Rating: 
Summary: A travel Read- not very memorable
Review: I enjoy Lahiri's Short story work. The Namesake is NOT a short story- it is a novel, and was a bit disappointing. The namesake is a little too tedious in detail that Lahiri is used to using in her short stories. Also this book makes me feel as if she was running out of time or something so rushed in some places, but then there were other spots in the book where she just dragged on and on about nothing much. This isnt a problem she would have in a short story. There's not time for rushing or dragging, you just have to get it right. I think she bit off more than she could chew where as this novel is concerned. She is a much better short story writer than a novel writer.
Rating: 
Summary: An ample successor to "Interpreter"
Review: Having thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Lahirhi's Pulitzer winner "Interpreter of Maladies," I eagerly awaited her 2nd book. After finishing it, I must say that it is both different than her previous work and very much its own work of art. Indian displacement is still very much apparent, though this time its trapped inside the symbolism of Gogol/Nikhil Ganguli's sense of alienation due to his name. Not much happens here in terms of plot- it is essentially about a man living out a quiet life and how is influenced by those around him- but Lahiri's amazing prose and empathy for her characters make it a very entertaining read. My only complaint is that I did not sometimes understand why certain events in the story were mentioned. *Spoiler alert* Why was there such an emphasis on the affair the wife had? An emphasis on the mother's loneliness? I think a deeper probe into the mind of Gogol himself would have made me understand his "Namesake" a little more completely. Nonetheless, this novel is great stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Lyrical prose and vivid imagery
Review: Jhumpa Lahiri's debut novel is every bit as wonderful as her collection of short stories. Sensitively written with remarkable descriptive power, this book establishes Lahiri as one of the best young writers of our time.Through the eyes of Gogol Ganguli and his parents, we see experience almost firsthand the Indian-American immigrant experience. As a young first generation Indian immigrant myself, I can vouch for the dazzling accuracy of Lahiri's descriptions. Page after page the prose is lyrical and the word-pictures brightly vivid. There is never a dull moment nor a superficial one. A beautiful and heartfelt book- I recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: good writing...fair story
Review: "The Namesake" is smooth and elegant and a quick read, but somewhat unsatisfying. Ashima, and particularly Ashoke,the parents of the title character, Gogol(later called Nikhil)are depicted stereotypically as a couple born in India that choose to come to America in the 1970's. They are not sufficiently fleshed out as individuals.
Gogol is given his unique name because his father was reading Gogol's "Overcoat" instead of sleeping, during a horrible night train crash in India, and this fact saved his life. As a form of tribute to Gogol, the author, Ashoke, waiting with his wife for a prospective name to arrive from her grandmother for their newborn son, put Gogol's name on the birth certificate The main character being a few years older than his sister, Sonia, experiences most of the frustrations and difficulties his parents have of trying to adjust to life in America and equivocates in all of his personal relationships between the life he is rebelling against and the life his parents would like him to live. He is, in effect, stymied by his Indian heritage and cannot live comfortably in either world. At the end, he tries to reconcile his dilemma as he begins to read Gogol's "Overcoat" which he found among his mother's boxes as she prepares to sell her house. We are left with the author's hope for a better life for Gogol/Nikhil. The writing is full of beautiful descriptive passages and the author persistently turns a gorgeous phrase, but the story feels pat and predictable.
Rating: 
Summary: "Namesake" is an exercise in name-dropping
Review: "The Namesake" was a marvelous short story when it appeared recently in the New Yorker. Unfortunately, it should have stayed a short story. As a novel, it simply doesn't work. The first half of the book (which contains much of the material that appeared in the New Yorker) is an interesting and intriguing meditation on the extent to which our names shape our identity. The central character is named Gogol, after the Russian writer, and he grows up to hate his name and all that it represents. As soon as he reaches adulthood, he changes it legally to Nikhil. Interestingly, the moment he changes his name he seems to lose all semblance of personality, and so does the book. From that point onwards the narrative becomes a tedious and pretentious exercise in name-dropping--of Ivy League schools, trendy New York eateries and neighborhoods, and expensive foods and wines. There is Asiago cheese and spaghetti alle vongole, Merlot and Chianti, steak rolled in bundles. The narrative meanders aimlessly, interspersed by dull affairs and stock plot devices. Two characters drop dead of sudden heart attacks, and a third of an aneurism. A woman breaks off her engagement by throwing her ring into a traffic jam, and is slapped in return. And it's a minor point, but maybe the book's copy editors were so charmed by Ms. Lahiri's prose that they failed to notice that the hero "wretches" into a tiny metal basin on page 179. I certainly did. I felt like "wretching" myself--with boredom. In her collection "Interpreter of Maladies," Jhumpa Lahiri showed tremendous promise as a short story writer. She would do well to stick to her earlier chosen metier in the future, too.
Rating:
Summary: A book to be savored
Review: If you ever thought your own life was too boring to write a book about, think again. Jhumpa Lahiri has proven that any life can be the subject of a bestselling novel, so long as ordinary events and relationships are examined with loving care and attention to the most subtle of emotions. I fell in love with every single character in The Namesake, perhaps because I could relate so much to the immigrant and 1st generation American-born experience, and because so many of Gogol's (the protagonist) perspectives and reactions resonated within me. But not every writer can pull this off -- for example, Amy Tan's books have always annoyed me because they don't do justice to the Chinese-American experience, while trying so hard to do just that. Lahiri doesn't seem to be trying at all; every sentence is so artfully yet simply constructed. Don't read this book looking for action or adventure, or waiting for some plot twist. Instead, read this book as if you were reading your own journal entries -- if only you were so lucky to have flawlessly recorded and expressed the emotions surrounding each and every exerience of your life. Some fault this book, citing that "nothing happens". How wrong are they, for in The Namesake, "life happens".
Rating:
Summary: Great story, and wonderful writing
Review: I am a huge fan of Lahiri's previous work Interpreter of Maladies and so I could not wait until this came out. I finished it in 2 days. Lahiri never disappoints with her bautiful, smooth and simple style of writing. I was a little dissapointed by some of the "rushing" that took place in some of the chapters, because of this rushing some of the characters werent developed as completely as they couldve been. Its a good story and lahiri is a master story teller, but if you want to read a work that defines her- go to interpreters.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, But Unmoving
Review: I read the Namesake for a book club amid the normal hype that a pulitzer prize winning author receives and I found myself anticipating that SOMETHING interesting would happen. It never did. I kept reading hoping something serious or dramatic would ocurr. But it didn't. Although the writing was eloquent and clear, the plot lacked the feeling and emotion that would have made me truly enjoy the book and embrace the characters. The ending of the book also seemed rushed. In short, this book is well written but unemotional and unmoving.
Rating:
Summary: I Hate This Book
Review: Honestly, I hated this book. The reviewer who said Lahiri is a short story writer who tried to stretch one (short story) into a novel is correct. Right on the money. While Lahiri's prose is cool and controlled in "The Namesake," it is also flat and the book is just plain boring, trite and so cliched. I hated every minute I spent reading it. Everything was flat, everything was so...blah. I hated this book from the first page to the last and I won't be reading Lahiri again. I think she's just a boring writer with very little to say. If any of her characters really do resemble real people, I don't want to know them. Blah.
Rating:
Summary: Truth to this story...
Review: First, if you are familiar with "Interpreter of Maladies," it is important to realize that this is a strikingly different book. While "Interpreter" focused on events in people's lives, "The Namesake" is about Gogol's life. The story jumps from one formative experience to the next, often skipping years in Gogol's life. It it the collection of these events that defines who he is. Impressively, Ms. Lahiri resists the common mistake that most writer make - she does not tell us the lesson of the story and lets us decide what Gogol has learned, what kind of man he has become, and why, in the end, he has decided to read "The Overcoat." Second, some reviewers have commented that this story does not related to the modern Indian-American experience. I beg to differ. Some of Gogol's experiences hit a little too close to home. Gogol's stories do relate to the experiences that *some* (perhaps not *all*) American born Indian-Americans and probably many (non-Indian) Americans endure as they grow up in this country. You will enjoy this book if you let the story speak for itself.
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