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41a93ce
|
"My grandfather says that's what books are for," Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands. "To travel without moving an inch."
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travel
opportunity
books
jhumpa-lahiri
the-namesake
|
Jhumpa Lahiri |
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a218f88
|
But she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection, in spite of their miniskirts and bikinis, in spite of their hand-holding on the street and lying on top of each other on the Cambridge Common, prefer their privacy.
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jhumpa-lahiri
the-namesake
americans
privacy
|
Jhumpa Lahiri |
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80e79dc
|
She was like that, excited and delighted by little things, crossing her fingers before any remotely unpredictable event, like tasting a new flavor of ice cream, or dropping a letter in a mailbox. It was a quality he did not understand. It made him feel stupid, as if the world contained hidden wonders he could not anticipate, or see. He looked at her face, which, it occurred to him, had not grown out of its girlhood, the eyes untroubled, the pleasing features unfirm, as if they still had to settle into some sort of permanent expression. Nicknamed after a nursery rhyme, she had yet to shed a childhood endearment.
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interpreter-of-maladies
this-blessed-house
jhumpa-lahiri
|
Jhumpa Lahiri |
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092c57b
|
...that in spite of living in a mansion an American is not above wearing a pair of secondhand pants, bought for fifty cents.
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money
life
jhumpa-lahiri
the-namesake
american
|
Jhumpa Lahiri |
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cf98ff7
|
This tradition doesn't exist for Bengalis, naming a son after father or grandfather, a daughter after mother or grandmother. This sign of respect in America ad Europe, this symbol of heritage and lineage, would be ridiculed in India. Within Bengali families, individual names are sacred, inviolable. They are not meant to be inherited or shared.
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jhumpa-lahiri
the-namesake
tradition
|
Jhumpa Lahiri |
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318a58f
|
Lying in his parents' house, in the middle of the night, she told him the whole story, about meeting Dimitri on a bus, finding his resume in the bin. She confessed that Dimitri had gone with her to Palm Beach. One by one he stored the pieces of information in his mind, unwelcome, unforgivable. And for the first time in his life, another man's name upset Gogol more than his own.
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names
jhumpa-lahiri
the-namesake
|
Jhumpa Lahiri |
|
1fb811c
|
In those six weeks I regarded her arrival as I would the arrival of a coming month, or season - something inevitable, but meaningless at the same time.
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jhumpa-lahiri
the-third-and-final-continent
|
Jhumpa Lahiri |