The Namesake

By: Jhumpa Lahiri

Narrated by: Sarita Choudhury

Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

The Namesake follows the Ganguli family through its journey from Calcutta to Cambridge to the Boston suburbs. Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli arrive in America at the end of the 1960s, shortly after their arranged marriage in Calcutta, in order for Ashoke to finish his engineering degree at MIT. Ashoke is forward-thinking, ready to enter into American culture if not fully at least with an open mind. His young bride is far less malleable. Isolated, desperately missing her large family back in India, she will never be at peace with this new world.

Soon after they arrive in Cambridge, their first child is born, a boy. According to Indian custom, the child will be given two names: an official name, to be bestowed by the great-grandmother, and a pet name to be used only by family. But the letter from India with the child's official name never arrives, and so the baby's parents decide on a pet name to use for the time being. Ashoke chooses a name that has particular significance for him: on a train trip back in India several years earlier, he had been reading a short story collection by one of his most beloved Russian writers, Nikolai Gogol, when the train derailed in the middle of the night, killing almost all the sleeping passengers onboard. Ashoke had stayed awake to read his Gogol, and he believes the book saved his life. His child will be known, then, as Gogol.

Lahiri brings her enormous powers of description to her first novel, infusing scene after scene with profound emotional depth. Condensed and controlled, The Namesake covers three decades and crosses continents, all the while zooming in at very precise moments on telling detail, sensory richness, and fine nuances of character.

©2003 Jhumpa Lahiri (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This production is a treat for the sheer combination of Lahiri's striking, often enchanting descriptions and Choudhury's graceful rendering of them." ( Publishers Weekly)
"This poignant treatment of the immigrant experience is a rich, stimulating fusion of authentic emotion, ironic observation, and revealing details." ( Library Journal)
"This is a fine novel from a superb writer." ( The Washington Post)
"An effortless and self-assured bildungsroman that more than delivers on the promise of... Interpreter of Maladies." ( Book Magazine)

Indian Seinfeld Sans Humor

Seinfeld was a show about nothing. "The Namesake" is a book about nothing. The difference is Seinfeld was replete with nutty characters doing humorous things while this book is a humorless portrayal of a humorless man and his humorless family and their humorless lives. Compare this book to another book of Indian theme--"The Life of Pi" and you get snooze fest versus a riviting tale of survival and imagination. The only thing I can say good about this production is that the reader was brilliantly adept in her execution. She continually had a tenor to her voice that led me to believe that at any minute something was going to happen that would present itself as the arc of the story. Perhaps, she herself was waiting for something to happen. How can this book be so highly touted when it's devoid of the basic elements of a novel? Instead, this book reads more like a series of short stories, none of which ever finds its way.

Beautiful and poignant

This is a beautiful book about the human struggle to both claim and resist family, history, and heritage. Told from the perspective of a second generation American-Bengali boy, Lahiri guides the reader through the universal journey to find oneself. Although the protagonist's heritage is Indian, this is a story with which all Americans can relate. Definitely recommended.

Pleasant and Predictable

Perhaps I was expecting too much, but people told me that Jhumpa Lahiri was a really good writer. i had wanted to listen to her first book, Interpreter of Maladies, but that was not available on Audible at the time I downloaded this. I thought it would be a fine substitute, but I was disappointed.

The writing is nice and pleasant and easy to get through, but I did not find it captivating or beautiful. The plot was predictable and every event in the book was overly foreshadowed by abrupt changes in tone. The themes focusing on the interaction of name and identity and the unique dilemmas faced by 2nd generation Indian Americans were interesting, but dealt with in such a heavy handed fashion. You never found yourself discovering any ideas in this book. They are essentially just told to you.

I did enjoy it. It was nice and a good way to pass the time, but it is nothing terribly substantial.

Very Good Read

Enjoyed this book very much. Appeals to me as I enjoy reading about relationships, watching characters change and learning about other cultures. It isn't The Great Novel, but enjoyable and entertaining.

Great on identity and culture

The story of Gogol is important. How do we get our identities if not from our families, our cultures, our choices? The narrator is superb, adding such an authenticity to my experience that would not have happened if I'd read the book on the written page

The Namesake

Read very well and added to the story with the accents of the different characters. It gave each of them more of a vivid individual personality and gave me a better understanding of the culture differences I wouldn't have gotten reading it silently on my own. Very good.

Stunning

This was more than I expected. I feel in love with the characters and the plot. Beautifully written and narrated.

Excellent Read

A great book, great narration. Real-life characters with real-life emotions. Enjoyed every word!

Wonderful.

Enjoyed this book; the well written characters and the way they make the reader feel at home with them, not as if one is actually reading a book. A sense of presence.

Wonderful, quiet, moving!

I loved listening to this narrator bring to life the extraordinary life of ordinary people. I felt as if I was peaking through a window into the lives of this Bengali family. Ms. Lahiri is an extremely talented writer.