The Namesake: A Novel
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About this ebook
Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world ??—?? conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.
"Dazzling...An intimate, closely observed family portrait."??—??The New York Times
"Hugely appealing."??—??People Magazine
"An exquisitely detailed family saga."??—??Entertainment Weekly
Jhumpa Lahiri
JHUMPA LAHIRI is the author of four works of fiction: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland; and a work of nonfiction, In Other Words. She has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize; the PEN/Hemingway Award; the PEN/Malamud Award; the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; the Premio Gregor von Rezzori; the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; a 2014 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama; and the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia, for In altre parole.
Read more from Jhumpa Lahiri
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Reviews for The Namesake
3,701 ratings176 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a spectacular, interesting, and well-told story that gives an unexpected glimpse into a different culture. It explores complex themes and is a deeply moving tale about family, place, and self-discovery. While some passages may be slow, the overall experience is enjoyable. The author's use of language is superb, and the book offers valuable insights into the immigrant experience. It is highly recommended for those interested in learning about the challenges faced by immigrants and first-generation Americans.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I found the beginning of this book very slow. It kept my interest though, and the Ganguli's story was riveting. The heartbreak of the immigrant experience, coming from such a "foreign" place was beautifully wrought and the hard time that many children of immigrants have with identity was touching and easily accessible.Though the level of detail allowed for a remarkably vivid story, I often felt bogged down in the detail. Still, I whole heartedly recommend.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Well....I did enjoy this book fairly well. I feel 3 1/2 stars would be more how I felt. There was not a lot of character development and I felt it was a little bit like reading a narrative of someone's life looking from the outside in. The author is a beautiful writer however, which is the saving grace of this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eternal questions "Who am I? Where do I belong" frame the story of Hindu immigrants Ashima and Ashok creating their American life and raising their children. straddling cultures. Their son, Gogol, receives his name because the father so treasures Nicolai Gogol's short story: The Overcoat.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I just got finished reading The Namesake and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I related to Gogol/Nikhil struggles as a first generation American, (though my parents came from Argentina and Spain.) I like books where you are simultaneously entertained and educated about something new and this book taught me something about Bengali culture which I liked. I loved Ashima's description of what it's like to be an immigrant, “Being a foreigner, Ashima thinks “ is a sort of lifelong pregnancy-a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts.”
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nice book, but I was expecting more. More from a Pulitzer winner, that is. Left me with a bleak melancholia about life and about families. Nothing really HAPPENS. It's a well-written account of people, families, the circle of life, relationships. Not enough depth to match the amount of detail. There are a few powerful events which affected me emotionally, but there weren't enough of them. The book could have had more substance - more weight.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Really enjoyed the book.
Very interesting characters, Ashima, Gogol, Moushumi.
A nice transition of the story from Ashima's point of view to Gogol's and then to Moushumi's and back. Wonderful descriptions.
Another book where I was imagining everything happening in front of me while I was reading it. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excellent writing, fascinating family tale, switching viewpoints periodically to give us glimpses of the "foreigner" experience from various perspectives. The protagonist, Gogol, is nearly always "The Other" as most of his social interactions seem to be related either to his parents' Bengali community contacts, or his current female companion's friends and family. He never really accepts his own name, and on the threshold of adulthood he changes it, thereby drawing a distinct line between two worlds...the one he grew up in, populated by people who know him as "Gogol", and the other by people who met him after he became "Nikhil". Only after several failed romances, and the departure of his parents does he begin to explore who Gogol really might be. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5yawn. ok so i relate with being an american-born "indian", but the characters, writing, and everything else were all boring. i kept waiting for something to happen, and guess what! nothing ever did! should be renamed the sexcapades of gogol.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When I went to school at the University of Michigan, it it felt like all the Indian kids knew each other. They had built-in friends as soon as they walked on campus. Good friends, not the "that girl who graduated a few years ahead of me and we were in the National Honors Society together" friends. Their parents knew each other, they would explain. But I didn't really get it...with some exceptions, I wasn't necessarily close to my parents' friends' kids. And then I read The Namesake, and it clicked.Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake is the story of Indian immigrants and their children in America. It begins when Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli are about to have their first child, recounting a bit of their individual histories in India and how they came to have their marriage arranged. When the boy is born, the pet name his parents give him while waiting for an Indian grandparent to send a letter with his "real name" ends up being recorded on his birth certificate out of confusion. Their child is named Gogol, after a Russian writer who is meaningful to Ashoke. Although his parents eventually settle on Nikhil to be his real name, Gogol sticks until he gets to college. Gogol hates his name, the way it sounds, the way it stamps him as unmistakably "other" in his American life. He changes it legally to Nikhil once he becomes an adult, but it is not quite so easy to deal with the uneasy internal tension between the Indian culture of his parents and the American culture he was raised and lives in, between who he was/is, and who he wants to be.Although the novel takes turns, illuminating the story briefly through the eyes of Ashima and Ashoke, it mostly follows Gogol/Nikhil as he navigates childhood, college, and his adult relationships (curiously, it never follows his sister Sonia, who remains on the periphery, although it does very briefly follow the woman who becomes Gogol's wife after their marriage). Lahiri's prose is magnificent...it's rich without being flowery, and her words beautifully illustrate the dilemmas the characters face in a way that shows you without telling you. The characters themselves are well-rounded, multi-faceted, and face their entirely normal lives and problems in a way that feels like actual people you might know rather than characters on a page. Lahiri doesn't need to put them through incredible obstacles to show you who they are and why you should care. She just writes them with such humanity that it wouldn't even occur to you not to care. It's a wonderful book and I loved it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Agreed that the stories and backgrounds of the immigrant family (mother and father) were infinitely more interesting and sympathetic than the arrogant little snit of a son. I wanted to, several times, reach through the book and slap him for his shocking rudeness and blame-shifting. Quite an unlikeable character, and thus, I could not fully commit to the book.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I attended a special advance screening of the movie The Namesake, and while waiting in line, the promoters handed out free copies of the novel. I enjoyed the movie (although a little slow in parts) so I decided to give the book a try. The result was that rare case when I liked a movie more than the book it was based upon. Frankly, I'm frustratingly surprised this book is so popular. The writing was choppy and simple—I would even go so far as to say juvenile—and the story is uninspiring. The central concept revolved around a young man's struggle to accept his name, "Gogol." I found this theme, and Lahari's frequent return to it (ad nauseam), wholly uninteresting. And I don’t think the depiction of Indian immigrants in America (Gogol’s parents) was very convincing. They’re from Calcutta, but fear New York City because it’s too big and noisy? Whatever. My advice: See the movie!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Namesake is about a boy named Gogol who is born in America to Indian parents. His parents were in an arranged marriage in India, and moved to America shortly after the wedding. They are strangers in a foreign land, and America never really feels like home to them. Gogol grows up an American and his parents do not understand his American culture. Likewise, he does not understand their culture, either. This is a typical story for many Americans whose parents came here from another country, and the book gives an insight into what life is like for families that face the challenge of combining starkly different customs.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5OK, just when did the present tense take over literary fiction? Because I want to know--it seems omnipresent these days. It's a cheap way, I guess, of imbuing a narrative with lyricism, but truly, it's wearing out its welcome with me--and is all the more noticeable and annoying when a book doesn't have much going for it.It's not that I can complain of the writing exactly. It doesn't stand out as bad---but neither does it stand out as particularly good. Too much in the first half drags, consists of too much of nothing. I can imagine someone enamored of the book retorting it's full of "nothing" but life. This begins with a young Indian couple in America. Their little boy is born in 1968 and because a letter from the mother's grandmother naming the child is mislaid, they have to come up with a name themselves. He's named Gogol after the Russian author. That's the namesake of the title, who we follow through his first 30 years. And I suppose The Namesake is not bad at capturing the immigrant and first generation American experience--the assumptions, disappointments, adaptations, clashes, but it got less interesting to me as Gogol grew up and he (and his name angst) became more the focus. It didn't help I found Gogol a toe-rag of a character.This just never rose above routine for me before I gave up on it about half way through. I have read several good books lately--including some in, yes, the present tense. I think this suffered in comparison. Although I should note that more than one person whose literary tastes I respect loved this book. Oh well.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ending of this book left me feeling really sad. Gogol's reading the book his dad gave him before he passed away...and I was reading a book that used to belong to my Grammie Ruth before she passed away. I wonder what she thought of the book. I wish I could ask her.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Namesake by Jhumpa Lariri. She won the Pulitzer for her short story collection, but I have to say this was disappointing. The story follows Gogol, whose parents are immigrants from India, through childhood into his thirties. Gogol is not happy with his name; does not understand his parents; doesn't feel like he fits in America; fails in his love life. Unhappiness and dissatisfaction abound. There wasn't much dialogue and everything else is written from a third person point of view, which did not help me feel emotionally attached to the main character. A disappointing book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Wonderful book which describes the life of anIndian couple after they immigrate to America. Their son, can't decide if he will live in the Indian world or forsake all tradidions and become a true American. One of my favorite books that I read in 2006. Also made into a most enjoyable movie.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Mariner Books, Boston, 2003. This book was a birthday gift from Eva Wong. Why did it take me so long to finish reading it? Simply because I was distracted for a month or so by my idea of a "list processor" program -- something I may yet finish, but I'm not being so obsessive about. Anyway, back to the book: It's beautifully told. I was gripped by the storytelling from the very beginning. Along the way, I learned quite a bit about Bengali culture that I didn't know before, like the "pet name" and a son's duty to shave his head when a parent dies (which I had suspected when Ravi shaved his head last year). The remarkable thing is I liked this book so much, when it turns out that nothing really happens. The characters are so vivid and real that they drag you along, even without the semblance of a plot.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved how important Russian literature was in this book. I had an obsession with Russian literature in high school and The Namesake started bringing it all back to me. I really enjoyed following Gogol around during his first 30 years of life. He is one of the most interesting and enjoyable characters I've ever encountered in my reading. I added this book to my favorites shelf, which hadn't had an addition in years.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved everything about this book, even the reference to Gogol - one of my favorite writers.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I loved this book - just finished reading it and it was a real roller coaster, the family had so many missed opportunities to share the important moments in their lives, and Gogol's embarrassment at the name his father gave him led him to change his name to an acceptable Indian name, which he regrets later when he comes to realise why he was given the strange Russian writer's name. The father never disclosed it during his childhood and when he did it was too late to change it. The relationships with the wider Bengali community in American university circles is very well drawn, and the security of the extended family and the frequent returns to Calcutta showed the loneliness of their immigrant lives. Particularly the mother's situation is very poignant, in that she subsumes any of her desires in the interest of maintaining the cultural bonds that are expected of her. She agrees to the arranged marriage, she lives in a strange community and a strange land, and she tries to give her children a sense of their Indian culture. Predictably, this backfires as they are more American than Indian, the clash of cultures is not so extreme as it seems to be in some communities in England. The parents are remarkably accepting of their children's relationships with Americans and despite the attempts at arranging marriages, they are pragmatic at the outcome of Gogol's mismatch with his Indian wife. Gogol has the sense of alienation that must be common in immigrant children where they get hassled in school and they keep their heads down in order to fit in. I found the pace of the book good given that it covers many years, and gives a great insight into the wider lives of academic immigrants, as opposed to the unskilled migrant workers that seem to get a lot of cover in novels - Rose Tremain's The Road Home, Marina Lewycka's Two Caravans come to mind. A recommended read!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5– Follows an Indian family from Calcutta to Boston and New York, showing how their lives molded to American life but yet still had ties to their roots. Some lessons about life, how time moves and people change and grow.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jhumpa Lahiri is the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for her first book (Interpreter of Maladies, witch by the way I also think is brilliant). Afterwards she wrote The Namesake (which actually began as a short story).
The Namesake is a novel about a son of immigrants from Calcutta born in Massachusetts that is named after the famous writer Gogol (His father favorite author). It’s a fabulous book written in very “fluid” English, it loses all the flamboyance that some “newish” writers try to impose us, and focus on the story, on the details of Gogol’s life. Each chapter is a short story, with a different goal and a different set of personages, but always evolving around Gogol (Even in the first ones, that tell us the story before his birth, his parents’ marriage, his father’s love for Gogol, the moving to the US) telling us how he feels living with that particular name, how he feels having such different parents from all his colleagues, how he sometimes even feels marginalized. But it also tells us about his best moments, his achievements, his “joys”... telling us how he has lived the first three and a half decades of his life.
In the overall the book is fantastic; I really think it’s one of the best books I’ve read in the last year or so and I hope this young writer will presents us with more novels. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I loved her Unaccustomed Earth , but this was not so engrossing. Interesting tale of a search for identity by a Bengali man in Boston. Good references to architecture, Chelsea in Manhattan, good descriptions of Bengal social life. Often too detailed , this dragged. My familiarity wit Manhattan enhanced my pleasure. Shnoop website has interesting analysis of the characters.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5So good, I didn't want it to end. What happens next!?
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5i did not like this book. i am aware that this makes me unpopular but i don't even care. i really really dislike that this is written in the present tense - i just don't think lahiri is so talented.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their traditional life in Calcutta through their and their children’s (specifically their son Gogol) transformation into Americans. The novel moves back and forth from the perspective of the parents to those of the son. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him relies on Indian tradition, with Ashoke and Ashima waiting for a name to be chosen by her mother who is still back in India. When the name doesn't arrive, the two new parents quickly choose the name Gogol, in tribute to one of Ashoke's favorite Russian author (and a significant character in Ashoke’s past). But Gogol hates his name, and the Bengali traditions that are forced on him since childhood. The reader follows him through adolescence into adulthood where his history and his family affect his relationships with others particularly his parents and of course women. This novel presents an exploration of the immigrant experience, but the lessons are universal... Anyone who has ever been ashamed of their parents, felt the guilty pull of duty, questioned their own identity, or fallen in love, will identify with these intermingling lives. I found this book to be beautifully written without being pretentious or overly self-aware. I found myself not wanting it to end. 4 ½ out of 5 stars.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So, what is in a name anyway? Quite a lot, apparently, if we are to judge from the life of Gogol Ganguli, the central character in Jhumpa Lahiri’s quietly affecting novel The Namesake. The first child of Ashoke and Ashima, a Bengali couple whose arranged marriage shortly preceded their immigration to the United States, Gogol is named through a series of missteps for a Russian author who has particular significance to his father. As a child, Gogol’s identity is so completely tied to that name that he resists changing it to the one his parents actually intended for him. Only later does his embarrassment at having such an unusual moniker reach the point where he changes it against his family’s wishes to something that he feels will allow him to forge his own path in the world.This is a story that explores many themes connected with the ties that bind people together, including the love, the commitment, and even the estrangements and betrayals that define all personal relationships. While Ashoke and Ashima find themselves caught between two cultures as they make a new life for themselves in a strange land, Gogol and his younger sister Sonia are very much products of the American society, which is the only one they really know. Lahiri’s prose throughout the book is restrained but insightful; she captures beautifully the joys and tensions that exist between all parents and children, while giving the reader a glimpse into some unique aspects of an Indian upbringing. She is a talented writer who has a lot to say about a subject that, though seemingly foreign in certain details, is ultimately universal.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5read like an over-long short story
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Despite some of the sad and depressing moments, I enjoyed this book, learning about Indian and Bengali culture, and observing both American and Indian culture through the eyes of natives and non-natives. Being familiar with at least the basic themes from Nikolai Gogol's "The Overcoat" will help with understanding some of the issues at hand. Not always cheerful, but a good view of human nature from several cultural standpoints. Recommended.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved this book and this author!