The Namesake

This book was really good. It centered on the child of two recently immigrated Indian parents, Gogol Ganguli. He was given the name because it commemorated a tragic accident his father had been in - and survived - and his father's favorite author, Nikolai Gogol. (I keep wanting to type Google!) It kind of follows the family as Gogol grows and tries to distance himself from his heritage and, at times, his family.

It was a very educational book for me - I didn't grow up in a place where there were a lot of ...um, not white people (shout out - Yeah Elizabethtown!) I don't know that I've ever *really* pondered what it must be like for a first generation immigrant family. This was a book where I feel like I got a glimpse of that struggle. For his parents, Ashima and Ashoke, their struggle was being so far away from the family and friends they grew up with. Additionally, watching their children grow up in America, as Americans, embracing Christmas as a secular holiday, and have a world of opportunities and be exposed to a world of vices they did not have themselves. For Gogol, it was being torn between his parents' traditional and stifling Bengali traditions which didn't integrate easily into his Americanized life and the normal kidhood everyone strives to have. But he struggled to fit in with others because his confidence was stunted because of his name and unclear identity. At one point in the book, they talk about ABCD's - American-born Confused Deshis, which seemed really appropriate to Gogol's struggle.

Gogol's name was a very central character in this book. It made me wish I knew more about the original Gogol...but he's a Russian author and I have a feeling it'd be boring :) Essentially, he grew up a child in America with a Russian first name and an Indian last name and was totally ashamed of both, leading to some identity issues and a surprising amount of soul searching. I'll definitely think twice before I saddle a kid with a weird name!!!!

Parts of the book dragged... and until the *very* end I really didn't know if I was going to come away with a positive overall view of the book. But the end was really moving and really fitting and satisfying.

A quote I liked from near the end, as Gogol is going through his childhood room and reminiscing on the events of his life:

"...And yet these events have formed Gogol, shaped him, determined who he is. They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end." - p 287