Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Genre: Domestic fiction, Bildungsroman
Theme:Love, Marriage, Identity and Growing up
Pages:304
The story begins with the birth of a baby boy to Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a young Bengali couple who having left their motherland have recently settled in Massachusetts. Ashoke is an engineering student at MIT. The couple is forced to give their son a legal name, before leaving the hospital. Bengali culture usually follows the tradition of giving two names to a child, a pet name and a good name. But following a series of miscues,the child’s pet name, Gogol (named in honour of the Russian author, Nikolai Gogol) goes on to be his official birth name. The name is linked to a significant incident in Ashoke’s life and he is emotionally bound to it. Gogol never values his father’s attachment to his name and as he grows up he starts despising it.
"Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood,a reminder that life is not always so serious,so formal,so complicated.They are a reminder,too,that one is not all things to all people.’’
The plot chronicles as Gogol joins Yale unlike his father. He turns into a bolshie young adult who wants to be more American rather than a Bengali. The boys turns indifferent to his cultural background. He even legally changes his name to Nikhil Ganguli. As the story unravels,it takes another form after the death of Ashoke and the revelation of the actual reason for choosing Gogol’s name. His father’s death strikes the burnt bonds with his family and only then, they become a central facet of his life. Gogol goes on to marry a girl named Moushumi,the daughter of family friends. But his relationship with her is ultimately severed. Lahiri’s circular narration ends the novel with the feeling of acceptance of his name that seeps into Gogol and how all his life he had neglected the ways of his father.
‘’There 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 have never happened,that seemed out of place and wrong,these were that prevailed,what endured in the end."
The Namesake is an exquisite novel, spanning two generations and continents. It is a tale of double identity and explores the idea of creating one’s own originality in a foreign land. The story delineates the protagonist Gogol’s, psychological and moral growth from his youth to adulthood.And above all the book revolves around a theme of love and relationships. Jhumpa Lahiri with her poignant writing,throws light on the significance of ‘family’.The ties and knots that bind us through blood is something that prevails no matter what. It is indeed an excellent read and threads the essence of courtship,tradition, rebellion and individuality into a captivating plot.
I’d recommend this book to be read by all, who are interested in realistic fiction and love stories depicting the lives of immigrants.
Rating:4/5
Click on the link below to find this book on Amazon :
Subscribe to our blog to get a free ebook of 'The Namsesake', by providing your email id on our home page.
Happy Reading!
Comentários