It has been sometime since I did a book review ... reminds me of my college days. The book by the title "The namesake" is a good read. Jhumpa Lahiri gives a moving account of an immigrant Bengali family's life in the US spanning three decades - late sixties through to the nineties. The protagonist is their US born son who is named Gogol accidentally (after the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol) by his father. The author recounts his reluctance to accept the absurd antic name neither Indian nor American till he realizes its true significance when his father narrates his miraculous survival in his youth which he attributes to this book. Gogol's experience represents the first generation Indian's predicament in life, the cultural alienation that he faces along with conflicting lifestyles as he tries to explore his identity in a foreign land torn between two diametrically opposite cultures. His tryst with life while trying to balance his American upbringing and Indian roots through ordinary incidents interwoven intelligently to depict a picture of solitude, denial and betrayal. As such the language is lucid yet eloquent and the story is well paced sustaining the reader's interest throughout. Lahiri portrays various relationships often strained like that of the father and son which transcends death and this is something that most ordinary people can identify with. The novel is melancholy in parts - an unexpected death of the professor in a foreign land away from his family and the emotional trauma following it. One also feels sympathetic towards Gogol as his marriage ends in disaster as his wife betrays him not to mention the heart wrenching episodes of earlier failed relationships. Did I tell you that the name Gogol actually doesn't stick with our hero? His denial to accept his name had led to him changing it to Nikhil long back. The story ends with his mother, Ashima making permanent plans to move to Kolkata to live among her people, while Gogol lives on among Americans as he is increasingly drawn to his own tradition, his heritage, his name and his destiny as the embodiment of his parents' aspirations. In fact, it won't be a bad idea to follows this up with a sequel, as such the story seems inconclusive and there is a scope for it.

0 Comments