Jhumpa Lahiri - Whereabouts (2018/2021 tr. Jhumpa Lahiri) ★★★☆☆
An unnamed woman moves through the unnamed Italian city where she lives, noticing details of life around her…
A quiet book, without a plot beyond glimpses of life told through vignettes, it should have been right up my alley. It was enjoyable enough in the moment, and it’s refreshing to read a middle-aged, contentedly single MC, but there was something missing for me, the novel lacked…soul.
I’ve been wondering if it’s related to Lahiri’s decision to write in Italian, a language I understand she has gained fluency in relatively recently. It’s an impressive endeavour, but I’m not convinced by the choice - fluency is one thing, but truly feeling the depths and nuance of a language in your bones and wielding it accordingly is something else - it can be done, but the lack of spark suggests perhaps Lahiri isn’t quite there yet. I am keenly aware that I express myself differently across languages, not just due to my own varying levels of eloquence but because I think differently in different languages (and I’m not alone in that), including my two “native” languages, and the framework of a language inevitably affects how we tell a story. Or, perhaps something was lost in translation, though that would be unfortunate as Lahiri translated her own novel. All of that said, I haven’t read any of Lahiri’s other work (though I am keen to), so it’s hard to draw conclusions - is it the language thing or is it simply a topic that Lahiri couldn’t quite bring to life?
Anyway, that rambling tangent doesn’t really tell you much about the book… I don’t actually have much else to say, other than I found it occasionally verged on dull, and the character, her life and the setting have failed to leave an impression. In fact, I came out of the book more interested in the question of choosing which language to write in, than any aspect of the book itself (as you might have gleaned).
Quiet glimpses of a middle-aged, single woman’s life in an unnamed Italian town, enjoyable enough but not particularly memorable.
Bought from @booketybookbooks
Have you read this one? Any thoughts on the language question?
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