(Spoilers)
For our discussion on Tuesday, May 16, 2017, the Banned Book Club selected The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. It's about two generations of an Indian family who immigrate from India to the United States right after the older of the two generations gets married. The copyright pages mentions that "A portion of this book appeared in slightly different form in The New Yorker." Most of the book takes place in either the Boston area or in New York City. It consists of three parts: 1: 1968, 2: 1994, and 3:2000. Lahiri wrote much of the book in the present tense, especially what occurs during the years indicated by each part of the book. But other time periods of the characters' lives are covered by flashbacks. The book is about cultural differences, growing up, and looking back at your origins.
I feel that the book reveals much about Indian culture. After Ashoke is injured in a train crash in India, his mother works "in the kitchen, checking on him periodically, her lap stained with turmeric." (p. 19) I can relate because I know that turmeric stains easily. When Gogol is a baby, his parents and their friends hold a ceremony to predict his future path in life. Gogol "is offered a plate holding a clump of cold Cambridge soil dug up from the backyard, a ballpoint pen, and a dollar bill, to see if he'll be a landowner, scholar, or a businessman … but Gogol touches nothing." (p. 40) When they visit India, Gogol laments that "Apart from visiting relatives there is nothing to do in Calcutta." (p. 84) "At Benares station, Sonia asks her father to buy her a piece of jack-fruit, which makes her lips itch unbearably, then swell to three times their size." (p. 89) Back in the U.S., Gogol knows "that deshi, a generic word for 'countryman' means 'Indian.'" He also knows that "his parents and all their friends always referred to India simply as desh." (p. 122)
Gogol's parents have some difficulties with American culture. They wait for their grandmother to send her choice for the name of their first born but learn that "in America, a baby cannot be released from the hospital without a birth certificate." (p. 27) Later, a young woman calls Ashima and tells her that, "the patient, Ashoke Ganguli, her husband, has expired … Expired. A word used for library cards, for magazine subscriptions. A word which for several seconds, has no effect whatsoever on Ashima." (p. 168)
The book contains a few relatable references. When she is in school in India, Ashima is asked "to recite a few stanzas from 'The Daffodils.'" (p. 9) That poem by Laker William Wordsworth is one of my favorites. When Gogol and Maxine go to her parents' lake house, "At first, there is no house visible, nothing but large lime-colored ferns covering the ground." (p. 154) Moushimi has an "old Modern Library edition of The Red and the Black." (p. 259) We discussed that book for Classics Book Club in August 2017.
I enjoyed the references to Russian literature that are central to the book's title and theme. Gogol gets his nickname and later what he goes by as a child from Nicholai Gogol who wrote the famous Russian short story "The Overcoat." I read the story to supplement reading The Namesake and found it very sad with some humor. T.C. Boyle wrote an updated version "The Overcoat II" that appeared in T.C. Boyle Stories. Gogol's father, Ashoke, enjoys Russian Literature as a young person in India. "It was while walking on some of the world's noisiest, busiest streets, on Chowringhee and Gariahat, that he read pages of The Brothers Karamazov, and Anna Karinina, and Fathers and Sons." (p. 12-13) From what little Gogol knows about Russian writers, "it dismays him that his parent chose the weirdest namesake." (p. 79) Gogol doesn't read "The Overcoat" because he believes that reading it "would pay tribute to his namesake, accepting it somehow." (p. 96)
While visiting an old cemetery as a student, Gogol notices the names on the headstones: "Peregrine Wotton, D. 1699. Ezekiel and Uriah Lockwood, Brothers, R.I.P. He likes the names, likes their oddness, their flamboyance … until now it has not occurred to Gogol that names die over time, that they perish just people do." (p. 73) I noticed that the author still referred to him as Gogol even after he changed his name to Nikhil as an adult. He later falls asleep on a train, "using his overcoat as a blanket pulled up to his chin." (p. 279) His father was reading "The Overcoat" when the trainwreck occurred. Gogol asks him, "Is that what you think of when you think of me? Do I remind you of that night?" "'Not at all,' his father says eventually, one hand on his ribs, a habitual gesture that has baffled Gogol until now. 'You remind me of everything that followed.'" (p. 124)
In 2016, The Namesake was recommended for removal from the curriculum by the ad-hoc literature committee of the Coeur d'Alene (ID) School District because it contained "descriptions of sexual conduct that are too explicit for high school seniors." I think we had a decent "Christ party" of 8-10 on Tuesday, May 16. Most people liked the book and one person was hoping that Gogol and Moushimi's relationship would work out. I was less surprised because Moushimi had concealed her desire to move to France. We liked how the book picked a few moments in time and filled the gaps between them with flashbacks. Some talked about Indian immigrants they knew in the Bay Area. Someone suggested the book White Teeth by Zadie Smith. For the "next next" discussion in July we chose A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.
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