Neocon Blues

My first post since the establishment of the “Ferdisphere” comes off as slightly critical. While I agree with much of what Ferdinand has to say about gender and sexual politics, I will have to politely disagree with his take on Jhumpa Lahiri. At Two Blowhards, he writes:

No more. Today’s crop of popular novelists, having missed the subtext, are “writing what they know,” the likes of which is small enough to fit into a shot glass. Let’s take Jhumpa Lahiri as an example. Lahiri has been widely acclaimed for her depiction of Bengali immigrants in the U.S. in her works. Beyond the fact that the “immigrant adjusting to life in a new land” trope is so burned out at this point its unbearable, Lahiri is incapable of writing anything beyond her dull life as an American of Bengali descent. Her first book, Interpreter of Maladies, was about Indian immigrants acclimating themselves to American culture. Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, beyond being poorly written and having improbable plot elements (Indians nicknaming their child “Gogol”? Uh-huh), was about the exact same thing - Indian immigrants acclimating themselves to American culture. Her most recent short story collection, Unaccustomed Earth, is about - you guessed it - Indian immigrants acclimating themselves to American culture.

I have not read The Namesake, but I did see the movie. I know - instant credibility loser - but bear with me. The original text may be a good deal different from the adaptation, but I would imagine that the plot and themes are fairly similar. With that assumption on hand, let’s discuss the real meaning of The Namesake. Contrary to Ferdinand’s description, it is not about immigrants acclimating themselves to Western society. In fact, the focus of the story is on an American-born Bengali already acclimated to Western culture. Instead, the true conflict revolves around his struggle to escape his immigrant past - chiefly, his immigrant parents. The main character understands and appreciates western society - so much so that he would gladly choose it over his own ethnic heritage - but he has never fully been immersed in it. He compensates for his lack of true immersion by living out his American fantasies with his girlfriend and her parents. He inserts himself into that family to make up for the American upbringing he never had. His parents serve as a reminder that for all the cultural skills he has developed and built up - the appreciation of architecture, the ability to converse - he will never be able to shirk his past and fully assimilate. Moreover, the contrived Westerness of his name - Gogol - forever brands him as an outsider peering in.

The heart of the story lies in Gogol’s self-discovery. Gogol realizes that he can never shirk his cultural “baggage” - that he will never truly be one of them. The tragedy of the immigrant filial relationship is that the child fails to humanize the parent. To Gogol, his father’s humanity was always masked by his cultural oddities and differences. The child can never look past his resentmentment of such inherited differences to see his parent as a real human being, with the same desires and longings. It is only when his father dies that Gogol sees the courage, heroism, and love that permeated his father’s life. In understanding that his father had to sacrifice his old cultural identity for a new one, Gogol learns to appreciate what he had ignored all his life: his own cultural background. The privilege of the immigrant child is that, having been born assimilated, he can embrace his cultural identity without losing his place in western society.

While I am not of Bengali descent, I empathize with the themes of The Namesake. When I was younger, I took my heritage for granted. I had the same fears and insecurities and resentments that Gogol had. In high school, I compensated for my cultural upbringing by adopting a distinctly “non-Asian” identity. I learned SAT words in hopes that my expanded vocabular could distinguish me from the number-crunching stereotype. But as I’ve become more mature, I’ve realized that my culture and background is a point of pride. I listen to my father’s story - working the fields as a teenager, being the first in his family to attend university, attaining success in Western Business - and I realize how much he gave up to be where he is today.

I can see around me many of my Asian peers struggling with the same issues. They dislike the food they eat as children and are embarassed by the accents of their parents. Some perpetually strive to ingratiate themselves with westerners and reject anything resembling their own ethnicity for fear of being exposed as a fraud. And yet their efforts at western acceptance become, like Gogol’s name, instantly transparent, due to their contrived and forceful nature.

The beauty of The Namesake lies in its universality. In a country of immigrants, we have all at one point found it difficult and confusing to establish our own identity. We have all resented the differences we were born with and struggled to shirk them in our development. And sadly, we have all at one point realized how foolish such efforts were, and perhaps belatedly, how privileged we are to have parents who made the real sacrifices for us.