The Namesake: A Novel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri brilliantly illuminates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations. Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity from “a writer of uncommon elegance and poise.” (The New York Times)
Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world — conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.
"Dazzling...An intimate, closely observed family portrait."—The New York Times
"Hugely appealing."—People Magazine
"An exquisitely detailed family saga."—Entertainment Weekly
Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world — conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.
"Dazzling...An intimate, closely observed family portrait."—The New York Times
"Hugely appealing."—People Magazine
"An exquisitely detailed family saga."—Entertainment Weekly
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Readers say *The Namesake* by Jhumpa Lahiri is beautifully written with vivid descriptions and richly drawn characters, especially the immigrant paren...
This book was a DNF for me.
After reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth which was a collection of short stories, my experience with her first novel, The Namesake fell flat. I tried not giving up midway but it was excruciatingly detailed without leaving much for imagination.
My mom gave this to me and told me that she never wanted it to end so it took her a week to finish the ending! I'm excited to read it.
A deep, richly developed story of a family’s transition, pivoting around the quietly critical detail of one single name. The way Lahiri unfolds the story worked beautifully, I thought, and I felt connected to each of her characters throughout. The pace was quite deliberate, and I could see how it might not be for everyone, but for me it worked beautifully.
So many plot twists through the story of Gogol Ganguli and his family. Enjoyed this more than I thought I would.
The prose was exquisite but not too heavy on the other hand it wasn't too simple or too common, and the flow of the language and the description were perfect. The vivid imagery of Kolkata and the immigrant experiences were so to the point, that it felt like unfolding like a picture book to me. Now onto the plot - it started very pleasant with strong promise but after chapter 10 it seemed to lose its potential and weakly developed, the ending was half baked but I do think she painted some of the mundane things very interestingly here. I would've loved to see more solid plot progression. The readability is top-notch though, I completed the whole thing in one sitting.
3. 5 stars from me.
3. 5 stars from me.
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