Thursday, September 29, 2005
"The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri - Ch. 4-6
Having read up through chapter 6 of “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri, I am relieved at how linear and comprehendible Lahiri’s writing style is. “The Namesake” has so far been much easier and enjoyable to read than McEwan’s “Saturday” (which could stand to be trimmed down by about 70 pages) and Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” (which will never be a book that I would willfully read).
Chapters 4 through 6 (as well as the initial three chapters) brought several questions to my mind when it dealt with Gogol’s feeling of being an outcast because of his ethnic and familial background, questions such as: Are all minorities as constantly absorbed by their race as this? If I were in the minority, would I be as racially concerned as the Ganguli family? Do all people find fault with little things such as having their (admittedly difficult and uncommon) names mispronounced?
Speaking of that name, perhaps I’m just not reading enough into the story or am not grasping the author’s intentions, but I feel like Gogol’s name is becoming too much of an issue. I see the conflict that arises from it (it is an unusual name to both his American community and to his Bengali heritage, making him an outsider on both fronts), but I found his fierce aversion to it to be excessive, particularly the section in which his teacher Mr. Lawson reads the strange, disturbing story of Nikolai Gogol’s life. Such anxiety would have been understandable had Gogol’s classmates been drawing a connection between the twisted author and himself. But the class did not even look towards Gogol throughout the whole ordeal (though that was most likely intentional on the class’ part). If anything, he should have been relieved when Nikolai Gogol’s death linked itself to a supposedly anorexic girl in the class, thus further pulling Gogol out of the class’ attention.
However, with all of these thoughts inhabiting Gogol’s narrative, I found it to be a relief that his life is relatively normal. Despite his lack of dating throughout high school, he seems to live a relatively stable life, with his group of friends, appreciation of music like Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and strong academic performance. Also, I was not surprised by the tremendous drop in the prevalence of the Bengali culture after he moves on into his college years, further establishing his own personal identity.
Also, as the story progresses, I hope that Lahiri will return to the narrative points of view of Ashima and Ashoke as well as Gogol (or Nikhil, as he is now known at this point). I found that their experiences as Bengali immigrants raising children in an unusual, frequently contradictory, and often shocking society held my interest just as strongly as Gogol/Nikhil’s experiences within a Bengali/American culture clash.
Chapters 4 through 6 (as well as the initial three chapters) brought several questions to my mind when it dealt with Gogol’s feeling of being an outcast because of his ethnic and familial background, questions such as: Are all minorities as constantly absorbed by their race as this? If I were in the minority, would I be as racially concerned as the Ganguli family? Do all people find fault with little things such as having their (admittedly difficult and uncommon) names mispronounced?
Speaking of that name, perhaps I’m just not reading enough into the story or am not grasping the author’s intentions, but I feel like Gogol’s name is becoming too much of an issue. I see the conflict that arises from it (it is an unusual name to both his American community and to his Bengali heritage, making him an outsider on both fronts), but I found his fierce aversion to it to be excessive, particularly the section in which his teacher Mr. Lawson reads the strange, disturbing story of Nikolai Gogol’s life. Such anxiety would have been understandable had Gogol’s classmates been drawing a connection between the twisted author and himself. But the class did not even look towards Gogol throughout the whole ordeal (though that was most likely intentional on the class’ part). If anything, he should have been relieved when Nikolai Gogol’s death linked itself to a supposedly anorexic girl in the class, thus further pulling Gogol out of the class’ attention.
However, with all of these thoughts inhabiting Gogol’s narrative, I found it to be a relief that his life is relatively normal. Despite his lack of dating throughout high school, he seems to live a relatively stable life, with his group of friends, appreciation of music like Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and strong academic performance. Also, I was not surprised by the tremendous drop in the prevalence of the Bengali culture after he moves on into his college years, further establishing his own personal identity.
Also, as the story progresses, I hope that Lahiri will return to the narrative points of view of Ashima and Ashoke as well as Gogol (or Nikhil, as he is now known at this point). I found that their experiences as Bengali immigrants raising children in an unusual, frequently contradictory, and often shocking society held my interest just as strongly as Gogol/Nikhil’s experiences within a Bengali/American culture clash.
# posted by Kevin5671 @ 3:30 PM 
