The Namesake

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The Namesake has displaced Interpreter of Maladies as Lahiri’s most popular book even though Interpreter won the Pulitzer prize. I have also read her two other most-read books, both of which are collections of short stories or vignettes: Unaccustomed Earth and Whereabouts. The author’s parents immigrated from Bengal and she grew up near Boston, where her father worked at the University of Rhode Island. Bengali friends of Ashoke’s and Ashima’s in Cambridge. These three visit the Gangulis in the hospital in Cambridge, after Gogol is born. Alan and Judy Climax: Debatably, in a novel whose scope spans three decades, the climax comes when Gogol’s father, Ashoke, dies unexpectedly, causing Gogol to return toward his family, leave Maxine, and ultimately marry Moushumi. Yet, in spite of these fated moments, Lahiri’s novel possesses an atmosphere that is at once graceful and ordinary. The language she chooses has this quiet quality that makes that which she writes all the more realistic. Her most insightful observations into her characters, or the dynamics between them, often occur when she is recounting seemingly mundane scenes: from food preparations and family meals to phone conversations.

IFF "Love Is Folly" " (in Bulgarian). 4 March 2018. Archived from the original on 10 October 2022 . Retrieved 10 October 2022. Gogol’s identity change to “Nikhil” becomes official in Chapters 5 and 6. Deciding that he wants to begin college as “Nikhil,” Gogol legally changes his name before starting his undergraduate study at Yale University. He tries to keep his past completely separate from his new life and persona in college; no one from Yale knows that his legal name was once “Gogol.” Gogol dates a fellow Yale student named Ruth, but they break up before the end of college. Gogol takes regular trips home to visit his family in Boston, and on one of these trips Ashoke tells Gogol the story of the train crash that influenced his choice of Gogol’s name. It also described well the life of the main character ever since he was conceived (yes, the story starts with the marriage of his parents. A good start I would say!) Sciretta, Peter (27 November 2007). "Independent Spirit Awards Nominations: A Look At The Best Indie Films Of 2007". /Film. Archived from the original on 10 October 2022 . Retrieved 10 October 2022.

What was the significance of the shirt colour, I wondered? Or him being tall, or his hair being greasy? Library Journal describes the novel as, “this poignant treatment of the immigrant experience, which is a rich, stimulating fusion of authentic emotion, ironic observation, and revealing details.” Booklist review says, “Lahiri's deeply knowing, avidly descriptive, and luxuriously paced first novel is equally triumphant as Interpreter of Maladies”

When a letter from their grandmother in India, enclosing the name for their first born doesn't arrive in time, Ashoke instinctively and naively (as their son says later in life) names him Gogol- a name, derived from the Russian author, Nikolai Gogol, with whom the latter feels a deep connection. The name comes to embarrass their son as he grows older and is a reminder of his confused being -it's not even a proper Bengali name, he protests! E direi che Jhumpa Lahiri lo assolve bene, sa trovare le parole giuste per raccontare il malessere dei suoi personaggi, sia maschili che femminili.

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Gogol grows up perplexed by his pet name. Entering kindergarten, the Gangulis inform their son that he will be known as Nikhil at school. The five-year-old objects, and school administrators send him home with a note pinned to his shirt stating that he would be called Gogol at school, as was his preference. As Gogol progresses through school, he resents his name more and more for its oddness and the strange genius for whom he was named. Ashok senses that Gogol is not old enough to understand its significance. When he informs his parents that he wishes to change his name, his father reluctantly agrees. Shortly before leaving for college, Gogol legally changes his name to Nikhil Ganguli. Reading Paulette Jiles' revenge western Chenneville, it's easy to remember she's a poet. She plays ... Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and later received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989. She then received multiple degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, an M.A. in Creative Writing, an M.A. in Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She took up a fellowship at Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two years (1997-1998). Another thing that makes this novel stand out is how much Lahiri leaves unspoken. There are no melodramatic scenes or confessions. At times it is only hindsight that allows a character to realise the importance of a certain moment.

In the past few years I've read and fallen in love with Jhumpa Lahiri's collection of short stories as well as her book on her relationship with the Italian language In Other Words. Although The Namesake has been sitting on my shelf for the last couple months, when it was chosen as one of the February reads for the 'Around the World in 80 Books' group, I was finally spurred into reading it, and I'm so glad I did. The Namesake did not disappoint. This novel is not just a relatable read for immigrants, it is also an elegantly told family saga with universal themes; of love, of the profound relationship between a father and a son, of teenage angst, of feeling pulled by different worlds yet not completely belonging to either, of the unpredictability of life and relationships and of endings which are real and not always happily ever after. I think it’s realistic how this young American Bengali boy sometimes absorbs and sometimes rebels against the culture. He and his friends joke about themselves as “ABCD - American Born Confused Deshi.” He and his parents and sister speak Bengali at home but he makes a point of doing things like answering his parents in English and wearing his sneakers in the house. He pulls away from his Bengali heritage at college, deliberately ‘not hanging out with Indians.’ The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. urn:oclc:717150522 Scandate 20111122034933 Scanner scribe20.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Usl_hit auto Worldcat (source edition)I think part of the reason I connected so much with this book is because my best friend from college was an immigrant at age 6 from India. Her parents are traditional in a country that is completely different than theirs. They would like their daughters to end up with a man from India. However, they live in a city with only 80 Indian people total. When you takeaway all the children, parents and non-single men that doesn't leave much choice. While reading this book I kept thinking of her.