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In Other Words

Review

In Other Words

written by Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by Ann Goldstein

The slender volume of Jhumpa Lahiri’s IN OTHER WORDS contains multitudes: each element uniquely beautiful, coming together to produce truly exquisite work. The narrative traces the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer’s journey through the Italian language, a decades-old process that continues with this title. Lahiri’s ongoing relationship with Italian is a fraught and introspective experience, and this memoir exacts a special connection, providing a window into which we as readers can peek and witness the enchantments of the project.

Lahiri is known as a Bengali American writer. Her love of Italian arose seemingly groundlessly, but throughout the narrative she explores the emergent interests. She describes her language like a triangle: the mother tongue Bengali anchoring her to her childhood and the past; stepmother English filling her present and granting her a voice, her success as a writer; and now Italian rises at first like a lover and then like a child, enticing and enthralling her until the balance of power shifts, and she comes to protect and support her relationship with the language. She imagines that her experiences with language are no longer linear. The trajectory of being born with Bengali, adopting English, followed by the return to Bengal stories in her young adulthood as a means by which to honor her parents perhaps has been completed, or is now broken. Separate from that push and pull between ancestry and contemporary, Italian is a personal choice, entirely her own, and she is largely alone within it.

"Lahiri’s project is a brave one. By relinquishing her English, the means by which she already has explored so many truths so beautifully, she forces herself to think in new ways about what she’s trying to communicate."

Her meditations are profound and poignant. Lahiri explores the intricacies of language learning with rich metaphor, woven with sparse but powerful moments from her own experiences. She describes the process like circling a small but deep lake, simultaneously recognizing the ocean of the task. She acknowledges her lack of both authority and authenticity; she admits her own insufficiencies to herself and the reader. Being an accomplished writer in English, her forays into Italian rendered her a novice of language again. She is a master willingly apprenticing herself to another technique of the craft. The humbleness and energy that she brings to the task invigorates, for the reader, the trust in her dedication.

One of the most striking elements of IN OTHER WORDS is Lahiri’s choice to write it herself entirely in Italian, and to have Ann Goldstein translate the English version. Goldstein is an acclaimed translator, with Primo Levi and Elena Ferrante under her belt, and the words shine beautifully. But Lahiri explores that element of translation, so the reader becomes confident in her choice while also more deeply recognizing the significance. She cannot write in English anymore; doing so feels wrong, betrays her work, stagnates and confuses her progress. Had she herself translated the book, she says, there would have been impulse to correct, refine and lean on her English expertise to better the Italian, which would take away from the raw purpose of the book. She understands that by giving herself over to Italian, she is willingly reborn, deliberately reverting herself to infancy in so many ways.

Language permeates our everything. Our thoughts and emotions exist outside of it, but we can only communicate to ourselves and others by approximating those ideas through the filter of language. True writers understand this, as they strive to use the tools of language to get at certain truths.

Lahiri’s project is a brave one. By relinquishing her English, the means by which she has already explored so many truths so beautifully, she forces herself to think in new ways about what she’s trying to communicate. By rejecting the code by which she has understood the world, she must learn everything anew. Lahiri understands language, as well as the certain homelessness that you cannot understand unless your parents are not from this country and you are not fluent in your mother tongue like they are. I share that reality, and her mission to find a language that is truly hers --- while also never, ever, truly hers --- is a powerfully crucial experience. IN OTHER WORDS is unique, immense, tender and deeply exquisite.

Reviewed by Maya Gittelman on February 10, 2016

In Other Words
written by Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by Ann Goldstein

  • Publication Date: February 7, 2017
  • Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction
  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage
  • ISBN-10: 1101911468
  • ISBN-13: 9781101911464