Rating: 
Summary: The best book I've read in the last year.
Review: As soon as I heard about this book, it struck a chord in me being a 1st generation American struggling with my own identity issues, I had to have it. It was beautifully written and pulled me in from the beginning, the birth of Gogol. Following Gogol's adventures as he struggled to find himself and happiness, the reader easily feels as though they're right in that living room with the Bengali feasts spread in front of them, or next door watching as someone dies or someone gets hurt and just trying to help the Ganguli family through the pain. At times, the writing jumps around and you're left with questions, answered a few pages later. But all in all, a wonderful, heartfelt read that helped me on the way to figuring out how to be comfortable with where I'm from and where I'm headed. I am recommending it to everyone young and old, with identity questions or contentedly settled into their own lives.
Rating: 
Summary: Two Thumbs Up
Review: Of the recent books my wife and I have both read (she insists we both read them so we can compare - not what I thought of when I said let's keep the marriage interesting, but so be it), there have been a few that we both thought were good. One of the books we agree on is NAMESAKE. We both agree that the writing meanders a little too much to be one we'd consider one of our "great books" but the writing is good and the story is very interesting. The fact that we agree at least that it is a "good book" does say a lot. There are only three books we've agreed on in months and months that we both consider "great" (SECRET LIFE OF BEES, MY FRACTURED LIFE, and THE DA VINCI CODE). Our agreement of NAMESAKE being a "good book" is high praise and can be taken as a thumbs up recommendation by us both.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable
Review: I enjoyed this book. Lahiri's writing is beautiful and lives up to the promise of her previous book of short stories. This is not an exciting book, it is not gripping or a page turner, but is a well-written story of an immigrant's life. She makes the ordinary beautiful and moving.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful and Moving Novel
Review: Lahiri's writing is quite beautiful and simple. This novel is in the present tense and her attention to the details of her characters' lives is effective and poignant. So often in contemporary novels the characters are either unlikable or unbelievable - the events described disturbing or outrageous. This novel suffers neither fault. It would be difficult not to become attached to the members of this family or to read this novel without being haunted by images from their lives.
Rating:
Summary: ¿It has always felt adopted, an accident of circumstance"
Review: The Namesake is an absolutely gorgeous novel, full of intelligent, detailed, and meticulous insights into the inner thoughts of the Indian immigrant and the nature of man. The universal themes of the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation and the tangled ties between generations are woven with an accomplished ease into the story of Gogol Ganguli, and his efforts to come to terms with his family's Indian background, and his own life as an "American." The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their life in Calcutta and traces their new life as immigrants in America from 1968 to 2000. After an arranged marriage, Ashoke and Ashima settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The first part of the story is told through Ashima's eyes - the pining for her home and family, the unfamiliar food, the cold winters, the strange language, and the expectation that she has to conform, and to become "western." Half way through the novel, the story arc switches, and Ashima and Ashoke's son Gogol becomes the center of the narrative. Lahiiri effortlessly imparts the inner thoughts of Gogol, as he stumbles through a first generation path strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and tragic love affairs. There are some wonderful moments of comic drama, particularly when Gogol fraught with tension and rebellion against his background, seeks to have his name changed. And there's also a particularly nice moment, where Gogol meets Maxine, an upper middleclass Manhattan girl, who together with her parents, envelops him with intellectualism and culture, in a subconscious effort to "westernize" him. There are so many expectations on Gogol. Like the rest of their Bengali friends, his parents expect him to be, if not an engineer, then a doctor, a lawyer, or an economist at the very least. These were the fields that bought them to America, his father repeatedly reminds him, "the professions that have earned them security and respect." Gogol is caught between the vexed results of bringing old ways to a new world, and he is constantly suffering and reminded of the burden of his heritage. Lahiri is completely focused and is in complete control of her narrative; she never lets the storyline falter, and she maintains the drama throughout. The Namesake is a sensitive, fiercely intuitive and beautifully written piece of work. Michael
Rating:
Summary: The discomfort of feeling alien in familiar surroundings
Review: Gogol, born to Indian immigrant parents in Cambridge, MA, is officially an American. But as he grows into uneasy adulthood, he comes to hate his odd nickname, legally changes it to Nikhil, moves into the NY home of typical American WASPs and begins to live what he hopes is the Good Life. But he cannot transcend his roots, and the pains of being somehow different continue to haunt him.
Not as good as Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, her first book which won the Pulitzer, but a worthy follow-up and a worthy read.
Rating:
Summary: namesake, huge jump forward
Review: I just finished reading this book last night, and though I tried as hard as I could to stretch out the experience, it only lasted a week. I couldn't put it down. This novel is written as the best of Ms. Lahiri's stories in Interpreter of Maladies, and the story was as true to the natural history of immigrant life as I myself have observed, being of Gogol's generation here in America. Anyone interested in this genre, wanting to read the story of legions of Indian Americans, will really enjoy this book. (I hope!)
Rating:
Summary: The beauty and complexity of ordinary lives
Review: Namesake is the story of a boy named Gogol, the son of Bengali parents who emigrate from India to Massachusetts after his father has a life changing event that inspires him to leave his home in India. When Gogol has the misfortune to have his family pet name, "Gogol" adopted as his "good name", he spends much of his youth explaining the reason that an Indian-American boy is named after a Russian author. Namesake is fundamentally about ordinary relationships and the often futile attempts we make to connect with one another. Like Lahiri's short stories, there is a certain melancholy to this story as we follow Gogol in various relationships as he searches for an intimacy that he seems unable to obtain. Ironically, his parents -- who meet through an arranged marriage -- seem to have found the kind of intimacy that Gogol longs for. Namesake is also a story of parents and children and the inability of children to see their parents in more than just their role as parents -- to imagine that they had their own hopes and dreams and tragedies. Lahiri is a beautiful writer and has an incredible ability to convey the subtle nuances and complexities of relationships. The reader identifies with her characters' sadness and ultimately their loneliness. This is Lahiri's first novel and it does feel like a string of short stories more than a cohesive whole, but it is still a very worthwhile read and each vignette is beautiful on its own.
Rating:
Summary: The Namesake: Superb Storytelling
Review: With her first novel, Jhumpa Lahiri successfully adapts her writing skills from the short story with the same narrative style that reveals parts of the story through a very specific lens. I find what may be construed as gaps or under developed characterization as the very reason why the story triumphs. Lahiri seems to go out of her way to flood the reader with physical details of her charcters' surroundings and so-called patterns in everyday life, and the focus on such details builds a subtle connection with the reader and characters, based on strong feelings of identification. One may think he/she knows the destiny of the Namesake, Gogol, but may be surprised to discover the outcome in his love life. He is, however, always drawn back to his roots--his father and mother, which I find to be poignantly honest. He may be considered the main character in this novel, but his father and mother are its origins, and Lahiri does a fine job bringing them to life throughout. These familial ties are what holds the story together. Certainly, I am moved by Gogol's life as an adult in New York, as well as mystified by the complicated nature of Moushumi, but the scenes with his parents, both together and alone, are what truly captivate, painting daily struggles with purpose and happiness. When Gogol arrives in Ohio by himself, a momentous turning point lifts and sets the novel in another direction, for the better. For me, Gogol's identity lies mostly with his family, and Lahiri's storytelling honors this.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe she's just better at short stories...
Review: "The Namesake," by the pulitzer prize winning author of "Interpreter of Maladies," is a gorgeously written novel of an Indian family transplanted to America. Lahiri knows her material--she lovingly re-creates Bengali culture, famous for its cuisine and hospitality. She very convincingly portrays the "outsider" in an alien culture, especially through Ashima, Gogol's mother. And her prose is wonderful.
But....I agree with many that this book is more like a string of stories held together by a common character, rather than an integrated whole. Lahiri creates a time and place with breathtaking detail and draws us in--an example is Ashoke's train ride, where he is saved only because someone notices the soft sound of the pages of his book, fluttering in the breeze. Or take the "Maxine" section--Lahiri recreates a sort of WASP heaven, from the magnificent townhouse in New York, the cocktails, the conversations over dinner, to the New Hampshire "camp" deep in the woods with its shabby mismatched decor. But then it just ends--and Gogol moves on, seemingly untouched by the experience. The same with his marriage--we are totally caught up with how this pair meets and falls in love--suddenly we are left puzzled when it ends abruptly out of nowhere.
Lahiri is a wonderful writer and her Pulitzer was well-deserved. The novel falls a little short--but maybe we think so only because the "Interpreter" stories are so great. This author is certainly worth watching as she develops.
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