I am very ambitious in my borrowings from the public library. I am fascinated by the extent of its collections, the ability to check out an e-book and read it on my Kindle, the neat stacks of books. But of course, I don't always manage to complete or even start the large number of books I check out. I realized a few days ago that I had Jhumpa Lahiri's latest book 'In Other Words' and it was due soon. Books as new as that are rarely available to re-issue. I opened it last evening only to realize that it was in Italian and English. It is the story of her love and learning of Italian, learning to speak, read and write in Italian.
The themes of language and countries, exiles and belonging, all resonated with me. The language (at least the English translation) was simple, direct. She speaks about her frustrations and failures at learning a new language. She talks about forever being outside the world of Italian because of how she looks. While for now, I have given up language learning efforts, I don't think it is permanent. At another time in my life, I hope to return to it, if not in a class, then through travel.
This is a paragraph about always living and writing on the margins.
This has to be my favorite one about homelands and exiles, that without one, the concept of the other does not exist in our world.
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