November 19, 2007...11:06 pm
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
I’m really not good when it comes to book reviews, so don’t expect a lot from me. I chanced upon this book in the public library. It was probably Kal Penn walking out in the cover that did it. Haha, this is an old book. The first edition’s book cover looks totally different from this. Anyway, it’s a typical coming-of-age immigrant story that kept me up way past my bedtime. A Bengali couple move to Boston and tell the story of missing home and dealing with second generation immigrant children and all that. Typical story, but beautifully written. Shame, I haven’t read Interpreter of The Maladies yet.
This is my favorite quote from the book:
For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy — a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.
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