Turbulent Time

Gogol had quite turbulent time in chapter seven and eight. After Gogol is throwing a party, he is told from Sonia that his father died due to the heart attack. This causes and reminds that Sonia and Gogol hadn't been meeting with their parents because they were too busy with their independence. He now feels bad because he didn't came when their parents invited them for thanksgiving party. He now mistakes that random guy outside the street is his father. Gogol and Sonia now feel what their parent had felt when their parents died in Calcutta. Gogol rides the train for the nostalgic experience, remembering about his father standing on this platform until the train disappeared with his son going to Yale.

                After Gogol’s father’s death, Gogol is taking a test to be licensed architect, Maxine is now dating with someone else, and Sonia lives with her mother. He also have this weird relationship with women named Bridget, making him to be in awkward and guilty affair. Ashima advices Gogol to call one of the people from his young age, Moushumi. Moushumi is a girl from a family who were close to Gogol’s family. Gogol founds that he has that secret bond with Moushumi because she remembers Gogol with his original name not Nikhil. She calls him Nikhil, but she is the only one knowing that his original name is Gogol. They start doing something couple would do, such as buying a hat and eating together. Gogol finds out the past of Moushumi. She was actually going to have marriage in few weeks, but Graham talked negatively about her family causing the wedding to be canceled. She now plans to stay in NYU to study furiously. This part of the book explains about the new start for Gogol. He starts a new relationship with Moushumi, who also recently broke up with her fiancé.

Good Childhood

                After reading Namesake for one week, I think that book is bragging about Gogol’s childhood and knowledge. One of the example is that he have two party for his birthday. I think that is little bit too much. I mean one for his friend and other one for with parents?  I mean I do have a party with friends but not big with parents. Also, they go to trip to India and visit many monuments, like a Taj Mahal. Except, they heard that passenger in train was robbed and murdered. That is not good memory. After that he graduates from the high school and goes to university. He parties there and he gets to do a first kiss. After that, he earns his graduate degree in architecture and goes to Yale.

  The paragraph up there briefly summarizes his early life and to be honest, I think he have a great childhood. I think there are rare amount of people who had two major party for his birthday. Also, going to a famous landmark in India and having a good vacation. Except that part about knowing that Indian train system is very dangerous. Also, he went to really good college, Yale. I mean I am jealous of his intelligence. Not to forget, he also had some relationships with girls. So far, the book explains about Gogol’s good life. But this fact annoys me because I really don’t the reason of this book. Is it a biography or some type of bragging story? I believe the book will explain more but for now namesake is only telling me about Gogol’s wonderful childhood, except that murder during his vacation.

Confusing, yet Many Curiosity

            Beginning of the book Namesake shows a women giving a birth who moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ashima is the women doing a labor while Ashoke, her husband, goes to hospital to aid her. This was kind of escalating event in the beginning of the book because in my personal experience, I don’t see a big event going on at the beginning of the book, so it was kind of hard to trying to understand the beginning of the book. Eventually baby is born and named Gogol.

The introduction of the book is really confusing. Actually not confusing, but more like making the reader to give curiosity. It like one of those movie cliché where lots of explosion is going on and you don’t know your plot until you reach the middle of the story. Its like a movie where you see them in third perspective, while not knowing what is going on.  I think that this book has an introduction of a sudden thriller movie. This also tells the reader that if you read the book than you will get more answer. It just provokes your mind to be curious. Why did they named him Gogol, why did they move to the Cambridge, why was his name based on author in train crash in India? It draws many question and makes the reader to uncover the answers that brief introduction with sudden events. This story makes us feels like a person standing next to them, while characters can’t see us.