The New York Times reviewer said:
It is not a good sign that when Gogol exits his life story for the entire duration of his wife's love affair we hardly miss him. The reader has begun to suspect that, graceful and spare as Lahiri's prose is, the simply put does not always equal the deeply felt. How much steely equipoise, after all, can one novel stand? Lahiri is a supremely gifted writer, but at moments in "The Namesake" it feels as though we've descended from the great Russians to Nick Adams to the PowerPoint voice-over. "She orders a salad and a bouillabaisse and a bottle of Sancerre," goes the description of one of Gogol's dates. "He orders the cassoulet. She doesn't speak French to the waiter, who is French himself, but the way she pronounces the items on the menu makes it clear that she is fluent. It impresses him."
3 comments:
That review is interesting. There were a few times that I felt she was rushing the narrative, that the description was flat and utilitarian, not evocative enough. The restaurant scene is a good example.
I felt like she glossed over parts of his life, too; like I really didn't get a good feel for what his adolescent experience was like.
I felt the same way. And I thought we got to know Gogol's thoughts and feelings about his name fairly well but not as much about anything else. The stories of his love interests, for instance, were very matter-of-fact.
Your kid diary is way more better on that score. Hehe
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