So, I have returned to the writing of Jhumpa Lahiri with her novel The Namesake. This book takes a took at a family called the Ganguli's who try to fit in with American Society and culture.
One of the first things that I noticed while I read this book is that it was a change of pace from Interpreter of Maladies. This is one continuous story and it doesn't skip around to other stories. That was a complaint that I had with Interpreter of Maladies where I would get interested in a story and its characters and then they would be completely forgotten and never mentioned with mysteries still revolving around them. One thing that would have been really interesting (If not extremely difficult) would be if she could connect the stories together through small cameos. But, I digress.
So far the story is interesting, long, but interesting. Like I said it mainly centers around the Ganguli's and the first chapter definetly leaves a mark with a rather descriptive part about Ashima when her water breaks. It then vears off into her husband who has a random flashback to when he was in a train accident and in a hospital afterward. So yeah, that was some first impression.
So far, I have enjoyed this novel. It was really interesting to have the comparison with the father waiting in the hospital to his time in the hospital, showing his anxiety and desire for his child. The writing has also been very interesting, but it does give a lot of details and the chapters are really long, so I don't appreciate the massive amount I have to read at a time. I really can't give an honest review of it yet, but I'll see where it takes me.
I think it is really interesting that you seem to like *The Namesake* more than *Interpreter of Maladies* so far, especially how you mentioned that it would have been nice for all of the individual stories of *Interpreter of Maladies* to have an overarching storyline. That's the premise of the book Ian, Ella, and I are reading this quarter - *The House on Mango Street.* All of the vignettes are part of a complex story, and we only get to see little bits and pieces of that story at any given time. To me, the fragmentation is just as much a hinderance to the story as it helps to isolate specific themes and symbols. *The Namesake* sounds really interesting, and given the fact that I loved Lahiri's writing in *Interpreter,* I imagine I would love the intensity of detail put into a single story versus a set of essays.
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