Take a photo of a barcode or cover
prateekdwv 's review for:
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Namesake was on top of my recommended list for a very long time. Mere thoughts of reading a book that has been praised all around the world and decorated with so many prestigious awards filled me with excitement and expectation.
Fast forward 50 pages and I was already impressed with a different writing style I was reading. I have read few book with a similar narration style but none of them flowed as smoothly as this one did. I am sure monotonous is not the right word because it is taken negatively most of the time. However, I found the narration calm. Even sudden death of Ashoke was presented in such a flow then I had to take pause and ponder to realise that no matter how much stormy the lives of characters might be, the narration was tranquil. Separation of Gogol and Moushumi is another example of the beauty with which the story was written.
Saying all this, I still could not give more than 3 stars to this book. The story lacked a reason to continue, it was not captive. For instance, taking a cab rather than walking down few blocks (or other way round) makes little sense to have in a story when nothing interesting is to happen right after. Every now an then everyone make such decision, and these bits play a trivial role in the entire context other than adding few pages.
Comparision of two different families (Ganguli's and Ratliff's) from different cultures was, in my opinion, the worst of all things I didn't like. An attempt to sabotage one culture was made for a good part of this book. Which was sounding odd with such a calmness in the narration.
Fast forward 50 pages and I was already impressed with a different writing style I was reading. I have read few book with a similar narration style but none of them flowed as smoothly as this one did. I am sure monotonous is not the right word because it is taken negatively most of the time. However, I found the narration calm. Even sudden death of Ashoke was presented in such a flow then I had to take pause and ponder to realise that no matter how much stormy the lives of characters might be, the narration was tranquil. Separation of Gogol and Moushumi is another example of the beauty with which the story was written.
Saying all this, I still could not give more than 3 stars to this book. The story lacked a reason to continue, it was not captive. For instance, taking a cab rather than walking down few blocks (or other way round) makes little sense to have in a story when nothing interesting is to happen right after. Every now an then everyone make such decision, and these bits play a trivial role in the entire context other than adding few pages.
Comparision of two different families (Ganguli's and Ratliff's) from different cultures was, in my opinion, the worst of all things I didn't like. An attempt to sabotage one culture was made for a good part of this book. Which was sounding odd with such a calmness in the narration.