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: 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.
Book Review: young Bengali discovers melting pot may be a bit too hot
Summary: 5 Stars
Some two hundred thirty years ago, an immigrant attempted to answer the vexing question his French parents had posed him: "What is an American?" His answer, famous for its clarity, ignited a debate that continues today. Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur's thesis was that the American is a "new man," one who eagerly discarded the cultural traditions of his former home and just as passionately adopted the ethos of his newly adopted land, the United States. The American, de Crevecoeur, discards his former cultural heritage and completely "melts" into his new American charcter. It is the perils, costs and anguish of assimilation that Bengali author Jhumpa Lahiri explores in her brilliant debut novel, "The Namesake." Her exquisitely rendered protagonist, Gogol Ganguli, becomes the archtype for every immigrant who has wrestled with issues of conflicted identity, cultural confusion and humbling marginality.
Through Lahiri's wise and sympathetic characterization, Gogol begins his odyssey towards Americanization even before he is born. His Bengali immigrant parents, whose marriage was arranged by their adherence to cultural tradition, cannot provide a proper name for their American-born son. Their patient but unrewarded anticipation of a "good" name for their son selected by a Calcutta matriarch, results in Gogol inadvertently acquiring a "pet" name chosen by his father. This duality, between Gogol's ethnic roots and his American birthright, perpetually torments him.
Befuddlement, confusion and anger over unresolved identity occurs with dispiriting regularity across the span of Gogol's young life. Even at a traditional Bengali party celebrating his six-month-old status, the infant Gogol, "forced to confront his destiny," cannot and "with lower lip trembling," begins to cry. Ashima and Ashoke, his mother and father, wrestle as well with the burdens of adopting to a new nation. His father seems to assimilate with relative ease, but Ashima likens her immigrant status to a "sort of lifelong pregnancy...a perpetual wait, a constant burden."
As a junior high school student, Gogol loathes his name, despondent that it is "never on keychains." Conscious of his differences, he is hurt by the snickers his parents' accent evokes from store clerks. By actions conscious and unintended, Gogol immerses himself in the American melting pot. It is not an accident that by the time he is an adult, he will live in New York City, a refracted image of "How the Other Half Lives," affluent but disenchanted, externally successful but internally impoverished.
Jhumpa Lahiri seems to understand the enormous costs abandoning one's ethnic identity carry for immigrants who desire nothing more than to blend in. Her Bengali protagonist, acutely aware of his differences but unable to resolve his dual identities, comes to symbolize the anguished decisions all young immigrants must make as they carve out their paths towards becoming American. "The Namesake," in its treatment of individual growth, romantic possibilities and generational reconciliation, is an authentic masterwork.
Book Review: Stories of a life
Summary: 5 Stars
In this novel, as in the short-story collection INTERPRETER OF MALADIES, Jhumpa Lahiri continues her study of Indian immigrants to America, their attempts to retain a national identity in their new world, and their bewilderment at their own children who know no other. In particular, she maps the course of love, from the joy of discovery to the sadness of loss, a trajectory that both mirrors the experience of the immigrant and is shaped by it. The novel traces the first thirty years of Gogol Ganguli, stuck with an almost accidental given name that belongs neither to his adopted country nor to his heritage, and whose significance he only belatedly comes to understand; it is a perfect symbol of his displacement.
Lahiri describes the early experience of Gogol's parents in America in a series of relatively brief images, managing to convey their ethnic identity in such a way as to make them simply human, rather than exotic. But she succeeds best in the second half of the book, which portrays experience common to most of us, as it follows Gogol's attempts to make his own life through college and young adulthood. In particular, he passes through a series of love affairs, each helping him to new discoveries, all intensely real at the time, yet none the answer to his quest for selfhood.
While Lahiri's style is lucid and sensitive throughout, I still feel that she is more effective on the story or chapter level than with an entire novel. What made INTERPRETER OF MALADIES so magnificent was her ability to focus on a single moment or facet of a relationship, and yet to imply a longer span of heritage and possibility extending beyond the bounds of the story itself. The novel medium lets her extend this span even further, to three decades and beyond, and yet it risks losing the intense focus of her earlier work. In fact, though, she writes almost as a sequence of linked stories, skipping several years at a time then concentrating each chapter within a manageable span. At first, this makes the book seem diffuse, but once the novel gathers momentum its emotional power is extraordinary. The three chapters (8-10) dealing with Gogol's relationship with a Bengali-American woman are a masterpiece of narrative control, especially the knife-edge balance of the middle one. The author awakens the reader's empathy with both her characters, then leads it inexorably in a different direction without sacrificing either emotional logic or human sympathy. These sections, together with the appropriately quiet ending, are testament to Lahiri's miraculous ability to treat all her people with tolerance and understanding, which makes her not only a joy to read, but an even greater joy to know.