforeseen, unintended, one incident begetting another. It had started with his father's train wreck, paralyzing him at first, later inspiring him to move as far as possible, to make a new life on the other side of the world. There was the disappearance of the name Gogol's great-grandmother had chosen for him, lost in the mail somewhere between Calcutta and Cambridge. This had led, in turn, to the accident of his being named Gogol, defining and distressing him for so many years. He had tried to correct that randomness, that error. And yet it had not been possible to reinvent himself fully, to break from that mismatched name. His marriage had been something of a misstep as well. And the way his father had slipped away from them, that had been the worse accident of all, as if the preparatory work of death had been done long ago, the night he was nearly killed, and all that was left for him was one day, quietly, to go. And yet these events have formed Gogol. shaped him, determined who he is. They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end" (p. 286-7).
Intriguing.
Book Review: Emotionally Gripping
Summary: 5 Stars
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is a stunningly well-written fiction that delves into the repercussions of a Bengali couple who moves to American and raises their children in the greater Boston area. In the pages of this excellent work we bear witness to culture clash, generational gap, the stress of living half a world away from your family, as well as the normal trials and tribulations experienced by people of all cultures. The Namesake is a striking look into this, and Lahiri paints a wonderful collage on the pages of this book. To say the least, I was blown away by this emotionally wrenching tale that the author spins here.
That may sound like a promo, but it's absolutely accurate. When I picked up the book I wasn't expecting much, maybe because it resembled Tara Bahrampour's To See and See Again. Both authors are women, from the East, raised in America, and living in NYC. After having read Bahrampour's decent yet whining novel about a life torn across the globe, I wasn't in the mindset this would offer much more than that. Added to this was that slew of accommodation on the cover of the book, as the vast majority of books on the best seller list are collections of unreadable tripe.
Much to my surprise, Lahiri's book takes off from page one, in a slow and embracing narrative, and never looks back. The book, despite the absence of many light reading pages (dialog, in general) took me 3 days to read. It was so embracing I literally had difficulties putting it down. Lahiri writes in the same slow & methodical, yet brilliantly effective way that John Updike does. The initial pages are somewhat thick, resplendent with the literary glue that serves as the base of the story. Once snared in that thickness it's impossible to come out until the book dumps you on its own accord.
The subject matter is also much like what Updike writes about: real life. It doesn't need to be Updike's middle America or Lahiri's cross-world transplants that tell the story. Both authors deal with what they know, and each of them has a firm grasp of real life and the so-called trials and tribulations inherent there. Lahiri's story takes on a more modern approach, where Updike tends to favor a sort of coal miner's town setting.
Regardless, they're both excellent at writing this style. For me, I find more resonance with Lahiri since I'm more familiar with the city life than the blue collar worker, as well as more familiar with the time period she grew up in than Updike. But that's neither here nor there. The point is that Lahiri compares very favorably with Updike, if you like one you're bound to like the other.
The story itself is about a Bengali couple from Calcutta that is married by arrangement then moves to Massachusetts. They have 2 children and experience life as you might expect a pair of displaced Bengalis raising children in America might. They struggle with the solitary existence in America, as opposed to the family based life they knew in Calcutta. They struggle with American children raised with American culture and adopting American values. It is a common story in real life, something many of us know too well.
The result is a life-like account, dazzling in it's ability to draw you in. The main character, Gogol, is the entry point in the story but it could have been any of the characters and the narrative wouldn't have lost it's potency. Mostly through his eyes you see how the story transpires, though at times the narrative takes place in the life of another character, briefly shedding light on some other perspective in the book.
In short, this is an extremely well-written and emotionally potent book. All the praise that I see author Jhumpa Lahiri getting is well deserved, and I look forward to reading more from her in the future. This is an excellent way to get to know the workings of this writer. Extremely well done and highly recommended.
Book Review: I like it MORE than Interpreter of Maladies!
Summary: 5 Stars
I did enjoy Interpreter of Maladies (especially the last story, something about living in 3 continents?), however, it didn't imprint in my mind as much as this book. I thought it was an incredible story of someone's life and the lives of generations. It is written in mostly present-tense and there are very few conversations, but she writes with a calm, sympathetic style, not too poetic or too plain. It is hard to make a story interesting with so little conversation but I enjoyed her way with words and finished the book in one evening. In fact I feel like I can remember almost every detail of the book because of the memorable way that she writes.
The main character is Gogol, who is in the book from the time he is inside his mother until he is in his mid-30's. It describes him at different stages- one chapter he's in elementary school, the next he's 14, etc but although it skips a few years in between, it also describes a lot of details. He goes through a lot of trials and tribulations, many of which are because of his name and the cultural expectations put on him, but he also goes through the usual ones, especially love.
His name is a recurring theme in this book. His name is given to him for a special reason which has meaning to his father, but for most of the book he doesn't know the reason for his atypical name and he hates it. His name and its origin are small things which have a lot of significance, and an unspoken misunderstanding for most of the book. In the middle of the book he learns why his name is Gogol, but the end is where he comes to understand it (and his father) completely.
He spends a lot of time ignoring his culture. He is bored or finds fault with it since he was brought up with it. With friends and girlfriends he observes the details of other cultures and compares them to his own (for example, the dinner party his girlfriends parents have, vs his own family parties). At first he thinks the ways others live is a better way than the way his parents live, especially when it comes to relationships (being arranged vs falling in love). As he grows older I think he finds peace with his own culture, particularly with the death of his father, and he admires his parents in some ways. He starts to appreciate the traditions he was brought up with, while still being part of the larger American mainstream.
I was really rooting for him throughout the entire story, feeling for him when things weren't working out- especially his wife, who didn't appreciate him even though he did everything he could for her. This book is a tear-jerker in some places (though I didn't cry, I think someone could), for instance the time his father almost told him the reason for his name, the time he finally did tell him, every time he falls in love, and the ending...well I don't want to give that away but it was a little sad and sweet at the same time.
This book has sadness in it, but it doesn't have anything that is over-the-top tragic either, and that's another thing I like. The family has some disagreements but they still love each other and are close. The generations have things they don't understand about each other but there are also no door-slamming arguments, no one gets disowned, and no one gets in a fight right before someone dies either. In that way I think it was a realistic portrayal of intergenerational relationships in a lot of families - in fact it reminds me a lot of my own family.