A review by thebongbaba
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

3.0

'The Namesake' steers through themes of immigration, alienation, identity and filial relationships. Lahiri is deft at creating cultural crisis through her descriptions of mundane aspects of life - food, clothes and social interactions. Alienation and loss of identity are manifested in many forms. Aashima constantly reminisces her life in Kolkata, as tries to adapt to the American lifestyle; Ashok deals with his own dilemma, and his life thematically connected to the works of Nikolai Gogal; Gogol deals with his very name, his literal identity; and juggles between the "outwardly" style of American life and traditional one of India. However, the issue I found was the disjointed nature of storytelling. Lahiri creates a strong bond between the characters and the reader, but the ties are cut through the sudden jump in timelines. Jump in timelines is a quite common narrative style, but in 'The Namesake', the jump breaks the illusion of character growth. One of the glaring examples of this is Ashoke's death. The author writes intricately how Gogol reacts to his father's death. His demise is unanticipated, and Lahiri brilliantly writes it in the physical form of Gogol's reaction to it. However, the story moves on and there is little mention of how death has affected their lives.