Side 3 , Side 2 : The Beatles in Jhumpa Lahiri ’ s The Namesake
disc , its two-sided aesthetic and material structure is reduced to one . The album as analog signal contained on the finite plastic medium ( optimum length of side between 18 and 20 minutes ) is nullified by the digital technology . There is no side 2 of Abbey Road on Nikhil ’ s first-generation compact disc ; the digital format cannot convey to unwitting listeners that the original track sequencing on each vinyl side of the late-sixties recording Abbey Road was deliberate�Lennon ’ s preference for single cuts honored on side 1 , McCartney ’ s preference for suite-like synthesis honored on side 2 ( Beatles Anthology 338 – 40 ).
The reference to Abbey Road , with its allusive subtext echoing the “ side 3 ” reference / allusion to the White Album , packs a double , perhaps triple , significance . First , it indicates that the format was the new�and for many of them , unpleasant� reality for rock fans . The analog transition to digital began in the early 1980s during Nikhil ’ s own transition from adolescent to adult�not the easiest of crossings for this conflicted Indian-American male trying to negotiate not only , as most young people must , the rites of sexuality and gradual pulling away from parental authority , but also the matter of personal destiny that for him is bound up in the hated name Gogol . No matter how hated , the name , and the identity bound up in it , is not easy to abandon : the newly minted Nikhil soon learns that
he doesn ’ t feel like Nikhil .... At times he feels as if he ’ s cast himself in a play , acting the part of twins , indistinguishable to the naked eye yet fundamentally different . At times he still feels his old name , painfully and without warning , the way his front tooth had unbearably throbbed in recent weeks after a filling , threatening for an in-
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