Volume 50, Number 20 · December 18, 2003
Enigmas of Arrival
By Pankaj Mishra
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Houghton Mifflin, 291 pp., $24.00
Brick Lane
by Monica Ali
Scribner, 369 pp., $25.00
In Jhumpa Lahiri's first novel, a Bengali immigrant in America called Ashoke Ganguli is a fan of Gogol. When he was a student in India, his grandfather had told him to 'read all the Russians, and then reread them.' Ashoke was particularly held by 'The Overcoat,' the story of Akaky Aka-kyevich, a poor, much-trampled-upon petty clerk, who grows obsessed with a new overcoat, which he thinks would bring him dignity, and which, just after he has acquired it, is stolen from him. The character reminded Ashoke of his father, who had been a humble clerk in Calcutta. He broke down every time he read about the clerk's humiliation and death. And the more he read, the more 'elusive and profound' the story grew. 'Just as Akaky's ghost haunted the final pages, so did it haunt a place deep in Ashoke's soul, shedding light on all that was irrational, all that was inevitable about the world.'
Review, 3883 words
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