Quote 21
He had not expected to enjoy himself, to be attracted to her in the least. It strikes him that there is no term for what they once were to each other. (8.76)
Gogol unexpectedly enjoys his first date with Moushumi, which breaks the pattern of all of his previous relationships with non-Indian women. Maybe there's something to be said for dating someone who understands his background.
Quote 22
"Don't get me wrong, Graham's a great guy. But they were too alike somehow, too intense together." (9.85)
Uh oh. Shmoop smells serious trouble, and our heart goes out to Gogol here. Who wants to hear that his wife was more "intense" with another man?
Quote 23
He is old enough to know that he himself will be burned, not buried, that his body will occupy no plot of earth, that no stone in this country will bear his name beyond life. In Calcutta, from taxis and once from the roof of his grandparents' house, he has seen the dead bodies of strangers carried on people's shoulders through streets, decked with flowers, wrapped in sheets. (3.67)
Each culture has its own relationship to the dead, and the Bengali tradition of cremation just might freak out Gogol. It means that he will literally disappear from the face of the earth. There will be no tombstone to prove he ever existed.
Quote 24
Apart from visiting relatives there was nothing to do in Calcutta. He's already been to the planetarium and the Zoo Garden and the Victoria Memorial a dozen times. They have never been to Disneyland or the Grand Canyon. (4.30)
The tourist hotspots of Calcutta are compared to the tourist hotspots of the United States. It seems like Gogol resents being carted around to the sites of Calcutta when he's never even seen the sites back in America.
Quote 25
No other building he's seen has affected him so powerfully. Their second day at the Taj he attempts to sketch the dome and a portion of the façade, but the building's grace eludes him and he throws the sketch away. (4.37)
Gogol gets a sense of how rich and diverse India is when the Gangulis take a visit to Agra and see the Taj Mahal. It's a first glimpse into what will later become a part of his identity – his love of architecture.
Quote 26
He goes shopping with her on Madison Avenue at stores they must be buzzed into, for cashmere cardigans and outrageously expensive English colognes that Maxine buys without deliberation or guilt. (6.48)
Maxine's world is very different from Gogol's. Growing up with a wealthy and privileged background, her New York City is the luxurious one, as this shopping trip down Madison Avenue demonstrates. Compare this experience of New York City to the drive Gogol takes with his parents' friends: they skip all the cultural sites and buy Indian goods. It's almost as if they visit two completely different cities.
Quote 27
He grows to appreciate being utterly disconnected from the world […] The Ratliffs own the moon that floats over the lake, and the sun and the clouds. (6.127)
Even the Ratliffs' vacations are different from the Gangulis'. While the Gangulis head to Calcutta, a busy, crowded city filled with relatives, the Ratliffs go off to their relatively isolated cabin in New Hampshire, where they literally own the wilderness. Talk about rich.
Quote 28
Part of him know this is a privilege, to be here with a person who knows the city so well, but the other part of him wants simply to be a tourist, fumbling with a phrase book, looking at all the buildings on his list, getting lost. (9.26)
The difference between Moushumi's and Gogol's attitudes toward Paris doesn't bode well for their relationship. Moushumi feels at home in Paris, which is neither India nor America; Gogol wants to be a tourist and see everything with new, fresh eyes.
Quote 29
All of it he finds beautiful beyond description, and yet at the same time it depresses him that none of it is new to Moushumi, that she has seen it all hundreds of times […] He admires her, even resents her a little, for having moved to another country and made a separate life. He realizes that this is what their parents had done in America. What he, in all likelihood, will never do. (9.28)
Moving to another country is a chance to remake yourself. Only it's hard to do that when your wife has already lived in Paris, and formed a Parisian identity. Gogol has to confront the fact that the Moushumi who lived in Paris is very different from the Moushumi he knows.
Quote 30
For by now, he's come to hate questions pertaining to his name, hates having constantly to explain. He hates having to tell people that it doesn't mean anything "in Indian." (4.9)
Gogol is unusually self-conscious about his name and how it marks him as "different." But it's just a name, right? Why does he let it make himself so unhappy?
Quote 31
It is a meal he knows it has taken his mother over a day to prepare, and yet the amount of effort embarrasses him. (6.105)
When he is dating Maxine, Gogol is perhaps the most self-conscious about his Indian heritage, and really tries to distance himself from it. How could he be embarrassed about his mother after all that work? If anything, Ashima should be embarrassed by <em>his </em>behavior.
Quote 32
He doesn't feel jealous of her past per se. It's only that sometimes Gogol wonders whether he represents some sort of capitulation or defeat. (9.24)
Ouch. It's not a good sign if you even <em>suspect</em> that your wife associates you with giving up on life. No wonder they both seem so dissatisfied with their marriage.
Quote 33
She accused him of nothing, but more and more he sensed her distance, her dissatisfaction, her distraction […] "Are you happy you married me?" he would ask. But the fact that he is even thinking of this question makes him afraid. (11.4)
Moushumi's unhappiness in their marriage is apparent in her total lack of enthusiasm. Notice that we don't even get to hear her answer to Gogol's question. That's not a very good sign, now is it?
Quote 34
A year later, the shock has worn off, but a sense of failure and shame persists, deep and abiding […] It's as if a building he'd been responsible for designing has collapsed for all to see. (12.15)
Gogol's failed marriage is described in architectural terms, which is fitting for a character who's an architect. The home metaphor also links Gogol and Moushumi's failed marriage to their vexed relationship to their family homes. Their marriage was doomed from the start because of where these two came from, not because of anything they did.
Quote 35
Later that night he is alone in his room, listening to side 3 of the White Album on his parents' cast-off RCA turntable. The album is a present from his American birthday party, given to him by one of his friends from school.
Possessions say a lot about characters. Here, Gogol's preference for the Beatles' White Album also indicates his preference for western culture. Russian short stories? No thanks. Pop music? Don't mind if he does.
Quote 36
Something tells him that none of this is for his benefit, that this is the way the Ratliffs eat every night. Gerald is a lawyer, and Lydia is a curator of textiles at the Met. They are at once satisfied and intrigued by his background, by his years at Yale and Columbia, his career as an architect, his Mediterranean looks. "You could be Italian," Lydia remarks at one point during the meal, regarding him in the candle's glow. (6.24)
Weirdly, Gerald and Lydia seem to appreciate Gogol as yet another ornament in their massive collection of fancy things There's something disturbing about the way Lydia appreciates his "Italian" looks, as if looking Indian wasn't somehow posh enough.
Quote 37
He has fallen the tiniest bit in love with Lydia and with the understated, unflustered way she entertains. He is always struck by these dinners: only a dozen or so guests sitting around the candlelit table, a carefully selected mix of painters, editors, academics, gallery owners, eating the meal course by course, talking intelligently until the evening's end. (6.54)
During his relationship with Maxine, Gogol is seduced by the way her family entertains: it's an elite, cultured, sophisticated lifestyle, in contrast to the way his parents indiscriminately collect Bengali friends just because they are Bengali. But really, which couple is shallower in the end?
Quote 38
Donald and Astrid are a languidly confident couple, a model, Gogol guesses, for how Moushumi would like their own lives to be […] Their decrees drive Gogol crazy. But Moushumi is loyal. She regularly goes out of her way, and thus out of their budget, to buy bread at that bakery, meat at that butcher. (9.45)
Donald and Astrid are basically younger versions of Gerald and Lydia. They are high-class couples who live lives of luxury and aren't afraid to admit it. Or flaunt it, for that matter.
Quote 39
He knows that the approval of these people means something to her, though what exactly he isn't sure. And yet, as much as Moushumi enjoys seeing Astrid and Donald, Gogol has recently begun to notice that she is gloomy in the aftermath, as if seeing them serves only to remind her that their own lives will never match up. (9.49)
While Gogol has gotten over his infatuation with the Ratliffs, Moushumi hasn't gotten over her love of Astrid and Donald and their lifestyle. This seems like just one more thing to add to our long list of reasons the two of them are growing apart.