Side 3 , Side 2 : The Beatles in Jhumpa Lahiri ’ s The Namesake
band so much that he tacked Lennon ’ s obituary to a bulletin board in his bedroom , another clue that he had probably read this famous interview and , consequently , that he knew the origins of “ Sexy Sadie ” well before hearing the song for the first time on his 14 th birthday .
“ Helter Skelter ,” though not conceived in India , is a masterpiece of bone-crushing four-beat bars and frenzied vocals depicting chaos through the noise of monolithic chords and thudding drums . To hear all of that at age 14 is to hear the promise of rock music fulfilled by its premier four-man collective .
The closing track , “ Long , Long , Long ,” is the only one of George Harrison ’ s four compositions on The Beatles that “ finds its origins during the Beatles ’ 1968 visit to India ” ( Womack 571 ). At this point in the novel , readers cannot foresee the calamity awaiting Gogol in the form of a failed marriage . For the Beatles fan who is eventually privy to Gogol ’ s wife ’ s affair before Gogol himself is�the very same Beatles fan who has dwelled on the subtext of the White Album ’ s third side long after the birthday scene ends�the pathos is felt upon realizing that the allusion to “ Long , Long , Long ” is “ adumbrative ”: its power lies in its foreshadowing of disaster . But it will be some time before the narrative allows the listener full knowledge into why the lyrics that the teenaged Gogol is studying so many pages ( and years ) earlier are a bitter foretaste of what has finally come to pass . As Allan Pasco illustrates in a reading of Honoré Balzac ’ s Illusions Perdues , an adumbrative allusion “ constitutes an important means of giving order to works of art ” ( 151 ). In this instance , it helps to order the unfolding of catastrophe . On the page , the tune ’ s lyrics seem simplistic ; hearing them in the context of what is to come / what has come for the young husband is devastating : “ How can I ever misplace you / How I want you
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