Audio Book Review: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Narrated by Sarita Choudhury

Posted in Audio book, Fiction, Historical Fiction by

The Namesake explores the experiences of an Indian family that moves to America and tries to maintain some of their native culture while also adopting some of the traditions of their new country. A multi-generational view of the immigrant experience provides an insightful perspective about the impact on families, but the slow-moving plot and plentiful details about everyday life may not appeal to readers who like stories with more action.

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I read The Namesake as part of the 2024 Thoughtful Reading Challenge. November’s challenge was to read a book centered on a family since so many of us will be gathering with our families this week for Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!                

I’ll begin with a quick summary of The Namesake.

Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, who are united in an arranged marriage, move from Calcutta to Cambridge, MA, where Ashoke teaches at a university. Ashoke is already familiar with life in America, but Ashima struggles to adapt. She misses her family and their deeply rooted Indian traditions, but she and Ashoke soon find a group of other Indians who have settled in the area.

Ashoke has a deep fondness for Russian literature, and when Ashima gives birth to a baby boy, they plan to call him by a nickname based on his favorite Russian author – Nikolai Gogol. By a twist of fate, “Gogol” is the name that appears on their baby’s birth certificate, although the couple doesn’t intend for that to be their son’s “good name.” (The name is a source of angst for Gogol throughout his life and he eventually changes it. It took me a while, but I finally realized it was probably a metaphor for trying to figure out his own identity – was he American or Indian or a blend of the two?).

As Gogol grows up, he attends American schools, has American friends, and adopts American habits. Meanwhile, his home life is filled with Indian food, music, language, and friends of his parents. He straddles two different cultures but leans toward the American one. On long family trips to India, where Gogol is immersed in Indian traditions and extended family, he’s less than enthusiastic. This disappoints Ashima, who feels her children slipping culturally away.

Gogol continues to grow up, goes away to college, and tends to avoid his family. Like too many young people, he takes his parents for granted and his interactions with them feel emotionally distant and obligatory. Gestures from his parents are often met with indifference. For example, his father goes to great lengths to secure a copy of short stories written by his favorite author, and Gogol immediately puts it on a high shelf where it’s forgotten.

As Gogol moves through early adulthood, he has a series of failed relationships which ultimately drive him closer to his family. And in the end, his parents leave him, one through death and the other through retirement in India. Things come full circle for Gogol.

Things I liked about The Namesake:

  • It provides plenty of food for thought about the first- and second-generation immigrant experience. Ashima is used to a large, supportive family, and that is taken away from her when she moves halfway across the world with a man she barely knows. I think it must also be disconcerting to see your children reject your culture and wholeheartedly embrace the culture of a different country. I also have never really thought about what it’s like to be a child of immigrants, and The Namesake illuminated for me that it can be a tug of war between two ways of life.
  • The writing is very good and effectively illustrates the realities of identity and adaptation.
  • The narration is also well done, and the narrator is able to switch effortlessly between American and musical Indian accents.

Things about The Namesake that didn’t work for me:

  • Too many excruciating details. I know authors are supposed to make readers imagine a scene by providing details, but this novel is too full of mundane ones. For example, an uneventful walk to the train station takes a couple of minutes to describe, and I really didn’t need to know that there is Land O Lakes in the fridge. Which brings me to my next point…
  • The Namesake starts off well but eventually became boring to me and didn’t hold my interest. I like novels that are better paced and have more intrigue and/or action. Which brings me to my next point…

Just because The Namesake wasn’t my cup of tea doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it. I tried to provide enough information so that you can decide whether to give it a chance.

Did you take November’s challenge? Please share!

**Reminder – December’s challenge is to read a book with snow on the cover. AND I plan to publish details about the 2025 Thoughtful Reading Challenge around the middle of December.

11 thoughts on “Audio Book Review: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Narrated by Sarita Choudhury”

  1. Great review Michelle especially after figuring out that you and I had different opinions of this book. That has rarely happened! Is this a first?!

    I also did the audio version of the book since we were traveling for Thanksgiving. I completely agree on some of the mundane details but hey, that’s what 1.6 speed listening is for! There really was a lot of unnecessary description of things that were not really important. I think what a lot of these details provided, at least for me, was a bit of nostalgia and a better way to relate to the story. For example, when Gogol puts his little sister in the automatic swing with the crank handle that was really loud. I remember that swing! I used to put my brother in one too. Or, talking about his old Monopoly board. Who didn’t have one of them and didn’t that evoke fond memories? I think in this sense, much of the talk about the Indian food would probably do the same thing for the Indian American readers. And I thought the idea of nostalgia was prominent throughout the book. We all have fond memories, memories that getter better with time even though the reality may have actually been different. And in that sense, Gogol’s parents had lots of nostalgia for India but during their visits, the reality to me the reader seemed less impressive. I think that happens to us all regardless of where we are from or who we are.

    I thought the author clearly described the feelings and challenges of non-native born Americans. Having Indian neighbors who are first generation and have two American born daughters, I’m betting they would find this book effective at capturing the spirit of the challenge of living between two cultures. The author said something to the effect of ‘being people from everywhere but not from anywhere.’ That made a lot of sense to me. They have a foot in two cultures and straddling both is a challenge.

    Ultimately, I liked the ending in that Gogol begins to read Gogol just as his father had and what his father had wished for him.

    I enjoyed this book and especially the fabulous Indian accents!

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  3. I read “Digging to America” by Anne Tyler for the November challenge. It sounds like this book may be similar to the one you read. Two families, one traditional American of European descent and one of Iranian heritage, each adopt baby girls from Korea on the same day in 1977 and meet at the Baltimore airport when the babies arrive. The families’ adoptions become their initial point of contact, but their friendship deepens through annual gatherings celebrating their daughters’ arrival and includes three generations of each family. The first time they reconnect, The Yasdans, the Iranian-Americans, are surprised to see that the Donaldsons, the European-Americans, have decided not to fully socialize their daughter, Jin-Ho, in American tradition and culture. Keeping her Korean birth name, they actively immerse the whole family in Korean culture as she gets older. The Yasdan’s method of raising their daughter is totally different. They give her an American name, Susan, and strive to socialize her as purely American, hoping that she will never feel alienated as they have as immigrants.

    The AI-generated synopsis on Amazon summarizes the novel as follows: “Anne Tyler’s Digging to America has been praised for its insightful portrayal of cultural assimilation and family dynamics, with strong character development and tender prose. However, some critics note a lack of strong plot momentum. Ultimately, it’s appreciated as a poignant exploration of identity and belonging, capturing the nuances of immigrant experiences with empathy.”

    I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, in spite of some reviewers’ opinions that the novel is slow-going and lacks a strong plot. I love strong character-driven novels like this. I thought it was a great selection for the November challenge as it is strongly family-oriented and recounts a modern-day American immigration and assimilation experience.

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  4. I read “Digging to America” by Anne Tyler for the November challenge. It sounds like this book may be similar to the one you read. Two families, one traditional American of European descent and one of Iranian heritage, each adopt baby girls from Korea on the same day in 1977 and meet at the Baltimore airport when the babies arrive. The families’ adoptions become their initial point of contact, but their friendship deepens through annual gatherings celebrating their daughters’ arrival and includes three generations of each family. The first time they reconnect, The Yasdans, the Iranian-Americans, are surprised to see that the Donaldsons, the European-Americans, have decided not to fully socialize their daughter, Jin-Ho, in American tradition and culture. Keeping her Korean birth name, they actively immerse the whole family in Korean culture as she gets older. The Yasdan’s method of raising their daughter is totally different. They give her an American name, Susan, and strive to socialize her as purely American, hoping that she will never feel alienated as they have as immigrants.

    The AI-generated synopsis on Amazon summarizes the novel as follows: “Anne Tyler’s Digging to America has been praised for its insightful portrayal of cultural assimilation and family dynamics, with strong character development and tender prose. However, some critics note a lack of strong plot momentum. Ultimately, it’s appreciated as a poignant exploration of identity and belonging, capturing the nuances of immigrant experiences with empathy.”

    I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, in spite of some reviewers’ opinions that the novel is slow-going and lacks a strong plot. I love strong character-driven novels like this. I thought it was a great selection for the November challenge as it is strongly family-oriented and recounts a modern-day American immigration and assimilation experience.

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    • Thanks for commenting, Toni! I’ve become more interested the immigrant experience recently, and this book sounds interesting because it describes two different approaches to raising children in a different country.

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  5. I’m not sure I have much to add to your review (or to George’s). It took me awhile to enjoy the book as I originally didn’t love the characters and found Gogol to be somewhat one dimensional. However, after the dissolution of his marriage, I was more interested as I think he finally began to realize what his parents went through and how difficult being between two cultures must have been for them. In the end, I enjoyed it as it did remind of Indian families I have had the pleasure of meeting here in the US and how important extended family is to them.

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