The Namesake: A Novel
by Jhumpa Lahiri
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jhumpa LahiriEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-01
ISBN: 0618485228
Number of pages: 291
Publisher: Mariner Books
Book Reviews of The Namesake: A Novel
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.
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