At times he feels as if he’s cast himself in a play, acting the part of twins, indistinguishable to the naked eye yet fundamentally different. At times he still feels his old name, painfully and without warning, the way his front tooth had unbearably throbbed in recent weeks after a filling ... [p. 105]
Ashima is a young bride whose new husband, the rather older Ashoke Ganguli, has brought her to America where he has an academic post. She's pregnant, and terrified of raising a child in a country where she knows nobody and nothing. At least she still has her family back in Calcutta, including her beloved grandmother who'll be choosing the baby's 'good' or official name. Sadly, however, the letter bearing the name goes astray in the post: and then comes the news that the grandmother has died. Unable to leave the hospital without bestowing a name upon the child, Ashoke suggests the name of the writer who changed his life: Nikolai Gogol.
Young Gogol grows up more American than his parents could ever be, though even his mother is adapting, slowly and subtly, to American life. Although Gogol and his sister Sonia are taken on long holidays to India, speak Bengali, and socialise with other Bengali families, they're also completely at home with beefburgers, popular novels and rock music.
Gogol isn't comfortable with his 'weird' name, though, and when Ashoke tries to explain its origin (he narrowly survived a horrific train crash, signalling to rescuers with a page from a book by Gogol) Gogol is uninterested. He officially changes his name to Nikhil, and becomes more and more American, dating white women and turning away from his heritage.
I found this an odd novel: a series of accidents and coincidences that echo and resonate with one another, all the little tragedies of ordinary lives (marriage, divorce, infidelity, death) knitting together to bring Gogol-Nikhil finally to the point where he's ready to accept the gift his father gave him, his original name. The Namesake is a touching depiction of the relationships between Gogol and his parents, and the sense of foreignness that each feels in different ways.
Read for the bonus 'Jhumpa Lahiri' rubric of the Reading Women Challenge 2019 on Goodreads.
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