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Biography & Autobiography. Foreign Language Study. Travel. Nonfiction. HTML:From the best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner, a powerful nonfiction debutā??an "honest, engaging, and very moving account of a writer searching for herself in words." ā??Kirkus Reviews (starred) In Other Words is a revelation. It is at heart a love storyā??of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. Although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery always eluded her. Seeking full immersion, she decides to move to Rome with her family, for "a trial by fire, a sort of baptism" into a new language and world. There, she begins to read, and to writeā??initially in her journalā??solely in Italian. In Other Words, an autobiographical work written in Italian, investigates the process of learning to express oneself in another language, and describes the journey of a writer seeking a new voice. Presented in a dual-language format, this is a wholly original book about exile, linguistic and otherwise, written with an intensity and clarity not seen since Vladimir Nabokov: a startling act of self-reflection and a provocative exploration of belonging and reinvention. Read by the Author, in both English and the original Italian From the Compact Dis… (more)
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It astonished me to what extent I can relate to the author in learning a new language. Her love for Italian sounds exactly like my love of English, the difference being that she is a writer and I am not. But the imagery she invokes in describing the process of learning Italian is absolutely stunning and so relatable (to me at least) that I thought I were reading my own thoughts (!), but expressed with so much more finesse.
The way she describes "constantly hunting for words" while living in Italy: "... every day I go into the woods carrying a basket. I find words all around: on the trees, in the bushes, on the ground (in reality: on the street, during conversations, while I read). I gather as many as possible. But it's never enough; I have an insatiable appetite..... At the end of the day, the basket is heavy, overflowing. I feel loaded down, wealthy, in high spirits. My words seem more valuable than money. I am like a beggar who finds a pile of gold, a bag of jewels." The book overflows with such passionate descriptions, her metaphor of the "Lake" and "Scaffolding" being some of the best examples (those reading the book would appreciate the meaning she seeks to convey...).
This is also Ms.Lahiri's first attempt at autobiographical writing. She describes herself in complicated relationship with Bengali - English - Italian. Each language means different things to her. She opens up a lot about her inner life, and that in itself is a compelling read.
She was warned by many about the incredible challenge of writing in a foreign language, but she embraced this challenge wholeheartedly, her passion for Italian being that great. She encounters endless frustrations, but they don't stop her, they just prompt her to go on - to someday to be totally fluent not just in speaking but in writing (as in literary writing) in Italian, even though she admits that she might be a lifelong apprentice to perfect her skills. But she seems to enjoy every minute of it.
She mentions several writers who write/wrote in a foreign language. And I might add another excellent writer to that list - Andei Makine... She herself is not sure if she will continue writing in Italian. But to me it felt it was an incredibly crucial quest for her - to write such a book. And even if it's the only one she writes in Italian, it doesn't matter. A huge deal is accomplished here.
In the end, she frankly alludes to her insecurity about this project, calling her writing "frivolous" and "presumptuous". But for some reason both this confession and the writing itself are that much more appealing. A very inspirational book!
Lahiriās debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, was published in 1999 and has been followed by a second story collection and two well-received novels. In Other Words may be only her fifth book, but Lahiriās writing awards are already numerous, including an O. Henry Award, a PEN/Hemingway Award, a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Humanities Medal.
And then she fell hopelessly in love with the Italian language she had before only flirted with from afar. So taken with the sound and construction of Italian that she and her family relocated to Rome so that she could completely immerse herself in it, Lahiri decided even to write in no other language. In Other Words is the result of that decision. The author, understanding the limitations of writing in a language as foreign to her as Italian is, did not even trust herself to interpret the work back into English for fear of being tempted into āimprovingā the English version (the book was translated instead by Ann Golstein, an experienced translator who has worked with, among others, Primo Levi and Elena Ferrante). As she puts it, Lahiri is āa writer who doesnāt belong completely to any language.ā
In Other Words ā which is part autobiography, part memoir ā includes both the original Italian version (the left-hand pages) and the translated English version (the right-hand pages) of Lahiriās manuscript. The 233-page book is comprised of an āauthorās note,ā twenty-three short reflections on her relationship to language and self-identity, and an āafterword.ā Lahiri tells the reader that because she wrote In Other Words in Italian it is inherently different from her earlier work. āThe themes, ultimately, are unchanged: identity, alienation, belonging. But the wrapping, the contents, the body and soul are transfigured,ā she tells us.
In the end, though, despite all that she has achieved in her study of Italian, Lahiri feels a little āinsecureā and āembarrassedā by what her efforts have produced. She realizes now that for her, Italian will always be a work-in-progress and that she will always remain a foreigner to the language. But it has been three years since she has read or written much in any language other than Italian, and Lahiri believes that this has led her to a new ācreative pathā that she would have otherwise never have found.
All in all, not bad for āa writer who doesnāt belong completely to any language.ā
Now itās two hours and 11 minutes later (thanks nifty counter in Overdrive) and I have read Jhumpa Lahiriās collection of essays and two fictional, albeit semi-autobiographical, stories chronicling her immersion into the Italian language. This book was the outcome. It was translated by Ann Goldstein.
51wnsrzeh6l-_ac_us160_As I began reading, the first word that came to mind was: courage. Anyone who goes to another country barely knowing the language and becomes completely immersed, speaking the language, even if it is faltering, is courageous. To have as a goal to write a complete book in that language seems to go way beyond courageous.
Lahiri offers many reasons as to why she has done this. Some of the reasons arise from alienation, others from the need to express oneself artistically. She writes: āMaybe because from a creative point of view there is nothing so dangerous as security.ā She talks about metamorphosis and exploration and discovery in regard to learning and expressing oneself in another language. How it allows one to be vulnerable and how she felt that while writing in Italian she was writing from her true place.
As I was reading, I was struck by the poetry of the language and images. But here I have to stop. First, I have never read any of Lahiriās novels (not yet, anyway; the adage so many books, so little time is alive and well in my world) so I canāt make a blanket statement about her writing style in English. Second, my year of college Italian will not permit me to read Lahiriās actual text in anything close to 2 hours, nor the actual 17 hours I have before the book expires, so I wrestle with the idea of what is Lahiriās and what is Goldsteinās before I comment on lyricism. Iām probably not going to wrestle. Iām just going to say that what I read was beautifully written, so beautifully written and so well-considered that it gripped me enough to sit on this uncomfortable chair at my computer and read the entire memoir on this computer screen.
A recent review talked about the spate of memoirs hitting the market and how the more interesting ones were those in which the writer described an activity they were involved in rather than the typical celebrity name-dropping or tell-all. Here you have such a memoir. While it is a book about a famous writer leaning a new language, a love affair, if you will, it is also a discussion of the writerās past, the first language she learned, the second, how those languages ultimately formed her. There is a great deal of introspection here and philosophizing, which I rather enjoy, but realize that they might not be everyoneās cup of tea. I guess it could come across as self-indulgent, but it is a memoir and that strikes me as redundant.
Who would enjoy this book? Anyone who is a fan of Lahiriās would probably find it well worth reading and perhaps a little distressing, wondering if she would ever write in English again. Also, writers and aspiring writers would probably find a lot of what she has to say interesting as she writes about the place where writers write from.
DISCLAIMER: ITāS LATE AND I LIKE TO WRITE THESE REVIEWS WHEN IāM A BIT MORE ON MY GAME, BUT THOUGHT IF I DIDNāT WRITE IT WHILE IT WAS FRESH, IT WOULDNāT GET WRITTEN UNTIL I COULD REVISIT THE BOOK, WHICH IāLL PROBABLY DO ANYWAY. SO, I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY VERBOSITY AND INCOHERENCE.
The book has an interesting premise and structure. The left hand pages are all in Italian with the right side in English. Years before I ever heard of ābucket lists,ā I made a note to myself that I would love to learn Italian well enough to read Dante in the original language. I tried a few self-study books and tapes, but I made little to no progress. I shelved the idea for my retirement. Jhumpa has taken a risky and bold step by moving to Italy and immersing herself in the language and culture of Italy.
In her āAuthorās Note,ā she explains this strange decision and why she did not translate the book herself. She writes, āWriting in Italian is a choice on my part, a risk that I feel inspired to take. It requires a strict discipline that I am compelled, at the moment, to maintain. Translating the book myself would have broken that discipline; it would have meant reengaging intimately with English, wrestling with it, rather than with Italian. // In addition, had I translated this book, the temptation would have been to improve it, to make it stronger by means of my stronger language. But I wanted the translation of In alter parole to render my Italian honestly, without smoothing out its rough edges, without neutralizing its oddness, without manipulating its character (xiii-xiv).
Jhumpa also speaks Bengali when interacting with her parents. She mentions that they refused to change to English. She writes, āI am the opposite. While the refusal to change was my motherās rebellion, the insistence on transforming myself is mine. āThere was a woman ā¦ who wanted to be another personā: itās no accident that āThe Exchange,ā the first story I wrote in Italian, begins with that sentence. All my life Iāve tried to get away from the void of my origin. It was the void that distressed me, that I was fleeing. Thatās why I was never happy with myself. Change seemed the only solution. Writing, I discovered a way of hiding my characters, or escaping myself. Of undergoing one mutation after anotherā (169).
I found her struggles with finding the correct word inspiring. I have profound admiration for her goals in this memoir. She explains why she writes, āI write to feel alone. Ever since I was a child it has been a way of withdrawing, of finding myself. I need silence and solitude. When I write in English I take for granted that I can do without help. Someone may give a suggestion, point out a problem. But in terms of the linguistic journey I am self-sufficientā (185). With the exception of her last sentence, this explains exactly my feelings and emotional state when I write, alone, in a closed room.
In Other Words is a marvelous story of the struggles writers face. Follow Jhumpa Lahiri on her journey through -- and struggle with ā the beautiful Italian Language. 5 stars.
--Chiron, 7-26-16
The book talks about her journey in learning Italian, her thoughts about her own sense of displacement, her struggles with fame that came from winning the Pulitzer. The book also contains a couple of stories she wrote in Italian. The English edition features the Italian and English versions of the book on facing pages, which is an interesting choice, and fortuitous for me because it meant it was a rare case where I was able to find a book in Italian in the US. :) I enjoyed most of the book, although I think that her sense of searching comes through clearly and because it doesn't seem like something she has resolved, the book doesn't end with any sort of conclusion either. It's the log of an experiment, perhaps an ongoing one. But wow, could I relate to a lot of her thoughts on learning a language and the importance of abandoning the feeling of safety to just throw yourself into it.
I wish I would have enjoyed this book reading it in English as much as Jhumpa Lahiri seemed to enjoy writing it in Italian. Maybe something was lost in translation. Too bad I wasn't able to read it in Italian just to be
The talented Ms. Lahiri had studied Italian for about 20 years, loved the language and culture so much, she decided to move her family to Italy for total immersion so she could write in Italian. This is an autobiographical book telling us about her determination and frustrations in becoming affluent enough in Italian in order to write it.
While I found the premise to be interesting, I found the writing to be repetitive. There are only so many way to use different words to say the same thing. 3 Stars.
This struggle to sound out foreign letters left me astounded at Lahiri's perseverance. It must have been a Herculean effort, to completely cut out something that she knew she knew, to embrace something that she knew she would never know completely. And yet, despite of her imperfection, because of her imperfection, I could feel the lightness of her words, the loveliness of her metaphors.
I have read reviews where readers found this book self-indulgent. Perhaps it is. But one could argue that all books are self-indulgent, to satisfy a whim of the author. I found In Other Words wonderfully relatable. Living on the margins myself, I know what it feels like to feel exiled, to feel suspended, and yet I never knew how to express these feelings in words. Lahiri wrote them out for me. For this, I feel grateful.
It was mostly very interesting, but at times she came across as whiny. Still, worth the read. Lahiri is a good writer and knows how to engage her reader.
Have you ever heard of a weeaboo? Someone who is obsessed with Japanese culture and language often lumped together with the crazed anime fans. Thereās also koreaboo an obsessive fan of korean everything ranging from kdramas to kpop. Now I would like to know if
This book is about Lahiriās journey in learning the Italian language. She details her struggles with fluency, immersion, and doubts of cultural identity. Perhaps itās because I personally have never gone through a cultural identity crisis, I couldnāt relate. Like the author, I grew up with one language only to learn another because the country I lived in required it of me. Then I dabbled in another language for fun and community service of sorts. I was never ashamed of knowing another language other than English. When my parents spoke broken English I didnāt even blink. Even though I have a thick accent in my third language I just brush it off and keep trying to improve towards fluency but being accepted as a native speaker is not my goal.
As for the content of the autobiography, itās very simple writing because Lahiri wrote it originally in Italian. In twenty years she has managed to get to fluency but in her writing, it didnāt feel very personal. Donāt get me wrong, itās her story but it wasnāt very inspiring. Like cool you learned the language but why get offended at people asking where you learned it? I donāt know it just rubbed me the wrong way. To this day I still get people asking me why I donāt have an accent in my English.
Here she takes it to the next level by writing in a new language. Originally published in Italian, this is an
No one writes about being an outsider quite like Jhumpa Lahiri.
Often an author describes a particular experience, and the reader says, āOh! Thatās me!ā Even though it
Time and space are collapsed today. We can barely evade constant connection and presence. Lahiri writes of languages as places where distances still exist. There are no shortcuts from one language to another, and few can truly make the journey. There is no true knowing or belonging without common language.
She is an American who grew up with English and Bengali as her mother tongues. She fell in love with Italian on a visit to Florence in 1994, and writes:
ā¦ What I hear, in the shops, in the restaurants, arouses an instantaneous, intense, paradoxical reaction. Itās as if Italian were already inside me and, at the same time, completely external. It doesnāt seem like a foreign language, although I know it is. It seems strangely familiar. I recognized something, in spite of the fact that I understand almost nothing.
What do I recognize? Itās beautiful, certainly, but beauty doesnāt enter into it. It seems like a language with which I have to have a relationship. Itās like a person met one day by chance, with whom I immediately feel a connection, of whom I feel fond. As if I had known it for years, even though there is still everything to discover. I would be unsatisfied, incomplete, if I didnāt learn it. ā¦
Lahiri describes her journey into Italian. From āexileā in her home in the U.S. to moving her family to Italy for total immersion. From sharing space with her other languages to complete commitment to Italian only.
She writes only in Italian now. This book has Italian on the right side, translated into English on the left by Ann Goldstein. Lahiri did not translate for herself, as to do so would drag her back to where she no longer wanted to be. It would sap creativity from her new ventures ā her discoveries and struggle ā by an overlay of her English mastery. She would too naturally bring her former ways of saying.
I like her thoughts about not translating backwards to a former way of being. It confines, allowing prior ways to conquer the present.
I appreciate hearing her experience of intentionally becoming a novice after achieving status, proficiency, and authority.
I like her thoughts on a passionate devotion to something āmeaningless,ā never validated or allowed. But go there anyway.
She also read the audiobook herself, which is something I always love. Don't get me wrong, I get the point between needing a separate narrator for books, but I especially love a memoir read by the author. It's not common, but I have run across those who don't. I enjoyed the audiobook and her manner of speaking throughout it. Lahiri has a beautiful voice.
As far as her obsession itself and the many methods by which she went through the process of learning Italian, I am pretty inspired. I've been struggling with Spanish my whole life. I'm Cuban on my mother's side but also first generation American born there too, so Spanish had been her first language and that of most of her side of the family. I could talk to them with limited ability to speak but a lot of understanding what they were saying as a child but I couldn't speak Spanish. Most of them know English by now too but inevitably return to their first language when they're together. I catch snippets, but that's about it these days. I just haven't been in a Spanish language environment enough to sustain what I knew since I moved out.
BUT Lahiri's idea to start a journal or diary in that language is genius. Even if it's all wrong, there is this safe space for trying pull the language out of your own brain, for trying to put together sentences when there is time to do so. One of the things that has driven me crazy about learning Spanish is the way people are always like "Just go out there and talk to people" and "immersion is the best method!" Somewhere along the way, these people missed that I am an introverted nerd who is uncomfortable and awkward enough speaking my first language in a group of strangers let alone a language that I am still trying to learn.
Given my experiences attempting Spanish, particularly since leaving Miami, I find all of Lahiri's methods inspired and brave. She moved to Italy to help herself learn Italian after she had tutoring and already knew two other languages. That's some dedication. I also love her stories about living in Italy and the comments she got. I was more like her husband, getting confused for locals all the time, but I witnessed plenty of interactions like she talks about when out with friends. Of course, I'm terrible with language and added this other awkward layer to the situation because I looked like a local but couldn't speak it and many of my more Caucasian or non-Hispanic friends stood out like a sore thumb but spoke beautiful Italian. It happens in Miami too with some fluent friends. It's always fairly entertaining, especially with my father who is blond with blue eyes and very fair skin. People will be speaking Spanish around him like he's not even there and sometimes talking about him and he'll smile and ask a question in poorly accented but good Spanish and everyone freezes.
Getting back to Lahiri, the book is quite short though. I listened to the audiobook which is almost 7 hours but is read in both English and Italian. The content ends up being about half that, and you could listen to both languages but I didn't. I also loved her note that she originally wrote the book in Italian and specifically did not do the translation into English on her own. I can't get over that she wrote it in Italian in the first place.
This is a great book about Italian and language and obsession. I loved every minuted of listening to it and plan to employ some of her strategies.