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A review by louiza_read2live
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
5.0
The namesake by Indian-American author Jumba Lahiri is a very good book! Lahiri doesn’t disappoint. Another wonderful read just like her short stories in the book Interpreter of Maladies.
In The Namesake, what appear to be simple comparisons in Ashima’s life in the USA versus the life she left behind in India after her arranged marriage to Ashoke who had already started a life as a university student in the USA, in Lahiri’s impressive writing style become poignant, heartfelt representations of a heart torn between two countries -- The pull between East and West as Indian author Salman Rushdie would write in his short story The Courter.
The cultural shock, the slight shame of not saying things correctly, the loneliness, the fear of the new, of the unknown, the attempt to hold tight to the Indian culture and customs while still trying to understand the American ways, and at the same time an indirect realization of the dreams and education she left in order to follow the very customs she’s trying to hold on to so tightly now -- This has a sense of the feeling of betrayal most immigrants feel for their birth country as they catch themselves slide, even unconciously at times, into the new country’s ways--They sleep trying to hold on to a dream and they wake up having partially lost it. The temporary crisis of national identity and the surges of homesickness that come with that as they slowly assimilate.
In general, Lahiri in the namesake addresses many issues of the immigrant life, but most importantly it addresses the conflicts and national and cultural identity crisis of the second generation where unlike their parents were born here in the USA and they are caught between two worlds: The life and culture in the USA and that of their parents’ culture, customs, and way of life that they only get to know through their parents’ memories. Lahiri has an amazing style of description. Her way of depicting these two worlds as they unfold in the characters’ daily lives makes us feel, as a friend had nicely said, "as if we are watching through a screen the lives and struggles of these people." True! Lahiri does this in... (More in the comments as I ran out of space here).
6d
louiza_read2live's profile picture
(Cont. from caption...) Lahiri does this in such a way that her intense, detailed descriptions, which coming from another writer might had seem excessive and dull, not only they leave us wanting more but they also bring us closer to the characters’ psyches as we connect deeply with them. We feel that we are a necessary part in their story, acting as an invisible ghost, a separate entity walking through the pages and from them enter into their lives watching them closely without them knowing we’re there. We get to feel that we are following them around taking an active part in their days and lives as they speak, move, sleep, live... and work out their personal and interpersonal conflicts--We are moving along with their lives without touching them; and yet, we are touched by them.
A poignant representation of immigrant life and Indian culture. A story where the ugliness of life is turned into beauty; and the failures, sadness, and grief are filled with life and hope before our eyes.
(The name of the main character is Gogol (his father's favorite author). I'm sure there's more significance to that name in the life of the character, but I'd like to one day reread the book and think more about what to make of that).
In The Namesake, what appear to be simple comparisons in Ashima’s life in the USA versus the life she left behind in India after her arranged marriage to Ashoke who had already started a life as a university student in the USA, in Lahiri’s impressive writing style become poignant, heartfelt representations of a heart torn between two countries -- The pull between East and West as Indian author Salman Rushdie would write in his short story The Courter.
The cultural shock, the slight shame of not saying things correctly, the loneliness, the fear of the new, of the unknown, the attempt to hold tight to the Indian culture and customs while still trying to understand the American ways, and at the same time an indirect realization of the dreams and education she left in order to follow the very customs she’s trying to hold on to so tightly now -- This has a sense of the feeling of betrayal most immigrants feel for their birth country as they catch themselves slide, even unconciously at times, into the new country’s ways--They sleep trying to hold on to a dream and they wake up having partially lost it. The temporary crisis of national identity and the surges of homesickness that come with that as they slowly assimilate.
In general, Lahiri in the namesake addresses many issues of the immigrant life, but most importantly it addresses the conflicts and national and cultural identity crisis of the second generation where unlike their parents were born here in the USA and they are caught between two worlds: The life and culture in the USA and that of their parents’ culture, customs, and way of life that they only get to know through their parents’ memories. Lahiri has an amazing style of description. Her way of depicting these two worlds as they unfold in the characters’ daily lives makes us feel, as a friend had nicely said, "as if we are watching through a screen the lives and struggles of these people." True! Lahiri does this in... (More in the comments as I ran out of space here).
6d
louiza_read2live's profile picture
(Cont. from caption...) Lahiri does this in such a way that her intense, detailed descriptions, which coming from another writer might had seem excessive and dull, not only they leave us wanting more but they also bring us closer to the characters’ psyches as we connect deeply with them. We feel that we are a necessary part in their story, acting as an invisible ghost, a separate entity walking through the pages and from them enter into their lives watching them closely without them knowing we’re there. We get to feel that we are following them around taking an active part in their days and lives as they speak, move, sleep, live... and work out their personal and interpersonal conflicts--We are moving along with their lives without touching them; and yet, we are touched by them.
A poignant representation of immigrant life and Indian culture. A story where the ugliness of life is turned into beauty; and the failures, sadness, and grief are filled with life and hope before our eyes.
(The name of the main character is Gogol (his father's favorite author). I'm sure there's more significance to that name in the life of the character, but I'd like to one day reread the book and think more about what to make of that).