The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Wow, boring. I have seen this book everywhere over the last year or so. Reviews here, bestseller lists there and every time I’m in the airport there it is. It’s at the movies too! I bought it at Goodwill so at least I did not pay full price for it. It’s the story of a guy named Gogol born outside of Boston to parents from India and his boring, average life where little of consequence and nothing of difficulty seems to happen. Even the things that might have been interesting are told in the drabbest most boring manner possible. Conclusion: Jhumpa is a shite writer.

This book was written to be a movie, there is almost zero inner dialogue. It is simply a listing of happenings in Gogol’s life. Gogol is born, Gogol hangs out in Massachusetts being a toddler with his Mom, Gogol goes to story hour, Gogol goes to kindergarten. His parents attempt to give him a public name, interesting? Nope, still boring. Gogol is a good student, Gogol sometimes does not connect with his parents, Gogol’s parents have parties where they serve Indian food and invite other immigrant Bengali’s.

This is similar to my life, my friend’s lives and every other middle class person who grew up on the east coast and you know what? It’s Boring!

Specific annoyances:

I got the version of the book that has the movie cover, so for the entirety of the book I kept picturing the Indian guy from “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle”. Did that make it better or worse, I don’t know but I’d rather picture characters as their authors write them rather than as they are casted.

Maxine and her family; really are there people like this? People who when their daughters lover moves in with them apparently get offended because his Mom called (two times, scandal!). This could have been his insecurities seeing Maxine’s family as being offended by his Mom calling but I read it as them expecting him to appear into his life with no past, no baggage.

Was this meant to be a story about the struggles immigrant children face growing up in American society? Gogol did not seem to struggle. He went about living his life, becoming an architect, living in NYC, just living life without a care in the world. “Oh no, we had an Indian wedding” but at no point did he or his wife seemed to be fired up to have a traditional American wedding so why the questions after? Even his wife cheating on him, she was as self absorbed as he and neither of them seemed to have any enlightenment on how their actions might affect their lives. Damn, I would have cheated on him too, even with the guy who groped me on the bus while he maybe thought I was sleeping. Gross.

Finally, all the trips to Calcutta but almost nothing demonstrating any sort of culture shock. We went to Calcutta, we came home, we went to the mall, we came home. These characters are cardboard cutouts. Snooze.

Not recommended