The Namesake

by Jhumpa Lahiri

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Table of Contents

The Namesake

About the Book.................................................... 3

About the Author ................................................. 4
“That’s the thing
Historical and Literary Context .............................. 6 about books. They
Other Works/Adaptations ..................................... 8
let you travel
Discussion Questions............................................ 9
Additional Resources .......................................... 10 without moving your
Credits .............................................................. 11 feet.”
Preface
What's in a name? For Gogol Ganguli, American-born of
Bengali parentage bearing a Russian writer's surname, this
question is neither easily answered nor easily dismissed.
Straddling two generations, two cultures, and with two first
names, Gogol moves through life with a sense he never
quite fits in. His quiet angst and personal questioning almost
derail him, careening–like the train that links him to his
father and his destiny—from relationship to relationship.
Jhumpa Lahiri's understated exploration of identity and
cultural assimilation in The Namesake illuminates for us all
the question "Who am I?," while bringing alive the colors, What is the NEA Big Read?
flavors, and textures of immigrant Indian life in America. A program of the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA Big
Read broadens our understanding of our world, our
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designed around a single book.
A great book combines enrichment with enchantment. It
awakens our imagination and enlarges our humanity. It can
offer harrowing insights that somehow console and comfort
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About the Book
Introduction to Major Characters in the Book
the Book Ashoke Ganguli
A father and mother, a son A Bengali man who comes alone to the U.S. to study
and daughter: two generations electrical engineering. Weds Ashima Bhaduri via an arranged
of a typical Bengali–American marriage in Calcutta. Father of Gogol and Sonia, a dedicated
family, poised uneasily atop but undemonstrative family man with a lifelong attachment
the complex and confounding to Russian literature.
fault lines common to the Ashima Ganguli
immigrant experience. Jhumpa Journeys alone to the U.S. shortly after marrying Ashoke.
Lahiri's novel The Namesake Caring mother to Gogol and Sonia; stays in close touch with
deftly demonstrates how the her family in India and maintains a growing network of
familiar struggles between new Bengali friends and neighbors, as her family moves from city
and old, assimilation and to city for Ashoke's career. At the end of the novel she
cultural preservation, striving bifurcates her life to spend time in the U.S. with her children
toward the future and longing for the past, play out in one and in India with her family of origin.
particular set of foreign-born parents and their American-
Gogol Ganguli
born children.
The "namesake" of the title, named after his father's favorite
In the novel's opening pages, Ashima Ganguli, who left India Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852). A first–
to join her husband Ashoke in America, is about to deliver generation Indian American whose uneasiness with his name
their first child, a son. Following Bengali custom, the child is exemplifies his difficulties in fitting in, either to his parents'
to have two names—a pet name, for use only by family and expatriate world or to the world inhabited so comfortably by
close friends, and a "good" name, to be used everywhere his American peers.
else. Almost by mistake, the boy comes to be known as
Sonia Ganguli
Gogol, named for his father's favorite Russian author. In a
Gogol's younger sister, who is less troubled than he by their
harrowing flashback, the reason for Ashoke's attachment to
shared cultural heritage, or by the strictures and oddities of
the Russian writer is revealed.
their household. Her steadiness—a peaceful life with her
Gogol's father embraces their new life, while his mother mother after her father's death, and a happy marriage—
longs for her homeland. As Gogol enters school, they throws Gogol's chronic discomforts into sharper relief.
attempt to convert his unusual name to a more typical one,
Maxine Ratliff
but the boy stolidly rejects the transition, refusing to
The only child of wealthy, urbane New Yorkers, and Gogol's
become, as he thinks of it, "someone he doesn't know."
first post–college girlfriend. Maxine represents so many
Soon he regrets his choice, as the name he's held onto
things that Gogol believes he values: art and music,
seems increasingly out of place.
sophistication, and ease in the world.
The novel's finely wrought descriptions of Bengali food,
Moushumi Mazoomdar
language, family customs, and Hindu rituals draw us deep
Appears first as the book-reading child of a neighboring
inside the culture that Gogol's parents treasure while
Bengali family, noteworthy only because of her aloof air and
highlighting his alienation from it. Gogol finishes school,
deliberate English accent. The adult Moushumi resurfaces as
becomes an architect, falls in love more than once, and
Gogol's love interest and eventual wife. She too stages a
eventually marries, without ever fully embracing his
rebellion against her heritage, living alone in Paris for a time.
heritage. His decades-long unease with his name is a perfect
distillation of the multiple dislocations—cultural, historic, and
familial—experienced by first-generation Americans. At the
novel's climax, when loss compounds loss and Gogol's family
structure is forever changed, he begins to understand, at
least in part, his parents' longing for the past, and the
sacrifices they made to help him be what he is—truly
American.

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About the Author
Jhumpa Lahiri An Interview with Jhumpa Lahiri
(b. 1967) On February 14, 2013, Josephine Reed of the National
Jhumpa Lahiri was born in Endowment for the Arts interviewed Jhumpa Lahiri. Excerpts
London to Bengali émigré from their conversation follow.
parents in 1967. When she Josephine Reed: How would you describe the plot of The
was three, her family moved Namesake?
to South Kingstown, Rhode
Jhumpa Lahiri: It's about the process of becoming
Island, where her father was
American, understanding the ways in which that's possible.
a librarian and her mother a
The heart of the book is about a family's relationship to
teacher.
America and to the change that inevitably happens when a
Like her character Gogol, person leaves one's place of origin and arrives in a new
Lahiri experienced some world, which is very much an American story.
confusion over her name
JR: We see an uncertainty about identity filtering down to
when starting school. Her the next generation in The Namesake, in Gogol.
Jhumpa Lahiri. Photo by Elena
parents tried to enroll her Seibert.
using her "good" names— JL: Gogol is very typical in wanting to be American. I think
most young people just want to conform on some level, and
Nilanjana and Sudeshna—but the teacher insisted that those
were too long, and opted instead for her pet name, Jhumpa. then they stop wanting to conform and maybe become more
Lahiri notes that, "Even now, people in India ask why I'm interesting; but there's a stage of simply wanting to be
publishing under my pet name instead of a real name." accepted and not questioned. [Gogol's parents] may be lost,
and they may be homesick, but they never doubt for a
Lahiri began to write at age seven, sometimes creating short moment where home is—whereas for Gogol that sense of
fiction pieces with her friends during recess. She later wrote home is not fixed because India is not his home, and
for the school newspaper. She received her undergraduate America is not yet his home.
degree from Barnard College, then moved to Boston to
attend Boston University, from which she received three JR: Issues of identity play out in his relationship with his
parents—he sees them as foreign, and that's troubling to
master's degrees—in English, comparative literature, and
creative writing—and a PhD in Renaissance studies. him. Can you talk about some of that tension?

While in Boston, she worked in a bookstore and interned at JL: I can speak maybe just from my own experience. I think
a magazine; she has noted that, had she stayed in New my impulse as a child was to protect my parents from what I
York, she might have been too intimidated to write: "In New perceived as sort of ignorance. But the other emotion was a
York I was always so scared of saying that I wrote fiction. It frustration with them, because I wasn't there to protect
just seemed like, 'Who am I to dare to do that thing here? them; I was their child, and I wanted them to protect me. It
The epicenter of publishing and writers?' I found all that creates a strange dynamic when you speak the language
better than your parents, when you go into stores and
very intimidating and avoided writing as a response."
you're a child and they ask you what kind of washing
Lahiri received a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center machine your parents are interested in because they don't
in Provincetown from 1997 to 1998. In 1998, The New trust your parents to articulate themselves. These kinds of
Yorker magazine published "A Temporary Matter," one of things can be very troubling, they're frustrating, they made
the stories that would appear in her first collection, me angry, they made me sad, they made me overprotective
Interpreter of Maladies. In 2000, the collection won the of my parents, concerned for them and also frustrated that
PEN/Hemingway Award for the year's best fiction debut, and they weren't more seemingly capable.
was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She is the first
Indian-American woman to receive this award. JR: Names, as the title of your book suggests, are
important. Can you explain pet names in the Bengali
In 2003, she published The Namesake, a novel, and followed tradition as opposed to the "good" name?
that in 2008 with a second collection of short stories,
Unaccustomed Earth. Next she wrote The Lowland (2013) JL: I think the pet name is very much connected to one's
and a memoir—written in Italian—In Other Words (2016). formative years and childhood and affection. And one's
Lahiri and her husband Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush have two mother and father would never, ever, ever, ever use
children. anything but a pet name for one's child. You tend to go to

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school with your good name and what ends up happening is
that you've got two names to represent the sort of home
version, the more intimate version, versus the out-in-the-
world, being-educated, working-at-a-job version—the formal
version, as it were, versus the informal.
JR: When Gogol goes to school, his father tells him the
"good" name that he's chosen for him, which is Nikhil.
JL: I think in an American context, it would be doubly
disconcerting to suddenly enter school and be told by your
parents, "Oh, by the way, not only are you going to spend
all day away from us in the company of a teacher you've
never met and don't know, but she's going to call you this
other name." I imagine that would be very distressing to any
child.
JR: Can you touch on the sense of displacement the Ganguli
family experiences?
JL: Gogol's parents appear most at home when they go
back to Calcutta, where there is a certain sort of blissful
abandonment of a...level of anxiety and uncertainty that
they carry with them as foreigners. I think it's impossible,
virtually impossible, to live as a foreigner in any country. No
matter how at ease, affluent, educated, articulate you are.
When it's not your place, it's not your place.

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Historical and Literary Context
The Life and Times 1990s
of Jhumpa Lahiri
 1990: The Census counts more than 450,000 Indian
immigrants living in the U.S.
 1993: Lahiri receives an MFA from Boston University's
1940s
Creative Writing Program.

 1947: British India divided into two sovereign nations,  1999: Lahiri publishes first short story collection,
Interpreter of Maladies.
India and Pakistan.
2000s
1950s

 2000: Interpreter of Maladies wins Pulitzer Prize for

 1950: The Indian government outlaws the caste
Fiction.
system.
 2003: The Namesake published.
 1952: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952,
also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, targets  2006: The Namesake made into a major motion
immigrants who support communism or anarchy. picture directed by Mira Nair.

 1957: Dalip Singh Saund elected the first Indian  2006: Lahiri receives NEA Literature Fellowship.
American voting member of U.S. Congress.
 2007: Bobby Jindal elected the first Indian-American
1960s governor (of Louisiana).
 2008: Lahiri publishes second short story collection,
 1965: U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 Unaccustomed Earth.
liberalizes immigration.
2010s
 1966: Indira Gandhi elected India's Prime Minister.
 1967: Jhumpa Lahiri born in London.  2010: Lahiri serves as consultant to the HBO series In
Treatment.
1970s
 2010: Nikki Haley elected the first Indian-American
female governor (of South Carolina).
 1970: Jhumpa Lahiri and her family move to Rhode
Island.  2012: Lahiri named to the American Academy of Arts
and Letters.
 1970: America's first Hindu temple built in Flushing,
New York.
 1971: East Pakistan becomes Bangladesh

1980s

 1980: The United States Refugee Act of 1980 raises

cap on annual admission of refugees to 50,000 per
year.
 1984: Indira Gandhi assassinated.
 1989: Lahiri graduates from Barnard College.

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The Indian Immigration Experience about her religion and cultural heritage, bringing her country
of origin "into the spotlight" in positive ways.
The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 liberalized
America's immigration laws by replacing quotas based on An Indian immigrant family arriving in the U.S. in 1970
national origin with a greater emphasis on family would have had many more reasons to feel isolated than a
relationships and the need for highly skilled immigrants. family arriving today. The first Hindu temple in the U.S., built
These changes helped accelerate the pace of Indian in Flushing, New York, didn't open until 1970. Today there
immigration to the U.S. Today, Indian Americans are the are hundreds throughout the country, in big cities like
country's third-largest population of Asian ancestry, after Chicago and also in smaller population centers. "Bollywood"
Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans. In 2010 nearly films, Hindu-language movies created in Bombay's thriving
three million Indian immigrants lived in the U.S. film industry, often play in theaters dedicated exclusively to
south-Indian films; the United States is by far the largest
Indian immigrants to the U.S. tend to be highly educated; export market for these movies. The Internet and more
almost 67 percent have at least a bachelor's degree, and accessible telecommunications tools have made it possible
nearly 40 percent have a graduate degree. Indian Americans for families to stay in touch across long distances and many
have a disproportionate presence in professions such as time zones, and the same technologies have exposed
engineering, technology, and medicine. India's vast millions of Americans to Indian cuisine, dress, architecture,
education system produces tens of thousands of engineering and societal customs.
and technology graduates each year, and English is widely
taught in Indian schools. Today, from spices and textiles, to music and art, India is a
visible and vibrant aspect of American life. Due in part to
Prominent Indian-American businessman Vivek Wadhwa decades of successful immigration, India's presence in the
noted in Businessweek that most Indian immigrants arrived U.S. is also recognition of the tremendous contributions
in the U.S. relatively recently, after 1980. He attributes their made by Indian Americans to U.S. business, technology,
success in part to the competitiveness of the Indian education, and culture.
education system, which teaches hard work at an early age.
He also credits the entrepreneurial spirit and acceptance of
other cultures that arise from living in a sprawling, under-
resourced country that includes six major religions and 22
languages.
Indian immigrants who come to the U.S. for higher wages
and broader career options also expect their children to take
full advantage of American education. A 1992-96 study in
California demonstrated that Indian-American students excel
academically, outperforming most other immigrant groups.
But many young Indian Americans also report some degree
of cultural dislocation, deploying the acronym "ABCD," or
"American-Born Confused Desi," to describe themselves and
their experience. (Desi refers to second-generation South
Asians.)
In a 2009 essay contest conducted by the Hindu American
Foundation, one such young writer compares herself to
superheroes like Batman and Wonder Woman, owing to her
"double life" straddling both her parents' distant world and
the Minneapolis suburb where she grew up. She also notes
that Hinduism, as one of the world's oldest religions,
contains elements of many other faiths, and so to be a
Hindu in America is to experience "a melting pot within a
melting pot." Finally, she points out that recent films such as
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
have provided an opportunity for Americans to learn more

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Other Works/Adaptations
Lahiri and Her Other Works statement, "We all come out of Gogol's overcoat," which is
spoken by Gogol's father Ashoke in Lahiri's novel, is in a
Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake, published in 2003, is sense a tribute to the original Gogol, who preceded, and
preceded and followed by two highly acclaimed short story influenced, so many more significant Russian writers.
collections: Interpreter of Maladies (1999) and
Unaccustomed Earth (2008). Throughout all her published works, Lahiri writes in a distinct
and clear manner. In a 2008 interview in The Atlantic, Lahiri
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the says about her writing style, "I like it to be plain. It appeals
PEN/Hemingway Award, Interpreter of Maladies was also to me more… My writing tends not to expand but to
named The New Yorker's Best Debut of the Year, and is on contract."
Oprah Winfrey's Top Ten Book List. Six of the stories are set
primarily in America, while three are set in India. The stories Unlike many of her contemporaries, Lahiri's language is
based in the U.S. focus on themes familiar to readers of The unadorned, even transparent, drawing the reader into the
Namesake: the characters' cultural displacement, their story without calling attention to itself in any way. She
distrust of American society, and the chronic missed consistently eschews big dramatic scenes containing lots of
connections between first- and second-generation Indian action for smaller, more interior moments. Her characters
immigrants. struggle with their internal conflicts—the things they can't
bring themselves to tell their loved ones, or the ways in
Many of Lahiri's stories include an embedded travel which they feel trapped in their own lives.
narrative. Whether transported across the country or around
the world, Lahiri makes her characters' displacements both Although quiet in language and scene, Lahiri's prose is still
universal—most readers grasp how it feels to be in an vivid through the specificity of its details. Food, clothing,
unfamiliar setting—and specific, as their dislocations affect books on a shelf, or a gesture—Lahiri renders each of these
their closest relationships, and their choices about the with such clarity and simplicity that the reader easily finds
future. Lahiri's narrative stance from her characters is often herself inside the world of the story.
slightly distanced; this allows the reader to move seamlessly
from one character to the next as the points of view shift.
Works by Lahiri
Having multiple points of view within one story also helps Fiction
the reader see each character's strengths and flaws.
 Interpreter of Maladies, 1999
The title of Unaccustomed Earth is taken from the first
 The Namesake, 2003
section of The Scarlet Letter, in which the narrator notes
that his children should establish themselves in new soil,  Unaccustomed Earth, 2008
"unaccustomed earth," in order to flourish. The eight stories
 The Lowland, 2013
in this collection, three of which are linked, deal primarily
with Indian Americans born in the U.S. who struggle to Nonfiction
understand the previous generation's attachments to the
 "Cooking Lessons: The Long Way Home" (6
past.
September 2004, The New Yorker)
Despite Lahiri's thematic focus on the Indian immigration
 "Improvisations: Rice" (23 November 2009, The
experience in her writing, she does not note any Indian
New Yorker)
writers, or works about the immigrant experience, directly
affecting her. When asked in interviews about her influences  "Reflections: Notes from a Literary Apprenticeship"
from prior generations, Lahiri has mentioned Chekhov and (13 June 2011, The New Yorker)
Tolstoy, and in particular, Thomas Hardy, because of the
 In Other Words, 2016
complexity and fullness of the worlds he creates, and the
balance between "human drama and the world around it."
She also notes that she learns factual things, like historical
practices in agriculture, from this generation of writers.
Although the title character in The Namesake is named for a
Russian author, Nikolai Gogol, Lahiri does not include him
among her most admired writers, noting that his writing is
much more antic and stylized than her own. But the

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Discussion Questions
1. In the opening scene, Ashima is making a snack for
herself, and near the end she prepares samosas for
a party. Food plays a large role throughout the
novel. How does the author use food to evoke
specific emotions?
2. This novel, less than 300 pages long, spans more
than 30 years. What techniques does the author use
to compress time and move the story forward?
3. Much of the story is told in the present tense. Why
would the author make this unusual choice?
4. Maxine and her parents live in an elegant
townhouse, while Gogol's family has an ordinary
suburban house. How does the author use these
two settings to help the reader understand these
different families?
5. Gogol's discomfort with his name is one of the
novel's main themes. Also, Ashima never addresses
her husband by his given name, because such a
name is "intimate and therefore unspoken." What
other names in the novel are important, and why?
6. Gogol's sister Sonia is present in only a few scenes
in the novel, and the story is never told from her
point of view. Why do you think that Lahiri left her a
less-developed character than Gogol? What purpose
does she serve in the story?
7. There are two train accidents in the novel, one
involving Gogol and one his father. How are the two
accidents linked, and how do they serve to drive the
characters closer together, or farther apart?
8. How does Gogol evolve as a character, from his first
days of school to his life as an adult, with a
profession and a wife? How does he stay the same?
9. The author has stated in multiple interviews that
she strives to write in a plain, unadorned way. What
impact does her chosen style have on the reader?
10. The Namesake is written in third person, but various
characters serve as the "point of view" character,
telling the story from their perspective. How many
different "point of view" characters are there, and
how does the author shift the narrative between
them?

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Additional Resources
Interviews with Lahiri
 Interview with Melissa Block on National Public
Radio, August 2003.
Lahiri reads excerpts from The Namesake and
discusses naming convention in Indian culture, the
narrative structure of the novel, and its universal
themes.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story
Id=1415693
 Interview in The Atlantic, April 2008.
Lahiri discusses the process of writing, her literary
influences, and the vulnerability of being a writer.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008
/04/jhumpa-lahiri/306725/

Books that influenced Jhumpa

Lahiri
 Mavis Gallant's The Collected Stories of Mavis
Gallant, 1996
 Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 1891
 Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, 1850
 William Trevor's The Collected Stories, 1993

Books similar to The Namesake

 Monica Ali's Brick Lane, 2003
 Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, 2006
 Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home, 2008
 Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone, 2009

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Credits
Works Cited
Excerpts from THE NAMESAKE by Jhumpa Lahiri. Copyright
2003 by Jhumpa Lahiri. Reprinted by permission of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights
reserved. The National Endowment for the Arts was established by
Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal
Chotiner, Isaac. "Interviews: Jhumpa Lahiri." The Atlantic, government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $5
April 2008. billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and
Glassie, John. "The Way We Live Now." The New York Times innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities.
Magazine, 7 Sept. 2003. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state
arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the
Grossman, Lev. "Jhumpa Lahiri: The Quiet Laureate." Time, philanthropic sector.
8 May 2008.
Howlander, Purnita. "A Melting Pot Within a Melting Pot."
Hinduism Today, Jan.-March 2010.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. "Symposium: The Hum Inside the Skull,
Revisited." The New York Times, 16 Jan. 2005.

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