Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel The Namesake, like her Pulitzer Prize winning Interpreter of maladies, promised a cultural concoction, a fine assortment of Indian Diaspora and sorry to say, exotic panorama. Following the cult left behind by the Interpreter, the Namesake is as well a treat, for Indians (Bengalis?) and Others (Americans?), described by the Los Angles Times Book Review as “émigré’s disorientation, nostalgia, and yearning for tastes, smells, and customs left behind” and Entertainment Weekly as “a classic story of American immigration and assimilation” and Lahiri has been successful in revealing, exposing and thwarting these emotions and making them universal.
The similarity and the dichotomy of the namesake is the pivotal issue in the book. The novel spans our protagonist’s life from birth in 1968 to 2000.
The Gangulis son is named Gogol (after the Russian author) for the lack of an Indian name arriving on time from homeland. He sticks to the name as a child, for he is different, for that name is inherited, for that name is a reminder of his relation with the family. His unique but daunting trip to the cemetery opens his eyes to his isolation in the world due to his own unique name. As he grows older, he wants to shun the name, shun his Indian identity, and adopts the name of Nikhil, as a second Baptism, and takes immense pains to change his name because “I’ve always hated it.” He’s still Gogol for his Indian friends and family, but for others he is Nikhil. Gogol/ Nikhil is always at war with himself, never tranquil or peaceful, never knowing his identity, never knowing what to be or being what he is.
The combat in Nikhil’s mind is not which country he belongs to, which culture will shape his identity, where does he really belong.…. (In his mind he is truly American, and doesn’t believe that ABCD stuff) The war for him is within himself, who is he? Gogol or Nikhil. In his mind, it is always a flawed identity which begins with a blemished name.
For me, the end is the beginning of the “dazzling” story, it is at the end that the namesake meet each other; Nikhil a.k.a. Gogol meets Nikolai Gogol and
“….. For now, he starts to read.”