The Namesake

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Main Characters: Ashima (Bhaduri) Ganguli; Ashoke Ganguli; Gogol/Nikhil Ganguli; Sonali “Sonia” Ganguli; Moushumi Mazoomdar; Maxine Ratliff Life lessons to learn from The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri| Kaitholil.com". kaitholil.com . Retrieved 2 August 2022. But for me personally, the best part of the novel was Gogol's marriage to his childhood family friend Maushami Muzumdar. The latter is far from a conventional Bengali girl and Gogol is attracted to her individualistic streak and high living. In many ways, Maushami bridges a certain important gap in his mind and presents to him the best of both worlds --- she's Bengali like him, so in a strange way that's a comforting feeling. At the same time, she displays the same excessive, broadminded living of the Americans.

And although I read it in relatively few days I still read it very very slowly. There are a lot of words in this book. There are thousands of Ashimas in America and on behalf of all of them I would like to thank Jhumpa Lahiri for creating this character, who in essence, is all of us. The second important aspect of The Namesake is much like the first: the relationship between names and identities. As the novel’s title implies, the matter of Gogol’s name and his namesake is central to the story. The name “Gogol” complicates Gogol’s childhood identity because it is neither American nor Bengali. Gogol’s rejecting his childhood name in favor of the name “Nikhil” coincides with his attempt to flee everything about his childhood as well. When he calls himself “Nikhil,” Gogol feels like a different person, and he prefers being this other person. Still, the rich history of the name “Gogol” is also part of the heritage Gogol receives from his father—and in the end of the novel, Gogol’s choice to be at peace with his own past is also a choice to begin reading about the original Gogol who changed his father’s life. This change in name and Gogol's going to Yale, rather than following his father's footsteps to MIT, sets up the barriers between Gogol and his family. The distance, both geographically and emotionally, between Gogol and his parents continues to increase. He wants to be American, not Bengali. He goes home less frequently, dates American girls, and becomes angry when anyone calls him Gogol. During his college years, he smokes cigarettes and marijuana, goes to many parties, and loses his virginity to a girl he cannot remember.Time passes. The couple takes a trip to Paris, where Moushumi delivers a paper at a conference. The marriage strains. Moushumi likes spending time with her artistic, Brooklyn friends, whereas Gogol finds them frustrating and selfish. Gogol also resents the specter of Graham, Moushumi’s banker ex-fiancé, who was good friends with the artistic crew Moushumi still adores. Moushumi, feeling confined in the marriage, begins an affair with an old friend, an aimless academic named Dimitri Desjardins. She keeps the affair from Gogol for several months, but eventually Nikhil catches her in a lie, and she admits all to him. They divorce. There had been a long lead-up to this line which ends a chapter. I wondered if I'd missed something significant that would have made the finish line amaze and impress me. But I couldn't bear to wade through the chapter again to find out. The Namesake (2003) is the debut novel by American author Jhumpa Lahiri. It was originally 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 Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection Interpreter of Maladies. The novel moves between events in Calcutta, Boston, and New York City, and examines the nuances involved with being caught between two conflicting cultures with distinct religious, social, and ideological differences. Gogol’s second serious girlfriend. Maxine and Gogol meet in New York, at a party. Maxine represents, for Gogol, a life very different from his own. She lives with her parents downtown, in a beautiful townhouse, and shares their intellectual, cosmopolitan life. Maxine does not always understand Gogol’s family’s traditions, but she tries to, and seems to care genuinely for him. After Ashoke’s death, Gogol pulls away from Maxine, leaving her out of the mourning ceremonies. They soon separate. Ruth

The story begins as Ashok and Ashima Ganguli, a young Bengali couple, leave Calcutta, India, and settle in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ashok is an engineering student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ashima struggles through language and cultural barriers as well as her own fears as she delivers her first child alone. Had the delivery taken place in Calcutta, she would have had the baby at home, surrounded by family. The delivery is successful, but the new parents learn they cannot leave the hospital before giving their son a legal name. Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri was born in London and brought up in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. Brought up in America by a mother who wanted to raise her children to be Indian, she learned about her Bengali heritage from an early age.Gogol is aware of how thoroughly out-of-place and lost his parents would be in this scene above. Social gatherings at his parents’ suburban house when he grew up were day-long weekend events with a dozen Bengali families and their children eating in shifts at multiple tables. His parents acted as caterers seeing to the needs of all the guests while the children ate separately and played, older ones watching the younger ones. There is a great significance in Ashoke’s selection of this name for his son, but Gogol does not know this. All he knows as he grows older is that he has a name that is strange and cumbersome and unwieldy and that he wants a name that blends and reflects his world, not the world of Bengal but the world of America. His name becomes, for him, evidence of his not belonging.

an aimless academic, and Moushumi’s illicit lover. Dimitri met Moushumi when she was in high school and he was applying to PhD programs. Moushumi finds Dimitri’s information by change, and they begin an affair. Moushumi knows that her tryst with Dimitri is wrong, and that he is something of a slob and a dilettante. But this does not keep her from the affair. Gerald and Lydia Ratliff an illustrator in Calcutta. Ashima’s father dies in Chapter 2, as the family is preparing to return to India to visit. His death is very difficult for Ashima, who feels distant from her family. Ashima’s grandmother urn:lcp:namesakelahi00lahi:epub:c844dd23-8a4a-466c-93f6-dcc8f1a4fa3c Extramarc Cornell University Foldoutcount 0 Identifier namesakelahi00lahi Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t90878z5z Isbn 0618485228 Moving between events in Calcutta, Boston, and New York City, the novel examines the nuances involved with being caught between two conflicting cultures with highly distinct religious, social, and ideological differences.As he is going home for the summer, Gogol's train is suddenly stopped when a man jumped in front of the train. Ashok, waiting at the train station for Gogol, becomes concerned and upon arriving home, finally explains the true significance of Gogol's name. Gogol is deeply troubled by this. After college, Gogol completes a graduate degree at Columbia University and works as an architect in New York City. There, he begins dating a woman named Maxine Ratliff. Although he meets her parents on their very first date, he doesn’t want to bring her to meet his parents. His relationship with Maxine progresses to the point where he moves in with the Ratliffs. When Ashoke accepts a nine-month research appointment in Ohio, Ashima persuades Gogol to visit before his father leaves, and Gogol and Maxine stop by to have lunch with his parents on their way to New Hampshire for a vacation with Maxine’s parents. The different love scenes were captivating. Gogol dated women I saw clearly, women to whom I could attach the names of friends. He became immersed in the literary and art world through Maxine and her parents, where he learned to relax and enjoy the art of living. He became immersed in the world of language with Moushumi, a woman who was interested in French literature and in finding her own way, her own customs; a woman who wanted to read, travel, study in France, entertain friends, explore meaning through the written word; a woman I could relate to. Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and later received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989. She then received multiple degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, an M.A. in Creative Writing, an M.A. in Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She took up a fellowship at Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two years (1997-1998).

At a party, Gogol meets an outgoing girl named Maxine, with whom he begins a relationship. Maxine's parents are financially well off and live in a four-story house in New York City, with one floor occupied entirely by Maxine. Gogol moves in with them, and becomes an accepted member of her family. When Maxine's parents visit her grandparents in the mountains of New Hampshire for the summer, they invite Maxine and Gogol to join them.Setting (place) In and around New England and the Northeast: notably the Boston area, New Haven, and New York City This book tells a story which must be familiar to anyone who has migrated to another country - the fact that having made the transition to a new culture you are left missing the old and never quite achieving full admittance into the new. In fact a feeling of never quite belonging to either.