The Namesake: Critical Quotes

Identity and Naming

Critic Lisa N. Kumar notes the impact of the title, suggesting that “The Namesake” is a commentary on the struggle to establish an identity distinct from one’s inherited cultural background.
Literary scholar Jhumpa Lahiri states that the novel focuses on ‘the need to negotiate and balance both cultures’, highlighting the complex cultural duality Gogol faces.

Scholar Richard E. Miller commends Lahiri’s ‘intimate domestic dramas’, noting her capacity for turning ‘the most commonplace moments into something sacred’, which underlines the pervasive realism present in the novel.
Critic Lee A. Jacobus refers to Lahiri’s ‘meticulous detail’, and her ability to ‘make the ordinary seem special’, reinforcing the novel’s attention to realism and the significance of small events.

Author Salman Rushdie notes that Lahiri’s narratives express ‘the anxiety of the migrating consciousness to fit into America’, emphasizing the struggle of assimilation which is central to the characters’ experiences.
Scholar B.W. Shaffer observes that Lahiri ‘recasts hybridity as a particular strength’, underlining the novel’s view of cultural hybridity and duality as a source of empowerment.

Literary critic Rochelle Almeida argues that ‘in a novel in which names take on deep metaphorical significance, Gogol is both a link to the past and a bridge to the future’, indicating the multilayered symbolic significance of names.
In discussion of the train metaphor, critic Judith Caesar suggests that ‘movements particularly by train, but also by plane, car, and walking, [are] always fraught with psychological significance’, highlighting Lahiri’s use of train journeys as metaphors for shifts in characters’ lives and identities.