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A review by shreyas1599
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
5.0
Scribbled some impressions of the book.
The conflict that Gogol feels with his name throughout his childhood is something that I’ve read a lot about. There is so much desire to be one among the crowd and not stand out. And having a name that is out of the ordinary will most definitely generate some amount of anxiety and hatred. And particularly when there’s a significant difference in the culture at home and the culture at school, the conflicting desire to assimilate into the culture of the country of birth, the internal conflict is vastly more pronounced. This is no way an indication to name the child something entirely different from the parents cultural upbringing but as pointed out in the story, a more common and generic name of the parents culture would be better suited. No generation is wrong in their perspective on this matter. The father named his son after his favourite Russian author, a name that evokes memories of his childhood, a name that had very significant connotations, a name that he held in his grasp from the clutches of death in the accident. All of us have gone through a phase where we preferred a different name to the one that we’ve been given.
Could feel that the writer employed different tones when talking across generations. The tone and tenor of the writing felt a tad different when talking about Ashima and Ashoke versus when talking about Gogol.
There’s a footnote where Gogol thinks he shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. But all of the preceding prose made it seem that the marriage was bound to happen. Or was it a case of too good to be true. I didn’t quite buy that the marriage was doomed to fail from the start. Or maybe I misunderstand it and there’s no reason to be had for it to reach the stage that it did reach.
There’s no happy ending per se, but there is some form of closure provided.
The conflict that Gogol feels with his name throughout his childhood is something that I’ve read a lot about. There is so much desire to be one among the crowd and not stand out. And having a name that is out of the ordinary will most definitely generate some amount of anxiety and hatred. And particularly when there’s a significant difference in the culture at home and the culture at school, the conflicting desire to assimilate into the culture of the country of birth, the internal conflict is vastly more pronounced. This is no way an indication to name the child something entirely different from the parents cultural upbringing but as pointed out in the story, a more common and generic name of the parents culture would be better suited. No generation is wrong in their perspective on this matter. The father named his son after his favourite Russian author, a name that evokes memories of his childhood, a name that had very significant connotations, a name that he held in his grasp from the clutches of death in the accident. All of us have gone through a phase where we preferred a different name to the one that we’ve been given.
Could feel that the writer employed different tones when talking across generations. The tone and tenor of the writing felt a tad different when talking about Ashima and Ashoke versus when talking about Gogol.
There’s a footnote where Gogol thinks he shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. But all of the preceding prose made it seem that the marriage was bound to happen. Or was it a case of too good to be true. I didn’t quite buy that the marriage was doomed to fail from the start. Or maybe I misunderstand it and there’s no reason to be had for it to reach the stage that it did reach.
There’s no happy ending per se, but there is some form of closure provided.