Side 3 , Side 2 : The Beatles in Jhumpa Lahiri ’ s The Namesake
The Beatles in Dream and History , has in mind when writing , “[ k ] ids , American kids especially , laded the Beatles with the aspirations , the psychic fears and physical intensities which religion had traditionally sought to absorb ” ( 143 ).
As Gogol ages , the Beatles continue to speak to him . As indicated , Gogol had listened to other pop acts ; in college , for instance , wishing to bond with his girlfriend Ruth , he “ listens to the music she loves : Simon and Garfunkel , Neil Young , Cat Stevens , buying brand-new copies of the albums she ’ d inherited from her parents ” ( 117 ). On his side , he gives her “ a mixed tape of his favorite Beatles songs ” ( 116 ) �a predictable gesture ( and a common courtship ritual in the seventies and eighties ) since Beatles music frames Gogol ’ s emotional life , from insecurity to despair , with stretches of happiness in between .
To Devin McKinney ’ s perceptions of the Fab Four ’ s appeal�for example , they “ distilled a poetics of possibility , imagination , action ,” and they “ changed the course of world history by inspiring mass fantasy , and by driving mass aspirations toward an ethics of radical possibility ” ( 167 , 305 ) �the present thesis adds this more focused reason for the Beatles ’ universality : the Beatles do for Gogol what they did and do for countless human beings because their music , more than any other band ’ s in the history of the form , expresses the universal narrative of love , loss , and recovery�a key reason , probably , why they are the top-selling recording artists in history . Their recordings track Gogol ’ s first romantic hope and his later despair , just as they track what most human beings experience . At the same time , this music consoles all grief-stricken survivors of broken relationships . Dozens of Beatles songs chronicle the major stages of such relationships�falling in love , feeling it grow , peaking , anticipating the end , and reaching peace after an indeterminate period of
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