“The Namesake”- By Jhumpa Lahiri

About The Auther

The novel “The Namesake” is written by Indo - American writer Jumpa Lahiri. Jhumpa Lahiri was a Bengali Indian woman writer. She spent her childhood in India and at young age she migrates to America. In 1999, Lahiri published her first short story collection entitled Interpreter of Maladies. Jhumpa Lahiri is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author known for works of fiction like Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth and The Lowland. What she feels is presented in this novel. Two generation makes vast difference. One prefer to old culture where as another accepting newer one.

Key Facts about The Namesake

• Full Title: The Namesake
• When Written: 2003
• Where Written: First published in part by the New Yorker, in June 2003
• When Published: September, 2003
• Literary Period: Contemporary
• Genre: Contemporary Immigrant Fiction, Bildungsroman
• Setting: Calcutta; Massachusetts; New York
• Climax: Debatably, in a novel whose scope spans three decades, the climax comes when Gogol’s father, Ashoke, dies unexpectedly, causing Gogol to return toward his family, leave Maxine, and ultimately marry Moushumi.
• Point of View: Third person omniscient narrator, sometimes with the added perspective of a specific character

 Character list

1)    Ashoke Ganguli

2)    Ashima Ganguli

3)    Nikhil/Gogol Ganguli

4)    Sonali Ganguli

5)   Moushumi Mazoomdar

About The Novel

 

The Namesake is The story of Bengali – Indian family in America. This navel based on one family. All characters have their individual problem. Two generation suffering for their perspective about their life but they fit in such kind of a box from where they can’t move an inch. If they move than it is a problem for another.

In The Namesake, a Bengalese couple name their son after the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. The name frustrates Gogol, just as his parents' traditional values embarrass him. After his father dies, Gogol becomes more interested in his family's heritage and marries a Bengalese woman named Moushumi. In the end, they divorce, and Gogol takes comfort in memories of his father.

Ashoke, an engineering student at MIT, consents to an arranged marriage with Ashumi. He names their son Gogol after the Russian writer. Gogol hates his name and disavows his Bengalese heritage for most of his adolescence.

After Ashoke died, Gogol finally takes an interest in his heritage. He marries Moushumi, a Bengalese woman, but their marriage crumbles after Moushumi has an affair.

In the end, Gogol takes comfort in a book of Nikolai Gogol's stories. He knows now that Ashoke was reading Gogol before he got caught in a train accident, and that the page he tore out during the crash alerted medics to his presence in the midst of the wreckage.

So, we can conclude that whatever things  happens in this Novel because of the SAKE of NAME. The life of Gogol becomes pathetic because of the two cultures, two identities, two nations and moreover two NAMES.