I found this book in library when I was searching for ’Interpreter of Maladies’ written by the same author and won 1990 Pulitzer Prize. I decided to read this first and now i’m more than happy for doing so.
This story doesn’t offer any unusual incidents or exceptionally good characters. It is a story about simple NRI life. It starts with Ashima Ganguly starting a new life in US after getting married to a NRI, Ashoke Ganguly and ends with she deciding to leave it.
Ganguly family settles down in Cambridge, Massachusetts after getting married in Calcutta, India. When a baby boy born to them, Indian postal service betrays and plays a role in naming the baby as Gogol, Ashoke’s favourite Russian author.
As if the assimilation process and conflict of cultures are not enough to confuse, Gogol have to suffer the odd name of his. It haunts him in his schooldays, adolescent age and forces him to change it and almost causes his marriage to be broken. Gogol represents American Born Confused Desi and falls in love with few girls before breaking with them. Ashoke’s sudden death brings quite a big change in thier life style and reader can see Gogol behaving more responsible. Story ends with Ashima deciding to distribute her rest of life stay between US and India.
Lahiri presented the NRI’s feelings in excellent manner. Ashima never considering her house in US as home, her fears about the first phone connection and her plans to buy gifts to relatives back in india brings back every NRI’s own memories.
Lahiri touches reader’s heart by saying ’’Being a foreigner is a sort of lifelong pregnancy ? a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. Something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.’’ Using Gogol, Lahiri explains the difficulties of first generation american indians who stuck between two cultures.
Still I cannot recommend this book very highly because it is not a book which lingers with you even days after putting the book back in the shelf.
Though it gives a very fine portrait for NRI life, it doesn’t leave any impact on the reader. In a book completely focussed on one family, Lahiri fails to create the required strong relationships between the family member characters. Reader never experience the affection among the characters.
I recommend this book to readers who constantly look for ’’what-to-read-next’’. Make sure that you add this book to your list but in the end of it.