Books: Name and Sex

Our names and our sex, two things most of us have no control over and therefore take granted for very easily. The main characters of Namesake and Middlesex spent the better part of their lives struggling to come to terms with their name and gender. Both novels are about immigrant families and their heart staggering experience of assimilation to the Melting Pot.

I picked up Namesake because of the Pulitzer-winning short story collection The Interpreters of Maladies also by Jhumpa Lahiri. I was not disappointed, that is to say, I am not too impressed either. I enjoyed her poignancy and mastery of emotional details in Mrs. Sen, A Temporary Matter and A Blessed House. As far as I could tell, Namesake was a drawn-out, over-stretched long haul of all of the stories in Interpreters of Maladies, both on style and content aspects. Unfortunately, the effort is a bit diluted like a cup of tea being refilled one too many times. Nonetheless, it was a great read and on an emotional level, I could really relate to many experiences of Ashima and Ashock, even with Gogol as he tries to cling onto an All-American family that stood for everything he is not coming from a first generation Indian (Bengali) family. Furthermore, I appreciate Lahiri's almost onlooker stance, moving in and out of the two generations of characters¡¯ lives, with subtle shifts in perspectives¡ªI never get the feeling that she was outside of the story.

The perceptive, breezy style dotted with light sentimentalism of Namesake was completely devoid in Middlesex. The prose was immediately more volatile, full of passion and unexpected humor, like a train crashing in at full speed. Definitely one of the best books I've read this year¡­It is after reading Middlesex, I came to the real understanding of "sex is biological, but gender is social" that seems to be plastered all over the wall at PFLAG meetings in school. Story, character development and the historical backdrop that encompasses 80 years of the 20th century, a perfect blend for a bestseller kind of novel. I wish I know more about the Greek mythologies to better appreciate the jokes and references to various Gods and Goddesses. The last part when Milton hallucinates as he and the Cadillac plunged head first into the river brought me to tears. I have never read a death that's so imaginative, so heartbreakingly sad, yet so full of live. Many other memorable scenes left impressionable marks, Desdemonda and Lefty¡¯s life in Turkey in the early 1920s, raising silkworms---didn¡¯t that bring back fond memories¡­ their trip to the America and the immigration experiences restaged on Ellis Island, so eerily resembling of what I read when I visited the Statue of Liberty and the Ellis Island museum.