The Namesake took me on a journey from India to New England and back to India, and when I put the book down, it guided me forward to Russia.

Gogol’s parents moved from India to the United States, landing in the Boston area, where Gogol’s father taught school. Their early adventures include a small drama around the naming of their son, exploring the Bengali traditions and failing at them in this foreign place.

Because Gogol’s father is a huge fan of Russian literature, he names his son after his favorite author, Nikolai Gogol. The novel makes several references to the Russian’s famous short story, “The Overcoat.” So, of course, that was the next stop for my journey.

I read “The Overcoat” looking for a connection between the two stories. What I found was a brief exploration of Russian child naming traditions with the hero’s mother also failing to follow them. Like Gogol Ganguli, Akaky Akakievich had a hard time fitting in too.

So be careful what you name your child, my friends. You could end up like Sonny and Cher, naming their child Chastity, as if they never wanted her to ever have sex with men. They got what they asked for, right?

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 at 9:19 am and is filed under India, Russia, US and Canada. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.