Warning: The plot of the novel is ahead. A spoiler for those who want to read it.
Sometimes, the hype about a novel is all there is to it.’The Namesake’ is my first complete Jhumpa Lahiri novel(having had an unsuccessful stint with the much acclaimed’Interpreter of Maladies’.)
’The Namesake’ is the story of a Bengali family, the parents, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli who had migrated to the USA from Calcutta in the 70s, in search of greener pastures and their children Gogol and Sonia. The first half of the novel revolves around how helpless and desperately lonely Ashima is, in a land where no one can be called her own. She hates the fact that she has to give birth to her boy in a country that she can never call’home’.
In the intial half, it struck me odd that Ashoke does nothing to console his wife and is never really shown to have real affection for her. Jhumpa probably wants us to feel that’Indian’ husbands don’t believe in displaying their love for their spouses. I was almost tempted into thinking that the rest of the novel would see him having an affair but thankfully this doesn’t happen in the novel.
With the arrival of the baby boy, comes the first duty. Naming him. Being Bengalis, they have the tradition of a nick name and a good name(for official purposes). They wait a long time for a mail to arrive from Ashima’s grandmother, who was entrusted with the responsibility of selecting a’good-name’ for the boy. With the letter never arriving and the American hospitals forcing them to choose a name for the new bundle of joy, Ashoke choses’Gogol’, a tribute to his favorite Russian author, Nikolai Gogol. And thus starts much ado about his name.
When they enroll Gogol in a school at the age of 5 and tell him that his name is now’Nikhil’, he refuses to answer to that name, being too used to’Gogol’ and not quite understanding why he would need another. Time goes on and soon there is another addition in the family, a baby girl called Sonia. When Gogol enters university and learns about the tragic and weird life of the eccentric genius author, Nikolia Gogol, he can’t help but resent his parents for naming him Gogol.
But being a rebelious American kid, he goes and changes his name officially after his teens, to’Nikhil’. Half the world knows him as Gogol and the other as Nikhil. Gogol is shown throughout the novel as an ABCD( American Born Confused Desi). He takes no pride in having an Indian background. He shows no fascination towards the culture, the food or the people. He is too American and too confused about his identity, his name and too indifferent to his parents, their concerns and too independent in thought to follow what his parents want him to do. They are disappointed when he chooses to become an architect, dates a few American women and mostly ignores their wishes. The presence of his parents, their manners, their likes and dislikes are nothing but an embarassment to him, a constant reminder of his heritage and something he can never identify with.
Soon, Ashoke suffers a heart attack and dies.Ashima is left all alone. Gogol is then seeing an American woman, Maxine who can never quite get what he goes through when his father passes away. Sonia who is studying to be a lawyer, comes back to spend time with her mom.
Ashima tries to fix Gogol up with the daughter of their family friend, Moushomi after his breakup with Maxine. Moushomi is another of those ABCDs, who can not quite identify with her being Indian or American and ends up going to France. In the past, she had seeked out her independence and freedom from her parents by being promiscuous. She had then fallen in love with an American, who ditched her at at alter. Gogol and Moushomi get married after a courtship and life is good, until she meets up with an old French friend and starts having an affair with him.
Gogol doesn’t suspect a thing for a long time, being the stupid as* that he is. They file for divorce once her affair is out in the open. Sonia, Gogol’s sister, seems to have no identity problems, which turns out to be quite refreshing to the reader for a change. She gets engaged to a half-Jewish, half-Chinese guy called Ben. The novel ends with Ashima deciding to spend half her time in India with her relatives and the other half with her children.
Jhumpa’s style is too descriptive for comfort. Some might find that refreshing but I personally find it a pain. There is no sense of urgency, nothing that makes you really want to know what is ahead in the plot and turn the pages with urgency.There were times when I felt like crying out, "Move ahead with the story already and cut the descriptive crap." Nevertheless, the novel would just get a 2.5/5 rating from me. Jhumpa has not found a fan in me, for sure. But I might just continue reading her to know what all the fuss is about.
As for the characters, Ashima comes across as a woman who just accepts her fate silently and moves ahead with her life. She resigns to her fate, making food in her kitchen and doing precious little other than that. Ashoke is a typical Indian husband. Sonia is not talked about much.
But Gogol comes across as a really selfish wimp. He is the epitome of confusion, a man who is never comfortable in his own skin. He elicits no sympathy from the reader, even after being dumped by his wife. If kids can end up being that confused and indifferent to their parents, he is reason enough for me not to have a kid born and raised in America.