The Namesake

This book narrates the story of the Ganduli family, the Indian parents who moved to the United States to have a better life, and their son Gogol/Nikhil. This diasporic tale revolves around the topic of identity, the notion of 'home' and the cultural crash that the protagonists live in a context totally dissimilar to their original one.

The father, Ashore, teaches at university and his wife Ashima spens her days at home, wearing saris and cooking Indian food everyday. When their first son arrives, they follow the tradition by which an elderly member of the family chooses the baby's name. When the letter with 'the good name' gets lost in the mail, they decide to call him'Gogol'. This name marks the boy as unique, different, 'At times his name, an entity shapeless and weightless, manages nevertheless to distress him physically, like the scratchy tag of a shirt he has been forced permanently to wear.'

The parents also feel they do not fit in this new world they have to inhabbit, feeling discomfort even in their own houses as  'For when Ashima and Ashore close their eyes it never fails to unsettle them, that their children sound just like Americans, expertly conversing in a language that still at times confounds them, in accents they are accustomed not to trust.'

The author beautifully portrays the days of the members of this family, struggling to find a place in a new community, the parents keeping their customs and sorrounding themselves with Indians like them; their children trying to figure out their identities in a position of in transit, in a world in which 'home' is buildibg everyday.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

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