Be Specific About Books In Pursuance Of The Namesake
| Original Title: | The Namesake |
| ISBN: | 0618485228 (ISBN13: 9780618485222) |
| Edition Language: | English URL http://hmhtrade.com/bookclubs/discussion-guides/the-namesake-by-jhumpa-lahiri/ |
| Characters: | Ashoke Ganguli, Ashima Ganguli, Gogol/Nikhil Ganguli, Sonia/Sonali Ganguli, Maxine, Moushumi Mazoomdar |
| Literary Awards: | Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction Longlist (2004) |
Jhumpa Lahiri
Paperback | Pages: 291 pages Rating: 3.99 | 225802 Users | 11382 Reviews
Define Of Books The Namesake
| Title | : | The Namesake |
| Author | : | Jhumpa Lahiri |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 291 pages |
| Published | : | September 1st 2004 by Mariner Books (first published 2003) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. India. Contemporary. Literary Fiction. Novels. Literature. Book Club |
Chronicle Concering Books The Namesake
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the very few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it received were the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest critical praise for its grace, acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America. In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail — the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase — that opens whole worlds of emotion. The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. 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 betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves.Rating Of Books The Namesake
Ratings: 3.99 From 225802 Users | 11382 ReviewsJudgment Of Books The Namesake
Book subtitle: I will write down everything I know about a certain family of Bengali immigrants in the United States by Jhumpa Lahiri.Immigrant anguish - the toll it takes in settling in an alien country after having bidden adieu to ones home, family, and culture is what this prize-winning novel is supposed to explore, but it's no more than a superficial complaint about a few signature and done to death - South Asian issues relating to marriage and paternal expectations: a clichéd immigrantLahiris Interpreter of Maladies was a collection I admired more than I enjoyed, so Im sorry to say I was apprehensive about reading her first full-length novelbut happy to report that it was an absolutely great experience. The Namesake is one of those books that works so well, so seamlessly, that it's hard to break it down into its various moving parts. I absolutely loved the characters (in fact, I flat-out longed for Gogols sister to have her own book, so intriguing did I find even the minor
I liked the first 40 pages or so. I was very interested in the scenes in India and the way the characters perceived the U.S. after they moved. But soon I found myself losing interest. There were several problems. One is that Lahiri's novelistic style feels more like summary ("this happened, then this, then this") rather than a story I can experience through scenes. The voice was flat, and this was exacerbated by the fact that it's written in present tense. I never emotionally connected to these
We first meet Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli in Calcutta, India, where they enter into an arranged marriage, just as their culture would expect. Ashoke is a professor in the United States and takes his bride to this foreign country where they try to assimilate into American life, while still maintaining their distinctly Bengali identities. When their first child is born, a son, they are awaiting a letter from Ashimas grandmother telling them his name, which she is to have selected. In the absence of
No second thought at all: this book is well-written.It has all the elements of a good novel: tight intriguing plot, show don't tell, memorable characters that you can't help but empathize with and it teaches us a thing or two about being marginalized if not discriminated or alienated because we are different from most of the people we find ourselves with. I am living in the country where I was born but I have two siblings who are now living in the West (older brother in California and older
The Namesake, Jhumpa LahiriThe Namesake (2003) is the first novel by American author Jhumpa Lahiri. It was originally a novel published in The New Yorker and was later expanded to a full-length novel. It explores many of the same emotional and cultural themes as her Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection Interpreter of Maladies. Moving between events in Calcutta, Boston, and New York City, the novel examines the nuances involved with being caught between two conflicting cultures with
After finishing the Namesake, my thoughts were drawn to my last roommate in college, an Indian woman studying for her PHD in Psychology. When I first moved in, she had just broken up with her white boyfriend. It never would have worked out anyway she had cried. By the end of that same year she was flying of to Houston to be wed to a man she had only seen once, a marriage arranged by their parents. Many nights my other roommate (an exchange student from Berlin) and I would sit out on the balcony
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