one of the truest books one one
How was the book like?
As a South Asian-American I thought this book was authentic, one of the truest books I've ever read. The passages that get a bit longish for some readers seemed eerily like my own life--descriptions of things found in bedrooms, of Bengali-American parties, of people's coping strategies of being first- or second-generation American. I found that I could relate to at least two of the characters, and knew a lot of the types of the other characters from people in my own life. I wish I'd written this book.I give a lot of credit to Lahiri for producing a work that is so emotionally authentic, universal, and resonant, while solving the problem of the guilt sometimes passed around in a family. Lahiri does so without putting any of the blame for anybody's existential or cultural unhappiness on any one character. Everybody is likeable and their situations and impulses are understandable. Ashoke and Ashima are not to blame for Gogol's name, since he picks it himself in a way and he has a problem with being distanced from it. Ashoke is not to blame for Ashima's estrangement from her family and country, because they were living poor in Calcutta and Ashima didn't find a better suitor. Just like in real life, there's often no better option in a situation, just a choice someone made a long time ago with the given inputs. No one is a villain, she just tells it like it is.Also, Lahiri wrote a book about some pretty nice people that are accepting and turn out to be good for each other in the end. If I were writing the book I'd have a lot less of this because sometimes things don't always get patched up, but I'm glad Lahiri does it differently, since with bad Bengali neighbors or children who marry outside the group and cut off ties with their family or what have you, the novel would collapse under its own weight, since there's already death and estrangement to deal with.The Mira Nair movie was also right-on. 