Paperback ~ 280 Pages (Year: 2003-4)
Publisher – Mariner Books/ Houghton Mifflin Company ~ ISBN: 0618485228
Rates printed on the book I lay my hand on ~ US $14
C in the title is for CONFUSED (As in ABCD).. nothing else…
Finally I read it And even more imp.. I am posting the review too not ending up in my draft as many other of his siblings.. that too when I am about to catch a long flight ..
Wanted to see the movie and read it and then review both under one heading but when I had the link for movie I didn’t had the time and when I got time the link was no more working.
May be I will buy the DVD soon and will try to review it too with a comparison. Hopelessly hopefully
This movie was recommended heavily by FE and Amit also continuously asked me to see it as it depicts NY, the city I live currently in. finally I picked it up from one of my friends who also recommended it but some how I kept postponing the plan to read it.. then one fine day I started to read it as I wanted to finish it and return it before my trip to India and same day while riding the subway I saw a smart Chinese gal balancing herself on high heels and holding a novel in her hand.. When finally she got the seat I saw the name of the book it was Interpreter of Maladies(Jhumpa’s first short story collection)that made me finish the novel in 1 sitting same night.. insomania helps.. lol
Some two hundred or two hundred fifty years ago, an immigrant attempted to answer a question his French parents had posed him: "What is an American?" His answer, famous for its clarity, ignited a debate that continues even today. Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur's thesis was that the American is a "new man, " one who eagerly discarded the cultural traditions of his former home and just as passionately adopted the ethos of his newly adopted land, the United States. The American, discards his former cultural heritage and completely "melts" into his new American charcter..
This novel is about that American-ism but its not only that, its also about struggle of a person to find his own identity through his own trial and tribulation.. so its not just a case of pet name–good name distinction.. not just about how Gogol lose first his public name (bhalonam), and then his private pet name( daknam)? its not just about the experience of growing up as the child of immigrants, having a divided identity, divided loyalties, etc. the novel is very much a collage of things one goes through in the journey of life. Its just not only about GOGOL, acutely aware of his differences but unable to resolve his dual identities, its about anguished decisions that all young immigrants must make as they carve out their paths towards becoming American… kind of generational reconciliation. It’s about the characters struggle and coming to terms with what it means to live in America, to be brought up here, to belong and not belong here. In short it’s a reference bible of experiences for immigrant population of south east asian diaspora.
Gogol is the novel's main character he is named after the Russian author not because, as he is told at first, Gogol is his father's favorite writer but because a copy of Gogol's short stories saved Ashoke's life after a train wreck. To Ashoke, the name of Gogol signifies a beginning, survival, "everything that followed" the horrific night spent in between death and life(which Gogol comes to understand late in life). This idea is the heart of the novel; as immigrants the Gangulis must look forward to what lies ahead instead of what is past. In America, Ashima and Ashoke are reborn, just as their children must find their own paths.
The Namesake* opens with Ashima Ganguli trying to make a spicy Indian snack from American ingredients — Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and red chopped onions 2 weeks before her due date — but "as usual, there's something missing.".. the whole novel then takes you through what’s missing and what’s not. It starts from boston and then travels through Calcutta and NY .
The central characters -
Ashoke Ganguli: Gogol's father who has a near death experience in young days who get married and comes to the United States in the 1970s *
Ashima Ganguli: Ashoke's wife who arrives in Boston after an arranged marriage.
Gogol/Nikhil: The main character who struggles with his Indo-American identity and rebels against his parents only to find that his values and emotions are not much different than theirs. It's a classic case of divided identity
Sonia : Gogol’s younger sister.
Moushmi:** Gogol finally marries her.
Ruth & Maxine – Gogol’s gf’s.
Jhumpa is herself a first generation ABCD and she has done a good job in presenting the view points of ABCD and also put the parents perspective too. Like subtely she had shown that in an arranged marriage of Ashima and Ashoke the closest intimacy they share before their wedding is when Ashima steps briefly, secretly, into Ashoke's shoes then the romantic encounters of Gogol to his lovers Ruth, Maxine, and eventually Moushumi.
Jhumpa explores in several ways the difficulty of reconciling cross-cultural rituals around death and dying. like Ashimas refusal to display the rubbings of gravestones from Gogol. And when Gogol's father suddenly dies, Gogol's relationship with Maxine is strained and quickly ends and loss of Gogol's father turns him back toward his family, it also change Sonia and Ashima's relationship.
Like many other female writers the main character Jhumpa chose is a male.. and the other imp male character is also well defined the only female character that is well defined is Ashima.. rest are marginal.. what I couldnt digest properly was the character of Maushimi.. it was not well laid of.. and the entry and exit were too swift.. entry you can understand.. for exit it looks like Jhumpa was in hurry for a deadline and wanted to keep the end an open ended...
About the Author
*Jhumpa Lahiri was born 1967 in London, England, and raised in Rhode Island. She is a graduate of Barnard College, where she received a B.A. in English literature, and of Boston University, where she received an M.A. in English, an M.A. in creative writing, an M.A. in comparative studies in literature and the arts, and a Ph.D. in renaissance studies. She has taught creative writing at Boston University, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the New School University. Her debut collection, *Interpreter of Maladies, * won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was translated into twenty-nine languages and became a bestseller both in the United States and abroad. It received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award, and a nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Lahiri was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002.
Jhumpa Lahiri's first novel, *The Namesake, * was a major national bestseller and was named the New York Magazine Book of the Year. She lives in New York with her husband and son.
*Open to comments, ratings and discussions.
P.S – The info on Author is taken from the internet just reworded.
