#Jhumpa Lahiri

[quotespile]

I’ve never stayed still, I’ve always been moving, that’s all I’ve ever been doing. Always waiting either to get somewhere or to come back. Or to escape.

Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts

[strokeofserenity]

Jhumpa Lahiri, “The Namesake”

[thebellekeys]

Recommendations for media about translation, interpreting, and foreign languages

Movies and TV

Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020) The Interpreter (2005) The Last Stage (1948)

Books

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri The Interpreter by Suki Kim Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok Translation Nation by Héctor Tobar Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip Translation State by Ann Leckie

Other Important Topics and Subjects

La Malinche The Rosetta Stone The Tower of Babel The Adamic Language Esperanto Philology Goethean World Literature

Documentaries and History

The Interpreters: A Historical Perspective The Nuremberg Trials Biblical Translation St. Jerome - patron saint of translators Shu-ilishu's Seal (first depiction of an interpreter)

[mostlyghostie]

What I read in March!

Lots of variety, one kids book read to my daughter (I read more than 1 a month to her but this was the only new one!), some fantasy, a brilliant, brilliant sci-fi book where the sci-fi part isn’t important (everyone needs to read everything by RC Sherriff!), a book about walking, a great Jhumpa Lahiri short story collection and a comic you can read free online at Substack.

Also read Carisa Lloyd’s book about grief, coincidentally around the 7th anniversary of my dad dying- I found it enormously helpful, her podcast is great too, as a rec for anyone else in the club.

What did you read last month?

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[girljeremystrong]

books about dads and about family and about complicated feelings

FICTION

foster by claire keegan: a story about a young girl who's sent to live with another family and founds a love she wasn't familiar with before.

they're going to love you by meg howrey: carlisle goes back to greenwich village to her father's house and finds herself dealing with her complicated feelings towards her dad.

the namesake by jhumpa lahiri: most beautiful novel by our gratest author about the son of immigrants from calcutta growing up in america.

east of eden by john steinbeck: the nobel prize winning greatest story of a father growing two very different boys in california.

still life by sarah winman: ulysses finds himself with a child and chooses to become the best man he can for her (and they move to italy).

unlikely animals by annie hartnett: emma's dad has a mysterious brain disease so she drops out of med school and goes back home. it's a delightful story.

the family chao by lan samantha chang: a retelling of the brothers karamazov set in a modern day chinese restaurant in america.

the incredible winston browne by sean dietrich: sheriff browne recieves some bad news and suddenly he finds himself taking care of a runaway girl who doesn't speak.

we begin at the end by chris whitaker: duchess is only a kid but she takes care of her little brother with all she has even when circumstances keep getting worse and worse.

razorblade tears by s. a. crosby: two black men are killed and their fathers, who always had trouble accepting their sexualities, decide to get justice.

the sweetness of water by nathan harris: in the waning days of the civil war two brothers find refuge with a couple in a farm.

salvage the bones by jesmyn ward: esch's brothers and her dad in the 12 days before during and after hurricane katrina. a modern classic and one of the most beautiful books ever.

the patron saint of liars by ann patchett: in a kentucky home for unwed mothers, a woman meets a man and can't escape her past.

homeland elegies by ayad akhtar: a very personal story of a man and his father dealing with feelings of dispossession and belongings. again one of the best books in the world.

NON-FICTION

the three mothers by anna malaika tubbs: the story of the three women who raised and shaped martin luther king jr., malcolm x and james baldwin.

how to say babylon by safyia sinclair: a memoir of a childhood shaped by a volatile father.

beautiful country by qian julie wang: after moving from china to the usa young qian finds a place among books as her family struggles to adapt to their new home as undocumented immigrants.

between the world and me by ta-nehisi coates: a black father shares his fears for his son growing up in current day america.

[words-and-coffee]

She has the gift of accepting her life.

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

[llovelymoonn]

jhumpa lahiri whereabouts

kofi

[litsnaps]

[kafka-bug]

Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

[urlocalbone]

Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake” was a riveting, almost delicate business for me. At several times I felt so attacked by the author that I was tempted to put the book down, yet the fragile personas of the characters drew me on past the pages.

It is a book from my Australian school’s English novel list. And so is “Wuthering Heights” or “Jane Eyre”. I read those with equitable interest, overanalysing every sentence, theme and character. I read background books, tried Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, Emily Brontë’s poems, Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”, all about the Brontë sisters’ household. I stormed through shelves in my university library, took refuge to the bedroom for reading up to late hours; I worked in a fever dream. The sheer excitement of navigating my way past great pieces of literature felt rewarding in itself. It was a foreign experience; as I had learned, along with my Bangladeshi peers, to read what was on the syllabus, without questioning what was within.

It all felt great, until I hit home.

All the above mentioned are written by individuals with whom I do not share my skin tone, my food habits or my accent. Therefore I “explore” them but not find myself within. Like an impartial observer, I rate this or that.

But Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Gogol” would not let me do that. His parents are Bengali, just like me. He is an American-Indian, just like I have a hyphen between my nationality too: Australian-Bangladeshi. And he is frivolous, which with great pains I will admit being too. His faults feel mine. Or at least, he annoys me, gets under my skin.

The novel opens with his birth and early childhood. He grows up indifferent to his ethnicity, preferring English, beef and high school parties over embracing Bengali, white rice and being involved in the culture he has a rightful share in. His family gives in too. I find myself enraged at their conduct, feeling grateful I came to Australia at a ripe age of sixteen- I am incapable of deserting my roots now. Then again, I discover that I have the same mentality as a middle-aged desi aunty, how shameful is that! Shouldn’t I be open-minded, and accept that Gogol has to cope with the country he was born in, rather than the one he has no attachment to?

Gogol’s mental stigma about his name is another side to his character that appears immature to me. He hates sharing a name with a Russian author, whom he finds demented than inspiring. He never sets to find out why his father Ashoke named him after his favourite Nikolai Gogol. It is a story he seeks out too late, a few weeks before Ashoke’s sudden death. He changes to “Nikhil”, even though he mentally admits no one, except he himself, has ever pestered him for the name he was born with.

Even though it isn’t directly pronounced, Gogol (now Nikhil) always tries to break free of Bengali “norms” and his parents’ expectations, unapologetically. This is reflected in his numerous love affairs with various women. But his attention is always fleeting. He’d rather be on holiday with his girlfriend’s “elegant” parents than his own. How does he fail to notice, as I do as a reader, that he indeed seeks out the idea of “settling down” in his partners in a very Bengali way, but miserably fails every time?

Something about his romantic life scares me. Will I, as a hyphenated Bengali girl, experience the same troubles as him? Will complying with my tradition feel unnatural to me some day too? As I read past Moushumi’s Parisian cigarettes and the descriptions of fine wine, do I not feel tempted? To go ahead, break the “rules” and enjoy “life”, as they say it?

And the lonesome, tired corner of my soul says that thousands of kids have broken the rules, there are no more to be newly broken. Do they really enjoy life like a one-night-stand? I highly doubt so.

As my mother’s words ring in my ears, “Love, keep your romantic life simple, so you’ll get time to do great things in life itself!”

Yet, I feel bitter as Gogol does not utter a single word of regret as the novel comes to an end. It is almost as if I am his mother, waiting to box his ears and set him right. But he wouldn’t admit that he was wrong, all his life.

[malinaa]

Jhumpa Lahiri, “Why Italian?”, Translating Myself and Others

[quotespile]

Solitude: it's become my trade. As it requires a certain discipline, it's a condition I try to perfect. And yet it plagues me, it weighs on me in spite of my knowing it so well.

Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts

[papillon-de-mai]

“The goal isn’t to be happy with my voice. What I want is simply to have one.”

— Jhumpa Lahiri, in an interview with Francesco Pacifico.

[gregor-samsung]

" Il secondo anno a Roma, dopo Natale, vado con la mia famiglia a vedere Paestum, e poi ci fermiamo, per un paio di giorni, a Salerno. Lì, nel centro storico, nella vetrina di un negozietto, mi capita di vedere dei vestiti carini per i bambini. Entro con mia figlia. Mi rivolgo alla commessa. La saluto e le dico che sto cercando dei pantaloni per mia figlia. Descrivo quello che ho in mente, suggerisco dei colori che andrebbero bene, aggiungo che a mia figlia non piacciono i modelli troppo stretti, che preferirebbe qualcosa di comodo. Insomma, parlo abbastanza a lungo con questa commessa, in un italiano ormai scorrevole ma non del tutto autentico. A un certo punto entra mio marito con nostro figlio. A differenza di me, mio marito, un americano, dall’aspetto potrebbe sembrare un italiano. Lui e io scambiamo qualche parola, sempre in italiano, davanti alla commessa. Gli faccio vedere un giubbotto scontato, che sto considerando per nostro figlio. Lui risponde a monosillabi: va bene, mi piace, sì, vediamo. Nemmeno una frase intera. Mio marito parla lo spagnolo alla perfezione, quindi tende a parlare l’italiano con un accento spagnolo. Dice sessenta y uno invece di sessantuno, bellessa invece di bellezza, nunca invece di mai, per cui i nostri figli lo prendono in giro. Parla bene l’italiano, mio marito, ma non lo parla meglio di me. Decidiamo di comprare due paia di pantaloni più il giubbotto. Alla cassa, mentre sto pagando, la commessa mi chiede: «Da dove venite?» Le spiego che abitiamo a Roma, che ci siamo trasferiti in Italia lo scorso anno da New York. A quel punto la commessa dice: «Ma tuo marito deve essere italiano. Lui parla perfettamente, senza nessun accento». Ecco il confine che non riuscirò mai a varcare. Il muro che rimarrà per sempre tra me e l’italiano, per quanto bene possa impararlo. Il mio aspetto fisico. "

Jhumpa Lahiri, In altre parole, Guanda (collana Tascabili), 2015¹, pp. 101-102.

[mostlyghostie]

Barely read anything that came out in 2023 this year, but these are the three books I liked most that I read this year, and all very different.

Chapters (2023) is a kind of comedic, kind of poetry book that is beautifully designed

Whereabouts (2021) is a series of short stories about a woman’s contentedly lonely experiences living in Italy

Crossroads (2022) is a huge interconnected book covering the run up to Christmas from the perspectives of every member of an extremely screwed up family in 70s America in and around an influential evangelical youth group

Next year I would like to get over my hardback aversion and read a lot more brand new fiction.

I pre-ordered Chapters and got a beer mat with it, featuring one of the poems:

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[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

" That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet. "

- Jhumpa Lahiri