The Namesake

by JhumpaLahiri (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2004

  $11.53

  'The Namesake' is the story of a boy brought up Indian in America. 'When her grandmother learned of Ashima's pregnancy, she was particularly thrilled at the prospect of naming the family's first sahib. And so Ashima and Ashoke have agreed to put off the decision of what to name the baby until a letter comes...' For now, the label on his hospital cot reads simply BABY BOY GANGULI. But as time passes and still no letter arrives from India, American bureaucracy takes over and demands that 'baby boy Ganguli' be given a name. In a panic, his father decides to nickname him 'Gogol' - after his favourite writer. Brought up as an Indian in suburban America, Gogol Ganguli soon finds himself itching to cast off his awkward name, just as he longs to leave behind the inherited values of his Bengali parents. And so he sets off on his own path through life, a path strewn with conflicting loyalties, love and loss...Spanning three decades and crossing continents, Jhumpa Lahiri's much-anticipated first novel is a triumph of humane story-telling. Elegant, subtle and moving, 'The Namesake' is for everyone who loved the clarity, sympathy and grace of Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning debut story collection, 'Interpreter of Maladies'.

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.40

  The Namesake is the story of a boy brought up Indian in America, from 'the kind of writer who makes you want to grab the next person and say Read this! ' (AMY TAN)

  Gogol Ganguli is headed to paradise, a place of satisfaction and fulfilment. He doesn't really know it as he travels through his life toward this destination. He is only aware that he is not quite at ease with himself, and for a long time he thinks it's all because of his name...

  His journey begins by train. But Gogol is not on it. Rather it was a train whose fateful journey gave his father, Ashoke Ganguli - a Bengali in America, awkward in his new surroundings - both a brush with mortality and the name of his firstborn son. Brought up as an Indian in suburban America, Gogol finds himself itching to cast off the inherited values and priorities that his parents drape over him. He escapes into Education and is educated above all in new ways of living, new ways of making a family, new ways of being married. He is shown a perfect home, then - to his delight and surprise - invited in to it, for good. But still he wears that Russian's name, still he is an Indian in America, and, once you get to the furthest point there, there's nowhere else to go but back.

  In The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri presents her reader with the entirely satisfying novel that those who loved the clarity, sympathy and grace of her prize-winning debut, the story collection Interpreter of Maladies, longed for and anticipated. It is a triumph of humane story-telling.