the namesake

My first feat this year was Pulitzer Prize winning novel: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. This story combines some of my favorite ideas together; the clash of cultures following a family line. Very similar to The Joy Luck Club in that the story follows children growing up very different than their parents and culture. The Namesake is about an Bengali young married couple from India who move to the United States. Starting with the traditional marriage (set up by the two families), this couple barely knows each other let alone a new society. Here their story begins.

The pace of the novel was wonderful. We start with Ashoke and Ashima (our lovely couple) but the plot is focused on their firstborn Gogol. With views from all three of them, the mixture of cultural love, misunderstanding, and tradition combine to give a balanced approach to this intercultural exchange. With less than 300 pages, Gogol is born into the world and we leave him middle-aged. Lahiri excels with her combinations of past stories from Ashoke and Ashima's Indian life with Gogol's American present. On this line of past and present, future and tradition, we find the centerpiece of our story: Gogol's namesake. 

"Though there are only inches between them, for an instant his father is a stranger, a man who has kept a secret, has survived a tragedy, a man whose past he does not fully know."

Wonderful author: Jhumpa Lahiri. 

In all honesty, I did love the book--however, it lacked elements I liked. There were characters, who were realistic, but I did not love them. Maybe I wasn't suppose to. Gogol's first girlfriend, Ruth, especially was very bare. She played the role of first girlfriend--and I wasn't very surprised by their natural end either. I do suppose that Ruth's nature is only for the purpose to show Gogol's growth into adulthood... Like I said, she plays the role and we never speak of her again. Similarly, other female characters in Gogol's life are very basic; even his sister has a minimal role in the story. Besides Ashima, the females in the novel did not speak to me--not to say that they were bad characters. 



I don't know if I would read the story again, but I certainly suggest it. Not to mention those who are following a read list//reading challenge can cross of "Pulitzer Prize Winner". I was pleasantly surprised by that.

Onto book #2!
Emily