The Namesake
“Hi, I’m Ruth,” she says recognizing him in that same vague way.
The Namesake.
I have made my second appearance in fiction in the last couple of months, and this time I am evidenced as more than just an echo of circumstance.
The first time I was presented in a short story read to me by David. I was (in)extricably linked with (ma)rth(a) carried as a packet of letters, along with clean socks, AK47s, malaria tablets and mine detectors, written to an overseas soldier. She, like myself, was an English major participating in the nationalistic act of maintaining morale on the front.
Today I overtook a sentence where I appeared by name. Never growing up having a last initial attached to my name to distinguish myself from my cohorts, being named after everyone’s gramma or aunt’s second name, I am taken aback when my name appears in print, typeset, reproduced. My name does not appear on my driver’s license, student identification or passport. But today I appeared, called by my pet name in Jhumpa Lahiri’s terms and words, on a train to Maine several years before my birth with slim small hands, no make-up, and a brown suede coat. I am there and now a student of English. I am there and now Ruth. I am linked with Lahiri’s words to a boy who is not: created and called by his good name. I read myself with intense interest, hoping I will pull through as an honest reflection of myself. I imagine this character’s world to be mine, but I have almost completed university. I will never be a sophomore again.
Like this novel’s lead my name has always been troublesome. I have often sought to identify myself with my biblical namesake, but though I, as a young child, reveled in possessing the name of a leading biblical character, her story was never mine. I can transmute my person to be Lahiri’s Ruth but not the scriptures’: the life of a constant widow, wife and mother has eluded me. I was given my name pet name on a whim. The lady in the bed next to my mother, who had not yet given birth to her first child, said I should be named Rose. My parents had preselected Rebeccah, Micah, and Brynn. I was settled as Catherine, carrying the burden of family heritage, the continuation of a pattern. I was called Ruth because Catherine shouldn’t be shortened. My good name is to appear in public, my pet name to be uttered and remembered. I am included inadvertently as an example of the Bengali dichotomy for naming, unknown to me until my second appearance in fiction.
The Namesake.
I have made my second appearance in fiction in the last couple of months, and this time I am evidenced as more than just an echo of circumstance.
The first time I was presented in a short story read to me by David. I was (in)extricably linked with (ma)rth(a) carried as a packet of letters, along with clean socks, AK47s, malaria tablets and mine detectors, written to an overseas soldier. She, like myself, was an English major participating in the nationalistic act of maintaining morale on the front.
Today I overtook a sentence where I appeared by name. Never growing up having a last initial attached to my name to distinguish myself from my cohorts, being named after everyone’s gramma or aunt’s second name, I am taken aback when my name appears in print, typeset, reproduced. My name does not appear on my driver’s license, student identification or passport. But today I appeared, called by my pet name in Jhumpa Lahiri’s terms and words, on a train to Maine several years before my birth with slim small hands, no make-up, and a brown suede coat. I am there and now a student of English. I am there and now Ruth. I am linked with Lahiri’s words to a boy who is not: created and called by his good name. I read myself with intense interest, hoping I will pull through as an honest reflection of myself. I imagine this character’s world to be mine, but I have almost completed university. I will never be a sophomore again.
Like this novel’s lead my name has always been troublesome. I have often sought to identify myself with my biblical namesake, but though I, as a young child, reveled in possessing the name of a leading biblical character, her story was never mine. I can transmute my person to be Lahiri’s Ruth but not the scriptures’: the life of a constant widow, wife and mother has eluded me. I was given my name pet name on a whim. The lady in the bed next to my mother, who had not yet given birth to her first child, said I should be named Rose. My parents had preselected Rebeccah, Micah, and Brynn. I was settled as Catherine, carrying the burden of family heritage, the continuation of a pattern. I was called Ruth because Catherine shouldn’t be shortened. My good name is to appear in public, my pet name to be uttered and remembered. I am included inadvertently as an example of the Bengali dichotomy for naming, unknown to me until my second appearance in fiction.
posted by ruthey at
12:44 p.m.
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