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July 13, 2007
Perhaps Not So Unique
I am having an eerie experience in reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. There is a character in it who reminds me of myself, in both flattering and not-so flattering ways. This did not strike me when I watched the movie, but the details of her, her relationships with her family and boyfriends, her interests and way of expressing herself and background...it's all, if not directly parallel, at least a faithful and realistic interpretation of how things could have gone had my parents stayed in the city. This paragraph in particular made me furrow at the similarity:
Maxine is open about her past, showing him photographs of her ex-boyfriends in the pages of a marble-papered album, speaking of those relationships without embarrassment or regret. She has the gift of accepting her life; as he comes to know her, he realizes that she has never wished she were anyone other than herself. This, in his opinion, is the biggest difference between them, a thing far more foreign to him than the beautiful house she'd grown up in, her education at private schools. In addition, he is continually amazed by how much Maxine emulates her parents, how much she respects their tastes and their ways. At the dinner table she argues with them about books and paintings and people they know in common the way one might argue with a friend. There is none of the exasperation he feels with his own parents. No sense of obligation. Unlike his parents, they pressure her to do nothing, and yet she lives faithfully, happily, at their side.
She swears a lot too. And likes bread and coffee. The first time she is described, it is as, "at once strident and flirtatious, she is a little bit drunk." Case rested.
Posted by Bree at July 13, 2007 07:33 AM