Last week, I read "What would you do to save the world", and "The Namesake". The first book does not inspire me to write anything about it, so I'll write down my thoughts about the second one. After that, if I still have any inclination, I might say something about the first one too.
Over the weekend, I finished reading 'The Namesake' by Jhumpa Lahiri, of the 'Interpreter of Maladies' fame.
This book is about Bengali (which can actually be generalized to Indian) immigrants, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, and their children Gogol and Sonia, who are born and brought up in USA.
It is very well written - I liked the style. There are many moments which are poignant, or which really touch the heart. And then, it is a story which most of us can understand and empathise, if not identify, with. The major downside is that it is very slow - there are extensive details which are trivial, and seem to be redundant to the story. However, description which could have explained the thought process, and therefore developed, the characters further, and which one could have done with, is missing. I was also unable to appreciate why the protagonist's being a 'namesake' of a famous Russian writer was central to the story. Even if his parents had given him a proper Bengali (Indian) name, the conflict about the ideologies that he and his parents believe in, would have been the same. These conflicts can be generalized into the ones many of us, who have moved to the metros, have with our parents, who have stayed in small towns their entire life, or even more simply to the 'generation gap'. In this book, the author has taken a close look at such differences in the context of Indian families in USA. Some of the moments catch their disconnect very subtly - like when the american salesperson snickers at parents accents, and prefers to talk to adoloscent son instead. However, it gave me a feeling of depression throughout.
I know people who just rave about this book, but I will rate this as OK. I did not like it very much, but did not dislike it either. At any rate,it is better fare than some of the chick-lit I happened to read recently.
Lovely reading your post on The Namesake. I must admit that I had started reading the book sometime back but since I get emotionally involved with the characters (sic) I felt terribly sad when Ashima's father died and the fact that he died just before they were about to meet each other and she was shopping for the meeting compounded my grief and I left the book at that point. Now after reading your post, I am inspired to take it on from there. I will be back again with more comments once I am done :)
ReplyDeleteI read the book a while back and I think your analysis is pretty close to mine. There are too many unwanted descriptions and less to do with the actual story.
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