The Namesake

Author: Jhumpa Lahiri

Genre: Fiction

Summary: This is a story of how an Indian couple, newly married, (after meeting and the marriage being decided in a single afternoon) move to the USA and have to give up there traditions and values and embrace new things for the sake of their children. And of the life of their eldest child, Gogol, who was named after his fathers favorite author due to a certain twist of fate.

Review: The book begins when Gogol's mother Ashima is pregnant with Gogol, in America, where she is a stranger in a strange land. Everything is so different from her and the book seems to starkly contrast the differences making them more apparent.

The entire books is written in a very touching way.

Spoilers HERE

From how Gogol's father, Ashoke survives a near death experience making him more indebted to the writer Nikolai Gogol, how Gogol grows to resent his name (since it is neither American or Indian, he feels like he doesn't belong) and how his parents hoard Bengali friends, how he meets new people and tries to leave his old life and family behind, how he changes his name and later regrets doing it when he hears the true story of why he was named so, how his father dies suddenly, how his mother copes with it and everything, to Gogol's different relationships and how they end, it is written in such a moving way.

Also, this book is quite sad...

Quotes:
"Try to remember it always. Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went to a place where there was nowhere left to go."
~Ashoke to Gogol

Rating: 7/10

Thought: Since we live in the Maldives where our neighbors are more or less the same as us, I cant help but wonder after reading this, how it would feel to live, to grow up in somewhere in which all your neighbors, classmates, everyone is more or less different from you. It would probably more difficult for those who are already grown up then for those who are growing up. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad now, coz of all the technological advancement and stuff but the books starts loong ago.