The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri: Book Review

The Namesake, written by Jhumpa Lahiri, explores many aspects of immigrant families, but mainly addresses identity. The title itself, leads one to believe that this novel is about identity, a name being one of the main things someone identifies themselves with. From food to relationships, this novel delves deeply into the minds and hearts of the Ganguli family. Through their experiences the reader is shown the perspective of Ashima Ganguli and Gogol Ganguli and how they deal with and form their identities.

It may be a strange notion to believe, but food truly has a great deal to do with identity. Every culture has a food for something; chicken soup for a cold, grilled cheese for homesickness, comfort foods and celebratory foods, birthday cakes and Christmas cookies. Food is tied in with our emotions, our memories and experiences. Some foods we know make us sick or are our favorites. The smell of a food can evoke a memory; can make us feel welcomed in a foreign place. Whatever the case, food is important to people all around the world. In The Namesake we see the topic of food run throughout. For instance, the first page of the novel opens up with the mention of food;

"On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen...combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green chili pepper, wishing there was some mustard oil to pour into the mix...a humble approximation of the snack sold for pennies on Calcutta sidewalks...in India" (1).

Ashima is living in Massachusetts, far removed from her home in Calcutta. She is alone in her apartment most days while her husband is studying at MIT. Ashima is in a new country, in a new house. She speaks a small amount of English and has no friends or relatives in America, let alone Massachusetts. So, Ashima does what she can to make herself literally "feel at home". She finds the closest thing to a sort of puffed rice, which is the Rice Krispies, she combines as many ingredients she can find at the market and makes the snack she is used to eating in India. Although she is missing some ingredients and uses substitutions for others, Ashima creates a food that makes her feel comfortable. In her new life, this snack can bring her closer to India and make her feel connected to her family and home. Food is very powerful here, physically comforting Ashima and keeping her connected to her family and lifestyle in India. It is also reinforcing Ashima's identity. She is an Indian woman who is used to certain customs, foods and traditions of her homeland. Her carrying on these traditions, even when removed from home, shows that her identity is tied closely with the traditions of India.

As time passes, the Ganguli family makes friends with other Bengali families. They gather together at different homes and there they eat and sing. They comfort one another through food and through their commonality of being Indian.

"The wives, homesick and bewildered, turn to Ashima for recipes and advice, and she tells them about the carp that's sold in Chinatown, that it's possible to make halwa from Cream of Wheat...They drink tea with sugar and evaporated milk and eat shrimp cutlets fried in saucepans" (38).

Through food, these Indian housewives can communicate and commiserate. They share ideas on how to create the foods they are used to in India, by using American foods. They find comfort in one another, they find "home" in one another. By continuing on their traditional foods, they are keeping home close to their hearts. They form their own community of Bengali families, sharing their identity through food and friendship.

As Gogol grows up, he finds his own identity. He is being raised in America by Indian parents. He himself is American and so there is a struggle between his parents traditions and his own that he is forming. This is expressed, once again, through food.

"In the supermarket they let Gogol fill the cart with items that he and Sonia, no they, consume: individually wrapped slices of cheese, mayonnaise, tuna fish, hot dogs. For Gogol's lunches they stand at the deli to buy cold cuts, and in the mornings Ashima makes sandwiches with bologna or roast beef. At his insistence, she concedes and makes him an American dinner once a week as a treat, Shake 'n Bake chicken or Hamburger Helper prepared with ground lamb" (65).

Here we see how Ashima and Ashoke are different from their children. While the parents are still holding onto the ideals and traditions of India, the children are taking on the traditions of the land they call home. The lunches and the dinners that the children desire are the cultural norms of America while the Indian foods that the parents desire are the cultural norms of their home in India. These foods define, in a way, who they are. It separates the children from the parents, while simultaneously including them in separate groups to identify with; Americans and Indians.

Another example of how food influences identity is when Gogol is taken in with open arms by Maxine's parents. Every single one of their traditions is different from his parents. From their house, to their vacations to their food.

"Lydia serves the food on broad white plates: a thin piece of steak rolled into a bundle and tied with a string, sitting in a pool of dark sauce, the green beans boiled so that they are still crisp. A bowl of small, round, roasted red potatoes is passed around, and afterwards a salad. They eat appreciatively, commenting on the tenderness of the meat, the freshness of the beans. His own mother would never have served so few dishes to a guest. She would have kept her eyes trained on Maxine's plate, insisting that she have seconds and then thirds. The table would have been lined with a row of serving bowls so that people could help themselves" (133).

Here we see Gogol's struggle with identity. Maxine's parents are what he has seen as the perfect American life. He is used to his parents Indian influence in every single aspect of his life, down to food. He is shocked by the differences in the foods themselves, the amount, the presentation, comparing how different his mother serves guests. This dinner with Maxine's parents is a huge occurrence for Gogol. He is finally in a "typical" American setting, doing the things that "typical" American families do, eating the food that "typical" American families eat.

When Maxine goes to Gogol's parents home to eat, things are completely different and we can sense Gogol's embarrassment and struggle with his Indian parents.

"..the lunch is set out, too rich for the weather. Along with the samosas, there are breaded chicken cutlets, chickpeas with tamarind sauce, lamb biryani, chutney made with tomatoes from the garden. It is a meal he knows it has taken his mother over a day to prepare, and yet the amount of effort embarrasses him" (148).

Gogol is embarrassed by his parents' Indian traditions. Although it is a part of who they are, and who he is as well, he shuns it because it is not the traditions and customs of his homeland, America.

Another prevalent theme in The Namesake is that of the immigrant identity amongst the generations. We have Ashima and Ashoke who have come from growing up in India and live in a new country, America, and Gogol and Sonia who are their children, who only know growing up in America. Gogol struggles with his identity and being Indian and American at the same time.

We see this struggle when Gogol is a young boy and the letters on his mailbox are crudely re-arranged. Gogol is hurt by the prank, hurt that because his parents are different looking and have different customs that they should be picked on. "For by now he is aware, in stores, of cashiers smirking at his parents' accents, and of salesmen who prefer to direct their conversation to Gogol, as though his parents were either incompetent or deaf" (67-68). Gogol takes the prank to heart. He feels as though his name and family are being targeted because they are Indian. When Ashoke responds "'It's only boys having fun'" Gogol can't understand why it's not a big deal to his father. Because his parents are different, he feels as though this is why they are the victim of a prank.

Gogol struggles with keeping his parents customs and forging his own. When he is fourteen he is defiant against some of his parents' traditions.

"Lately he's been lazy, addressing his parents in English though they continue to speak to him in Bengali. Occasionally he wanders through the house with his running sneakers on. At dinner he sometimes uses a fork" (75).

Gogol resists his parents' traditions for several reasons. One being that the lack of communication between the parents and the children causes tension and misunderstanding. Gogol does not understand his parents' traditions and therefore sees no reason for them. He resists their traditions because he wants to fit in and be like his peers. He wants to be like every other American teenager and does not understand the value to his parents' traditions and so resists them.

Gogol defines his identity in many ways. One of those ways is by knowing what he is not. When he attends an Indian panel discussion he feels bored and confused. They mention ABCD's which stands for "American-born confused deshi" and Gogol realizes that he sees India not as a homeland, but "as Americans do, as India". (118). His disconnectedness towards India and his Indian-American peers shows Gogol's conflict. He feels neither fully American, nor fully Indian. He cannot completely relate to either one. He won't join the Indian association at school because "he can think of no greater hypocrisy than joining an organization that willingly celebrates occasions his parents forced him, throughout his childhood and adolescence to attend" (119). He realizes the conflict within himself. He is struggling between being Indian and being American. Amidst these confusions, lies Gogol's identity.

Through all of Gogol's life he resists his parents' traditions. From being embarrassed by the meals they make, to trying to make their family life more American, Gogol struggles with his identity. At the end of The Namesake, Gogol comes to terms with who he is.

"He wonders how his parents had done it, leaving their respective families behind, seeing them so seldom ...Gogol knows now that his parents had lived their lives in America in spite of what was missing...He had spent years maintaining distance from his origins; his parents, in bridging that distance as best they could" (281).

Gogol sees his life and his parents in a new perspective. He sees that it must have been hard for them to be uprooted from India and form a new life in America. He sees how he himself tried to distances himself from them and their customs. But it is only in that distance, that Gogol finds out who he is. Though his parents were not verbal about their customs and own upbringing, Gogol puts the pieces together as he matures. He realizes that his identity has been formed through the resistance and the misunderstandings to form a bigger, better view of his world. He is a little of everything he has experienced. His struggle with his name, his struggle with being Indian or being American, and his struggle with his embarrassment of his parents' customs. All of these struggles between being Indian and being American influence who Gogol is.

All of these influences, whether it is food or being caught between two nationalities, make the characters who they are. Their identities are influenced and shaped by the customs and traditions they believe in, or resist, and the experiences they live through. Truly The Namesake captures the essence of the immigrant identity and the struggles that come along with leaving one's homeland and adapting to a new life in every aspect.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Mariner Books, 2004.