Deepika Asthana

April 13, 2018

A foreign language, on the other hand, can be both- alienating as well as endearing. For example, in Italian, everything sounds romantic and theatrical. In every word, there is a promise of mystery, of covert meetings in Venetian alleys, of romantic dalliances in Florentine lanes, of family warmth.

In the short essays in the book, you get a glimpse of her love for and her struggles with Italian. She writes: “What I hear, in the shops, in the restaurants, arouses an instantaneous, intense, paradoxical reaction. It’s as if Italian were already inside me and, at the same time, completely external. It doesn’t seem like a foreign language, although I know it is. It seems strangely familiar. I recognize something, in spite of the fact that I understand nothing.”

She is as smitten with Italian as the Russian émigré Andreï Makine is with French in his rhapsodic novel Dreams of My Russian Summers. It is quite ironic that the Russian born author who sought asylum in France had to pretend that his work was a translation from Russian manuscripts in order to have his first book published. French publishers refused to believe that a recently arrived émigré could write so well in their language. The Russian Jewish author, Mary Antin was similarly infatuated with English. She wrote her classic immigration memoir The Promised Land in English, erasing the tongue of her Russian Jewish childhood. Mary Antin extols English, “this beautiful language in which I think,” and insists that “in any other language happiness is not so sweet, logic is not so clear.”

As with many childhood fascinations, my infatuation with Italian met with a quick demise. Decades later came, Eat, Pray, Love, written in 2006 by Elizabeth Gilbert and later brought to life in 2010 by Julia Roberts in a movie of the same name. Julia Robert’s attempts at learning Italian, replete with full-bodied “rssss” and emphatic gesticulations brought back familiar stirrings.

When I first read In Other Words, I wondered what could have motivated an accomplished and acclaimed author like Lahiri to abandon English for a foreign language- as beautiful as that language may be. Authors of all shapes and sizes might agree with George Orwell’s assessment that writing a book can be “a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” Then why exacerbate the struggle with the additional burden of a foreign language’s unfamiliar vocabulary and grammar?

Joseph Conrad, the author of Heart Of Darkness,  a Polish native who began studying English only after settling in England in his twenties, is considered to be one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. He likened his literary translingualism to arduous and dangerous labour: “I had to work like a coal-miner in his pit, quarrying all of my English sentences out of a black night.”

Maybe, In Other Words, is an attempt to create an identity for herself, which is different from that of a Bengali immigrant who excelled in English. A need to reconcile with the fact that even after moving to America, her mother resisted learning English and desperately clung to her Bengali language and culture. Estranged from both Bengali and English, Lahiri fumbles her way to Italian. “Without a homeland and without a true mother tongue,” she presents herself as perpetually being stuck in no-man’s land.

Alternately, perhaps she took refuge in a foreign language to escape from the trappings of being a literary celebrity- to work in anonymity. Echoing Beckett’s famous explanation for his turn to French (“parce qu’en français c’est plus facile d’écrire sans style”— because in French it’s easier to write without style), Lahiri affirms, “In italiano scrivo senza stile, in modo primitivo”— “In Italian I write without style, in a primitive way.” Distancing herself from the expectations created by her English style, she seems to have found freedom in Italian. In English, Lahiri is burdened with the expectations that come from being a renowned literary figure. But in Italian, she can revel in her solitude: “Scrivo per sentirmi sola”— “I write to feel alone.”

Lahiri describes her book as “una sorta di autobiografia linguistica, un autoritratto” (“a sort of linguistic autobiography, a self-portrait”). Her choice of Italian— “a language that has nothing to do with my life”—appears strange. Early on, she admits, “I don’t have a real need to know this language. I don’t live in Italy, I don’t have Italian friends. I have only the desire.” Noting how the three most celebrated translingual authors—Samuel Beckett, Joseph Conrad, and Vladimir Nabokov—all had closer and longer ties to their adopted languages than she has to hers, Lahiri writes, in Italian: “Mi chiedo se ci siano altri come me”— “I wonder if there are others like me.”

While the book itself is good, although incomparable to her English language publications, her attempt to write in Italian is nothing short of commendable. Having the ability to communicate in a foreign language and a palate to appreciate foreign food is a gift. A person who has this gift can lead multiple lives, and experience myriad cultures, in just one lifetime.