In Other Words: A Memoir

Even if you're not learning a language, you will be moved by Jhumpa Lahir and her love affair with Italian. I might even call this a love story, where the pursuer is pursuing an unsuspecting, challenging and unknowing partner - The Italian Language. Ms. Lahir's metaphors are amazing and amusing.Here's a little passage that really hit home as one who has been studying Italian for two years; recently spending three months at Università per Stranieri in Perugia."I gather words that seem obscure (sciagura, spigliatezza: disaster, casualness) and ones that I can easily understand but would like to know better (inviperito, stralunato: incensed, out of one’s wits). I gather beautiful words that have no exact equivalents in English (formicolare, chiarore: to move in a confused fashion, like ants, and also to have pins and needles; shaft of light). I gather countless adjectives (malmesso, plumbeo, impiastricciate: shabby, leaden, smeared) to describe thousands of situations. I gather countless nouns and adverbs that I will never use. ​ 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.But when I come out of the woods, when I see the basket, scarcely a handful of words remain. The majority disappear. They vanish into thin air, they flow like water between my fingers. Because the basket is memory, and memory betrays me, memory doesn’t hold up. I feel a bond with every word I pick up. I feel affection, along with a sense of responsibility. When I can’t remember words, I fear I’ve abandoned them. ​" As anyone who is studying a language, they will tell you, the experience she describes above, feels so familiar!She finds herself learning not only the language but also a beautiful insight into the culture. Insight even a seasoned tourist would not be exposed to. You will learn how this brilliant Pulitzer Prize author humbly approaches this task and you will be moved.This is a quick read, cleverly written that will relate to you if you're learning a language, or maybe even encouraged to learn that language you've been thinking about learning for all these years.Highly recommended.Rocco Capobianco

I bought this book late last year, as I was in the midst of learning Mandarin. I thought it would inspire me in my own language-learning journey. IN OTHER WORDS opens with a beautiful metaphoric analogy of the author swimming in a lake. Metaphorically speaking, that lake is Italian--the language itself.The book reads like a diary (it's based on one). In the first third of the book, Ms. Lahiri seems hesitant, unsure. She uses very simple words and short sentences--almost childlike. At one point, she reveals that she feels hesitant and childlike as she writes in Italian: it is a stark contrast from her facile relationship with English, in which she-as a Pulitzer Prize-winning author-is extremely accomplished.The endeavor of learning Italian is, to me, laudable. But when you learn/realize that the book was actually written in Italian, then translated into English, you realize that this is a major accomplishment.As the author gains mastery in Italian, the writing/vocabulary and personality seem more sophisticated, more grown-up. Ms. Lahiri writes of the year she and her family spent living in Italy, of her encounters in stores, of her conversations with Italians--many of whom are friends or acquaintances. I enjoyed reading those anecdotes.The book is not just about language-learning: IOW chronicles the author's self-discovery, as she fulfills this longtime dream. I marvelled at her determination. For, as she states in the book, there is no reason for her to learn Italian, except that she loves it.I compared my language-learning approach (which I wrote about on my blog), and you will, too. If you're learning a new language, you will enjoy reading of the author's inspirational experience.

While reading Lahiri’s In Other Words, I found the book to be beautifully natural. Lahiri found a way to put her thoughts down on paper while being very authentic. Normally while reading literature, I find myself wanting authors to be more pure, and less edited in what they truly want to put down on paper. I found the piece to be the complete opposite of what I normally read, which was very refreshing. I was able to get a true understanding of what went through Lahiri’s mind while writing In Other Words. There were many points where she opens up, letting herself be truly vulnerable in her writing. It shows how you can be very powerful with your words; speaking your mind can add a whole new layer to your concepts. While I have found many authors protect their ideas, Lahiri shows a new way of expressing her thoughts, imparting a great amount of passion towards her journey of learning language. I did find the book to be a little repetitive. It felt a little too long for the type of story. It would have been easier to read if it was condensed down.I also really appreciated the amount of relatability in this piece. As a college student, I have taken many language classes, but have struggled to perfect the language, regardless of the amount of years I have spoken it. Lahiri struggles with this as well. She bounces between many Italian tutors, yet feels incomplete since she has not been immersed long enough in the Italian culture to really grasp Italian. A large population of people struggle with acquiring a second language, and this common place makes the book just that much more relatable. So many people want to read about topics that they can empathize with, and this topic on the difficulty of learning a language is valuable to a lot of different types of people.

Jhumpa first travelled to Italy in 1994, spending a week in Florence with her sister, whilst studying Renaissance architecture in Boston. The love affair was immediate and profound.‘From the start my relationship with Italy is as auditory as it is visual. Although there aren’t many cars, the city is humming. I’m aware of a sound that I like, of conversations, phrases, words that I hear wherever I go. As if the whole city were a theater in which a slightly restless audience is chatting before the show begins.’She learns Italian at home for twenty years, but that isn’t enough. She uproots her family to go and live in Rome, where Jhumpa wants to absorb everything possible about the country, its culture, the people and – most profoundly – its language. Even to the exclusion of her other languages, Bengali and English. To the extent that she ultimately thinks in Italian, writing In altre parole in her new language, the Italian text coexisting with the English translation – by Ann Goldstein – when published as In Other Words. Although the journey is a challenging one….‘When I read in Italian, I feel like a guest, a traveler. Nevertheless, what I’m doing seems a legitimate, acceptable task. When I write in Italian, I feel like an intruder, an impostor. The work seems counterfeit, unnatural. I realise that I’ve crossed over a boundary, that I feel lost, in flight. I’m a complete foreigner.‘Lahiri’s writing is lyrical, intense, beautifully crafted and stuffed with extraordinarily illuminating phrases and images.‘Ever since I was a child, I’ve belonged only to my words. I don’t have a country, a specific culture. If I didn’t write, if I didn’t work with words, I wouldn’t feel that I’m present on the earth.’‘Oddly, I feel more protected when I write in Italian, even though I’m also more exposed. It’s true that a new language covers me, but unlike Daphne (from Ovid’s Metamorphoses) I have a permeable covering, I’m almost without a skin. And although I don’t have a thick bark, I am, in Italian, a tougher, freer writer, who, taking root again, grows in a different way.’In Other Words is a short book, not much over 100 pages of the English translation, standing opposite Jhumpa’s proud original Italian text. As a lover of languages myself, and the owner of a pathetically small Italian vocabulary, I was excited to read about this brave linguistic adventure. I must admit to feeling slightly disappointed by the end. The book felt a little too academic, perhaps even a little self-indulgent. But that in no way diminishes this immense achievement by a linguistic and literary titan.

Probably for completists only. I have read all of Ms Lahiri's books and loved them for their dispassionate, detached prose and universalization of the the feeling of being an alien.Here she takes it to the next level by writing in a new language. Originally published in Italian, this is an autobiographical account of self-alienation layered on top of a lifetime's experience of being 'other'.No one writes about being an outsider quite like Jhumpa Lahiri.

A beautifully written book written in Italian/English parallel text about Jhumpa Lahiri's transformative love affair with Italian. This is a fascinating study of the way in which a new language can shape identity so that the novice speaker 'inhabits' the language and vice versa. Never entirely at home with her parents' Bengali nor with the English she grew up with when her family moved to the US, Italian became a refuge and a means of escape. I love this book.

The Italian is extremely clear (although at times the rhythm of the language can seem strange), this is the writer's third language. It is the account ofobstacles and challenges as she becomes ever more fluent in Italian, a mundane sounding theme, however the story is exceedingly well told. I recognised many similarities with my own experiences. My husband, who is Italian, has enjoyed listening to it in the car.

I can completely identify with the process she describes so clearly. I find her Italian more straightforward to read and understand and is definitely more interesting than a lot of Italian readers for English students. I would recommend this.