Mustafa by Nikoai Grozni

Here is a treat for anyone interested in Eastern Europe.

How in the World Did I Get Again into ...

... the Holocaust theme??!! I am not sure, but the fact is that I am concurrently reading three books that are either primarily concerned with the extermination of Jews or their characters question others of their memories of the Holocaust in order to find the truth.

The first book is Bernard Schlink's The Reader. Usually, I read the book prior to watching the movie made after it, but this time it was the opposite. The movie was fantastic. Now that I am reading the book, I can say that the book is even better. Enjoying the book after having seen the movie rarely happens. However, this is not the case with Schlink's narrative. His prose is sensitive, vibrant, erudite; it embraces the reader with its tentacles and does not let go even after you are done with the whole text. The questions that emerge from the read are much more prolific than those addressed in the movie version of the story. As much as the performance in the movie is impeccable and the plot flows well, the book poses the most important moral dilemmas that the younger generation during the Third Reich faced, and the movie slightly touches on these issues. The main question becomes where one can draw the line between duty and humane actions. Michael, the narrator of the story, who is a 15-year old boy, is exposed to the dilemmas of his generation in which the kids of those involved in the Holocaust ponder over the actions of their parents trying to decide if what they did was prompted out of fear for their lives or call for duty. Michael suffers mostly because it is not his parents that have committed the crime, but it is his lover and beloved who has done so. He has chosen to love a woman who has clearly trespassed the lines of humane actions in fulfilling her duties as a Nazi camp guard. Does his love for her make him an equal culprit?

Besides the moral questions that the text raises, the reader of The Reader is overwhelmed by the simplicity and tenderness of the words Schlink uses to describe love and passion. The act of reading which precedes love-making in Hanna and Michael's world ties indelibly to the newly discovered concept of loving for the young boy. Love of books and love between two people live in an indisputable connectedness throughout the novel. In fact, Michael and Hannah foster their love through the love of books even during her long years in prison. The love of the erudite activity overpowers the love of the physical touch. In this sense, it is not surprising, though many readers/viewers could have found it to be strange, when Michael finally visits Hannah in prison, their urge, desire, or habit to touch each other or even to hug has faded, but their spiritual connectedness has remained pristine throughout the years due to the act of reading and listening. Michael has read aloud dozens of books for Hannah, and she has listened to them. Their consumption of love has taken a completely different form. Through words only they have achieved a harmonious relationship. They have been lovers through all these years when they were apart, even more passionate lovers than when they actually were together and made love. This is the bitter truth that Michael and Hannah discover during Michael's visit in prison before Hannah is to be released. And her decision to commit suicide comes only naturally: she is not ready to change the relationship that they have had; she is not ready to mar the love constructed and consumed through books by the act of reading and listening. A poignant moment - that of the realization. It could smother a pregnant lady with her own tears.

The other book that I randomly selected for my summer reading pleasures unfortunately did not provide me with the sophistication of The Reader. Despite its international acclaim, The Book Thief did not touch the proper cords as it must have happened to many other readers. The style was easily digestible, in fact it could be considered innovative in many ways - Death tells the story of a little girl and his foster parents during the last years of Hitler's Germany. The most annoying part of it all was the slow pace of the narrative. Although it seems to be important to see how Liesel, the little girl, develops her love for books (close to the theme from The Reader), the story still crawls way to slowly before any real predicament comes along. The text is peppered with fresh humor, and for someone who has the patience to wait until a gratifying moment (somewhere towards page 500 perhaps), I am sure it has been a different experience. However, the image of the book created by its American classification as Young Adult Literature does not prepare grounds for such patience. I approached it as a quick (though 550-page) read, and was disappointed.

I have planned to read Everything is Illuminated for a long time now and am really glad that I finally got to it. It is one of the best reads that I have come across in the last year. The young author, Jonathan Safran Foer, reveals incredible story-telling skills. Elements of magic realism are masterfully weaved through a text that talks about an American searching for a woman in Ukraine who saved his grandfather by helping him escape the Nazis. The plot is brilliant, and the narrative style breaks the rules of the mundane English phrase, not only because of the "broken English" that the Ukrainian translator speaks, but simply because Foer's phrase bursts with images to reveal an unprecedented in recent literature imagination. I will have to write about Everything Is Illuminated in a separate post. It truly deserves its own spot.

Nowhere Man

Nowhere Man is a multilayered narrative portrait of a Bosnian boy by the name of Jozef Pronek. The diverse voices in the chapters of the book intercept to paint the multiple faces of Pronek. He is a man with many fates, but none that is coherent; he is a man with many homelands, but none that makes him feel home. The voices of the narrators trace Pronek in Sarajevo, Kiev, Lvov, Chicago, even Shanghai. Displaced from his home because of the war, Pronek never finds one place to live in, one job to work, one girlfriend to love. Even his sexuality is on the verge of the ambiguous. In this beautifully written text, through which unique images chase each other hastily like drops of mercury, Hemon reveals his skill to give an expression of the inexpressible state of the migrant, the nowhere man. And he does that in a second language - one that relates to his home only by the image of the missing home in the nowhere place in which the author lives.

A Ballet Morning, St. Pete's Style

A New York Times video story.

Does Your Kid Have a Drum Set?

When asked the above question, the wife of Paul Auster answers:

- No, that's Paul writing.

An interview by Granta magazine about the last book of fiction by Paul Auster - Invisible.

Granta Paul Auster Interview from Granta magazine on Vimeo.

After a long pause... on ugliness

I finally had a moment to go through the beautiful volume On Ungliness by Umberto Eco. The collection of essays is divided in several chapters looking at the concept of ugliness through time - from ancient Greece to modernity. There is a part dedicated to the martyrdom of Jesus Christ. The book is definitely worth-owning with its exquisite photos (representing ugliness through the centuries) and excerpts from the works of Plato to the radical feminists. Eco's text manages to succinctly and beautifully talk about the development of the concept of ugliness. He makes sure that the reader understands from the very beginning that there is no idea of ugliness without the concept of beauty. Now I am looking forward to reading his History of Beauty.

Here is an interview with Eco by New York Times.

  

Payback: Margaret Atwood on Debt

The prolific Canadian writer Margaret Atwood reads excerpts from her new book Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth on NPR's Book Tour. With this collection of essays, Atwood proves once again her versatility as an author: from a poet and a novelist to a nonfiction writer and a philosopher providing timely commentary on perilous economic situations. When you say "Hello" or "Good morning" to someone, when you open the door for someone, they owe you back something - at least a "Thank you", explains the basics of the debtor-creditor relationship Atwood. She muses on the different types of debts and the synonyms that debt has developed in modern Western culture. Forgiveness, according to the author, is often a type of debt. When Nelson Mandela was leaving the prison, for example, he wanted to forgive for all they have done to him right at this point so that he will not suffer later with the memories.

Debt is related to memory, says Atwood. Also, there is a story and a plot connected to every debt. Even in the animal world, the economic system works in a similar way: when a chimpanzee scratches another one, the receiver of the favor owes him a scratch back (they remember the debt), unless there is a hierarchical structure in which the scratched chimp is above the others and therefore exempt from paying back the favor. Very much like in politics - remarks Atwood. My favorite example that she gives concerns silver fish: when the male silver fish does a dance for the female silver fish, if she appreciates the dance, he then gives to her something called "sperm package"!

Thinking about creditor-debtor relationship, when someone reads your blog, don't they owe you something? Perhaps just a comment, or maybe a copy of a recently reviewed book! Come on, don't be stingy!

Starving for Bread and Knowledge in Yezierska's Bread Givers

Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers depicts the life of a Jewish immigrant family from Poland. The plot proliferates with themes and symbols seminal to the American immigrants in the beginning of the 20^th century. As the Smolinsky family struggles with hunger, questions of morality and gender discrimination come to the surface. Sara Smolinsky, the youngest daughter, epitomizes the social changes in the immigrant’s life: she emerges from a man-driven Old World to make herself “a person” and get education in the New World (159). The hungry for bread immigrant starves for knowledge as a pathway to individuality and independence.

Reb Smolinsky, the father, is a religious man who prays all day long and chooses not to work, but who believes that a woman is nothing without a man. His vision for getting bread at the table is solely rooted in the management of his four daughters: they give his wages to the family, they work for his well-being, and they are supposed to marry to rich gentlemen who will support the whole Smolinsky family. Thus, Reb Smolinsky marries three out of his four daughters to seemingly rich men; however, his poor matchmaking skills render his daughters unhappy and put them in marriages with men who either lied about their prosperity, spend all the money on themselves, or have numerous children from a previous marriage. The principles of the Smolinsky family call for happiness in prosperity and rich life and leave behind love and education.

The youngest daughter of Reb Smolinsky, Sara, disrupts the idea of her father by running away from the family. One day she gets tired of her father’s preaching, his gullibility as a businessman and his plans to marry her off to a rich man. Sara begins a life of her own, delving into a world of poverty but cherishing aspirations for education. Sara’s life in New York is marked by physical and epistemological hunger. She works at daytime in a laundry as an ironer and goes to school in the evenings. Her dream is to become a teacher. Despite the connection between the spirituality of father and daughter, Sara’s move clashes with Reb Smolinsky’s idea of a woman. He tries to marry her off to “a golden young man” who Sara initially likes because of his achieved independence but refuses to marry (207). The dispute between father and daughter ends their relationship for a while, illuminating the difference between the two worlds that Reb and Sara belong to: “I saw there was no use talking. He could never understand. He was the Old World. I was the New” (207).

Two worlds collide, and the new one attracts Sara more because of the possibilities it gives to a young woman: “It’s a new life now. In America, women don’t need men to boss them” (137). Sara’s hunger for knowledge overcomes her hunger for food. All her sisters were afraid to tear away from the old world because of the hunger that they and their family will face with their move. Sara does not fear hunger; she is on a quest to make herself a new person, one who deserves respect as much as men do . She enunciates a social change in the immigrant’s life: women can be equal to men in the new world.

In fact, all the men in the Smolinsky’s world are supposed to be “bread givers” but they fail as such. Reb Smolinsky does not even know how to handle his own money; he constantly loses whatever he has in a foolish way and lives on the wages of his daughters. Moe Mirsky, who marries the most beautiful of the Smolinsky daughters – Mashah – as a diamond dealer, is actually a simple clerk who cannot keep a job and starves his family while wearing expensive suits and eating at fancy restaurants. Abe Schmukler, the cloaks-and-suits dealer who marries Fania, appears to be a gambler who does not care about his wife’s emotions and while he provides for her good appearance, it is only because that makes him look good in the eyes of the others. Zalmon, the fish-peddler chosen by the father as Bessie’s husband, does not care about the happiness of his wife and is pleased as long as he has someone to take care of his house and six kids.

Sara Smolinsky sees that it is time to leave the world of men as bread givers; apparently, the question from the Torah “What is a woman without a man?” has a different answer in the new world (205). A woman could be a better bread giver than all the men in the Smolinsky family.

Crippled Imagination and Its Cost

Well, well, well. A talk about the educational system never seems objective enough to me unless it is confined by proper geographical, cultural, and chronological parameters. And here comes a second book on the education in American public schools by John Gatto. Weapons of Mass Instruction metaphorically prepares the reader with its title about the statement Mr. Gatto is to make once again: "mechanisms of familiar schooling which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of role-memorization drills." It all sounds scary; the picture promises a dumb and handicapped generation. Wait, that's exactly part of the name of John Gatto's first book - Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992). Then, the popularity of his Underground History of American Education which is available for free online, makes a similar point.

I wonder how many books by Gatto will it take for people to really see some of the basic problems that the system has. Though not a product of the American public school system, I have a significant experience with its products. In fact, I, you, and everybody out there in this country gets to experience on daily basis encounters of that kind (I'd like to think that Spielberg was not having those in mind when he was thinking of the "third kind" encounters). Don't we all deal in one way or another with public school graduates? Oh yes, you'd say, but after their public school some of them became University graduates and therefore they won't identify any more with their basic public schooling. True, but how many of you get your burger flipped or your oil changed by this University graduate? And why has it become normal in this country to have the foundation of one's education worse than the building it supports? Doesn't a good foundation make for a more solid structure? Wrapped in this line of thinking, I do forget however that the education we are talking about is actually called public. Public is part of a binary opposites whose other end must be non-public, or paid, or for those who can afford to pay for it, or maybe I should use the Chomskyan, for the "privileged." Now that the working concepts have changed - public versus paid education, or education for free vs. a better one that is paid - I think it makes sense why a book or two or even three are not exactly going to make that change. We live in a world where the more money you pay the better product you get. And yes, the product of the public schools is "what you paid for." Ironic, in a time of economic crisis. But eye-opening for many who did not quite think about it before. Now, we have to perhaps worry about the public schools more than ever because it is likely that we will get more and more products at a lower cost since we won't be able to afford the higher price. More products with "crippled imagination" to deal with on daily basis; knock on wood they won't live in your homes.

The Reason Mario Puzo Wrote the Godfather ...

was... to make money! And he did. But what he really made is the best gangster plot of all times. Here is an excerpt from Mario Puzo's story about writing the book (read the rest on MailOnline: How They Shot the Godfather):

I was 45 years old and tired of being an artist. Besides, I owed $20,000 to relatives, finance companies, banks, and assorted bookmakers and shylocks. It was time to grow up and sell out, as Lenny Bruce once advised.

So I told my editors, OK, I’ll write a book about the Mafia, just give me some money to get started. They said no money until we see 100 pages. I wrote a ten-page outline. They showed me the door again.

...

I finally had to finish The Godfather in July 1968 because I needed the final $1,200 advance payment to take my wife and kids to Europe. My wife had not seen her family for 20 years, and I had promised her that this was the year, so I handed in the rough manuscript. Before leaving for Europe, I told my publisher not to show the book to anybody; it had to be polished.

....

I got my mother on the phone. She speaks broken English but understands the language perfectly. I explained it to her.

She asked, ‘$40,000?’

I said no, it was $410,000. I told her three times before she finally answered, ‘Don’t tell nobody.’

Traffic was jammed, and it took me over two hours to get home. When I walked in the door, my wife was dozing and I went over, kissed her on the cheek, and said, ‘Honey, we don’t have to worry about money any more. I just sold my book for $410,000.’ She smiled at me and kept dozing.

I started getting annoyed. Nobody seemed to think this was a big deal. My whole life was going to change; I didn’t have to worry about money. It was almost like not having to worry about dying.

Then my sister said, ‘You got $40,000 for the book. Mama called.’

I was exasperated with my mother. After all those explanations she had gotten it wrong.

Her 80 years were no excuse.

‘No, it was $410,000.’ Now I got the reaction I wanted…

The Russian Debutante's Journey

Vladimir Girshkin, the main character in The Russian Debutante's Handbook, is a Russian American Jew who travels across continents to gain confidence, find love and happiness. Vladimir does not set off on a mission with such goals from the beginning of the novel. Unlike the regular coming-of-age narrative, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook lets the reader relish in a dynamic plot with plenty of twists and turns that at prima vista have little to do with the standard novel of a maturing character. The numerous humorous situations populate the plot of the novel with strange but real opportunities for the character to reflect and grow.

Reflection in the book, however, comes secondary to action. The young protagonist rushes into every serendipitous situation that life offers to try to change his status, mainly to impress of his possessive and manipulative mother. He wants to get a profession that will make him look good in the eyes of his parents; what he discovers later is that this should in fact be a profession that will make him feel independent and more confident. Thus, Vladimir befriends Fan Man, who promises him a prosperous job in exchange for a favor which risks his current occupation; he ventures into a well-paid machination with a man who tries to sexually harass him; in the end, Vladimir decides to get into a murky enterprise in Eastern Europe with suspicious Russians in hopes to become richer and therefore a better candidate for the heart of his girlfriend. In the beginning of the novel, Vladimir is ready to try everything only to get the confidence of which his parents robbed him over the years. And truly, how can a man at the age of 25 feel at ease with his identity when his mother is still trying to teach him how to walk properly?

The European syndrome of the dominant mother and the weaker son lines up with all kinds of Eastern European features of the protagonist in the book. Vladimir experiences the anxieties of the Russian, those of the Jew and also the problems of the Eastern European immigrant. He suffers torn between many cultures, trying to reconcile all his ethnic and geographical identities. When he finally gets to Europe in search of a new career and new identity, he pauses one day and asks himself the question “Who is Vladimir Girshkin? Who indeed?” (248). Afterwards, he puts on the mask of a a poet who ironically writes a poem about his mother and reads it in front of a raving pseudo-artistic public in Prava, Shteyngart’s name for a fictional city awfully similar to Prague.

Gary Shteyngart flips upside down the regular take on an immigrant identity; instead of depicting the character as tragically trapped between different worlds, he uses every opportunity to concoct ridiculous situations based on the immigrant’s position between many cultures. The humorous tone of the novel does not denigrate the image of the immigrant; on the contrary, it builds him up as a hero in this action-driven plot. Vladimir has the potential of becoming an excellent partner in the mafia enterprise in Prava because of his understanding of Russian culture: he can speak to his counterparts in Russian and relate to their existence. At the same time, he has the chance of even becoming a leading figure among them because he is the only one who understands American culture and therefore can mingle with the ex-pats in Prava making them invest in a fraudulent enterprise. Vladimir is in the zenith of his life while he works for the underground Russian organization in Eastern Europe. Shteyngart even names the part depicting his time in Prava “The King of Prava” and one of its chapters “The Happiest Man Alive” – both descriptions of Vladimir’s success in the game that takes place on the verge of two cultures – the Eastern European and the American.

The Russian debutante in the novel is looking for confidence, but also happiness and love. His first relationship is with an ordinary American girl that he meets in one corner at a party. His second girlfriend is a New Yorker whose parents are college professors and quite liberal; she shows him a world of possibilities and introduces him to a more international New York crowd. Vladimir’s third girlfriend, who becomes his wife in the end of the book, is an American girl who is interested in Eastern Europe and even learns to speak the language of the Stolovan Republic. In fact, Vladimir meets her in Prava; she is the bridge that connects his Eastern European identity with his American one. Morgan, his future wife, tell him:

… here is the thing about you, Vladimir… I like you because you’re nothing like my boyfriend back home and you’re nothing like Tomas either … You’re worthwhile and interesting, but at the same time you’re … You’re partly an American, too. Yeah, that’s it! You are needy in a kind of foreign way, but you’ve also got these… American qualities.” (388)

Vladimir’s complex identity finally works for him, or at least he is learning how to use it in his benefit. He gains confidence, falls in love, feels happy. Vladimir is seemingly happy in the last part of the novel when he finds himself living in Cleveland, working in the company of his wife, awaiting his first child. He is also slightly sad, or rather nostalgic for the days in Eastern Europe where he could actively use his potential of an immigrant able to live on the verge of two cultures, navigate two worlds from his position on the border.

NYT: 10 Best Books of 2008

In this listing of New York Times, Jhumpa Lahiri rubs shoulders with Tomi Morrison and Roberto Bolaño. Isn't it amazing! I am also happy to see Netherland among the five selections in fiction. Now, I absolutely have to read it.

Fiction Should be Taken as Seriously as Fact-Based Research

Dr. Dennis Rodgers, Manchester University's Brooks World Poverty Institute:

"Despite the regular flow of academic studies, expert reports, and policy position papers, it is arguably novelists who do as good a job – if not a better one – of representing and communicating the realities of international development. While fiction may not always show a set of presentable research findings, it does not compromise on complexity, politics or readability in the way that academic literature sometimes does. And fiction often reaches a much larger and diverse audience than academic work and may therefore be more influential in shaping public knowledge and understanding of development issues."

Professor Michael Woolcock, director of the Brooks World Poverty Institute:

"Fiction is important because it is often concerned with the basic subject matter of development. This includes things like the promises and perils of encounters between different peoples; the tragic mix of courage, desperation, humour, and deprivation characterising the lives of the down-trodden."

Read the whole article at The Telegraph.

Is Paradise Lost Lost in Translation?

Miltonists out there, the news is that Dennis Danielson's translation of Paradise Lost into modern English just came out. It is actually a parralel text - Milton's verse on one side of the page and against it Danielson's prose. Critics say that Danielson "frees the reader" from "this streneous and often frustrating labor" of reading the original. Stanley Fish supposes that "once liberated, [the reader] will be able to go with the flow and enjoy the pleasures of a powerful narrative" (New York Times). Here is an example that Fish provides:



"When Adam decides to join Eve in sin and eat the apple, the poem says that he was “fondly overcome by female charm.” The word that asks you to pause is “fondly,” which means both foolishly and affectionately. The two meanings have different relationships to the action they characterize. If you do something foolishly, you have no excuse, and it’s a bit of a mystery as to why you did; if you do it prompted by affection and love, the wrongness of it may still be asserted, but something like an explanation or an excuse has at least been suggested."



In the end of his article, Fish concludes that this is a wonderful edition for teaching Milton.



Well, here are some concerns that I harbor:



1. How are you, as an intelligent reader, feel free to go with a flow and even enjoy a text whose overall effect is essentially embedded in its language, when someone actually TRANSLATES it for you from Milton's English to Modern English? And aren't other forms of rendition of the text, like plays and films, supposed to do this for the lazy reader, only that they use an entirely different form which justifies the "translation", and don't simply derrogate the poem by depriving it of its essence - the Milton's English?



2. Isn't part of the pleasure actually reading the poem in Milton's English and treating your senses to the different connotations (even the latinate syntax, as Dr. Fish suggests)? Isnt' this the way in which the modern English speaker learns about the development of not only language, but concepts, and thinking? And yes, this translation would make for a great textbook for teaching Milton's language, but would it not deprive the student of the overal feel of the text and his personal struggle in the labyrinthine "latinate syntax"? Then the real question comes: this translation will make a great texbook but for teaching what? Are there that many people, as the article suggests, who are actually trying to actively learn how to speak Milton's English? Because this is what this "translation" does: it probably teaches quite successfully the connotations of the Milton's English words in Modern English words. How about the real experience of reading the original? Finally, wouldn't the original give the reader a chance to go back in time and have the experience the Milton's English erudite (or just a listener to a public reading)?



3. In the end, there is one comment after the article with which I have to agree: This book is not a translation; it is an interpretation of Paradise Lost.

The Book is Like a Hammer!

"That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete."

Read James Gleick's interesting article on Google vs. Authors Guild and the imperishablility of the book:

How to Publish Without Perishing

La Camorra

A week after Roberto Saviano was named "a dead man walking," I got his book in original: Gomorra: Viaggio Nell'impero Economico E Nel Sogno Di Dominio Della Camorra.

I can't wait to set aside some time to read it and then watch the movie.

Here is a short video on the Camorra. I can hear in the speech of the priest Saviano's thoughts before he wrote the book.

Siamo impotenti, paralizzati dalla paura, dal egoismo. Non siamo capaci di liberarci... Siamo camorristi anche noi senza sapere di esserlo. Noi dobbiamo opporci con tutte le nostre forse... Smetterla di avere paura. Noi siamo piu' forti!

How Life Begins

How Life Begins: The Science of Life in the Tomb is perhaps one of the first detailed books on the subject targeting the general public. I am sure that since it was written in 1996, there have been lots of new discoveries that illuminate the development of the fetus even further, for example the book In the Womb presenting unique pictures from the National Geographic film (2005). How Life Begins still provides an approachable text with a story. Christopher Vaughan is a skilled narrator who gives an account of the etymology behind certain terms. In addition, I am enjoying the parts in which he discusses Soviet versus Western progress in the field. Some passages reveal the American mysterious view of the East during the Cold War. Maybe because of that lack of knowledge, there is a certain dose of respect towards the developments behind the iron curtain. For example, Vaughan points out that "during the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Dr. Craig Sharp, consultant psychologist to the British Olympic team, was told by Eastern European sports doctors that they liked their athletes to have one child, and preferably two, because it made them better competitors" (54-55). Kudos for these Eastern Europeans for their functional schemes to improve the athletic performance. ;)

In the end, I hope to finally "have killed the rabbit" - in the old fashioned terminology which Vaughan explains in an amusing way in his book. And just to add to the disturbing yet quite popular discussion among comp professionals on gender authorship, the text reads as though written by a woman. Christopher uses equally sensual language as would Christina.

Forms of Displacement in Lost in Translation

In Eva Hoffman’s biographical book Lost in Translation, the main character struggles with different forms of displacement in her relocation from Poland to North America. In 1959, when Eva’s parents decide to immigrate, they take their daughter on a journey of self-(re)discovery. To find herself in the new world, Eva experiences the pangs of displacement as geographical, ethnic, but mostly linguistic.

Lost in Translation is divided in three parts, each one named after a period from Eva’s immigrant story. As much as they are chronological in their sequence, the chapters’ titles unambiguously reveal the development of Eva’s transformation: from being perfectly happy in her native Poland – Paradise ­- through becoming sick with the pain of the immigrant’s experience – Exile – to her successful curing in The New World.

First, Eva suffers with geographical displacement, and she calls it “the most palpable meaning of displacement” (132). She has “been dislocated from [her]… own center of the world, and that world has been shifted away from [her]… center” (132). She has been recognizing herself with this “small square on the map” so far; now, she is in a culture where her fellow students don’t even know the location of Poland: “Is Poland part of Russia?” they inquire (132). Eva is lost in transition from one place to another. She is not in the country with which she identifies and she does not feel at home in the new place.

Eva is ethnically displaced in America. As a child of proud Jewish and Polish parents, she looks at her new American friends from the recollected identification with her Polishness. About her best fiend at the university, Eva thinks, “[e]ven a relatively intelligible person, like Lizzy, poses problems of translation. She – and many others around me – would be as unlikely in Poland as gryphons or unicorns” (175). Lost in Translation proliferates meanings and redefinitions of ethnic belonging. During her childhood in Cracow, Eva learns to exist as a Jew in Poland in all its ambiguity. When her friend’s father finds out that Yola and Eva have been playing dangerous fantasy games, he blames her for it: “You are the leader of it. You little Jew” (34). From a young age, Eva Hoffman experiences the difficulties of belonging to an ethnic group in her home country. Relocation aggravates the problem even further. Ethnic displacement makes it even more difficult for the young Polish Jew to reconcile with her identity. Eva starts her quest of finding herself in a new language in a new world governed by new rules.

“It’s important to me to speak well as to play a piece of music without mistakes” (122): she reveals her method to overcome the sense of displacement. Eva Hoffman’s eloquent expression comes to a testimony for her successful linguistic survival in the new world. A Life in a New Language, as the subtitle of the book reads, becomes the goal of the immigrant. In Exile, Eva suffers the loss of Polish as the main language of communication. “I don’t see what I’ve seen, I don’t comprehend what’s in front of me. I am not filled with language any more, and I have only a memory of fullness to anguish me with the knowledge that, in this dark and empty state, I don’t really exist” (108). Existence for Eva is tantamount to control over language. The Descartian “I think, therefore I am” becomes “I speak, therefore I am.” Language defines the immigrant’s existence, and lack of language articulates another form of displacement – the most important one in Eva’s story. In her article on language memoirs, Alice Yeager Kaplan notes that “[t]here is no language change without emotional consequences. Principally: loss. That language equals home, that language is home, as surely as a roof over one’s head is a home…” (63). Eva can overcome the nostalgia by learning to speak the language of the new world. She realizes that finding herself means finding herself comfortable in speaking the language of her new home: “It’s not that we all want to speak the King’s English, but whether we speak Appalachian or Harlem English, or Cockney, or Jamaican Creole, we want to be at home in our tongue” (124). The prescription for treating linguistic displacement demands mastering a new language. “We want to be able to give voice accurately and fully to ourselves and our sense of the world” (124), concludes Eva. In the end, Eva naturally finds herself at home in America through language and literature: “In this country of learning, I’m welcomed on equal terms, and its’ through the democratizing power of literature that I begin to feel at home in America…” (184).

Eva Hoffman’s discovers a formula that guarantees recovery from her state of geographic, ethnic, and linguistic displacement. The cure is clear: mastery of the foreign language. Her book serves as the very medicine: by the end of the text, the main character is healed. She has learned to live in a new language: “When I fall in love, I am seduced by language. When I get married, I am seduced by language” (219); “When I talk to myself now, I talk in English” (272). She has achieved a new identity overcoming her sense of displacement: “I am here now,” states Eva in the last sentence of her book (280).

Guide to Cross-Cultural Communication

"Guide to Cross-Cultural Communication (Guide to Series in Business Communication)" (Sana Reynolds, Deborah Valentine)

Who would have expected that much from such a little book? It is informative and well-structured; it gives quite practical advice and at the same time backs its arguments with sufficient theoretical research. Sana Reynolds and Deborah Valentine have done their homework; not only that but the book reads like experts compiling a cheat sheet for their fellow students. What a relief to finally see a short book with a pompous title that does a good job of defending its name and providing a handy little guide to a huge field. Good job!

Broken English, Orange Elephants, and Masks in Díaz’s Drown

"Drown" (Junot Díaz)

The inexorable drowning of the immigrant narrator in Junot Díaz’s text begins from the very first page. Life is maintained due to artificial breathing devices, language being the major tool. Díaz’s collection of short stories patches together moments from the life of Dominican American immigrants into a bigger narrative depicting fragile existence in a foreign culture. The narrators of the short stories are diagnosed with constant sense of displacement in a permanent condition of fatherlessness; they suffer an invisible life under their masks being drowned by the products of a new prolific and loud culture.

Díaz states in the epigraph: “The fact that I / am writing to you / in English already falsifies what I / wanted to tell you” (1). This statement pleads for understanding of the narrators’ condition: they are individuals unhealthy in their state of adaptation to the new culture. The narrators of the short stories honestly declare their linguistic displacement. They feel estranged in the new culture; they lack words to express themselves in the new language. The language theory, which preserves the illusion of a presence in speech and absence in writing, is distorted; in fact, telling and writing are unified by the common displaced tongue of both narrator and writer. David Coward notes in his article “Closet and Mask,” “writing is in fact the very model of speech, and presence remains elusive to both” (194). The narrators in Díaz’s text often lack words and so does the writer. Both narrators and author use a myriad of Spanish words to save the text but also their existence in the new culture. English language becomes the epitome of displacement from the fatherland and Spanish – the narrators’ attempt for healing, the breathing device that the drowning characters would use. The gap between fatherland and new land is reinforced by the constantly missing father figure in the stories.

When Ramon, Yunior’s father, meets his second wife, he immediately recognizes two things: her successful integration in the new culture and her poor taste. She has lived in America for several years; she has adapted her lifestyle to the American one; she is even a citizen. Moreover, Nilda speaks good English – she has achieved the control over language that Ramon is craving. However, “Nilda’s taste … [strikes] Ramon as low-class” (184). He notices the “bright orange plaster elephant” on her glass table and the fake plants in every room of her apartment. Nilda has learned to speak English and therefore her disease of displacement has been cured; however, it seems to Ramon that the new culture has engulfed Nilda, and she has drown in it, attaining her poor taste as a result. The orange plastic elephant represents cured displacement but it is inevitably paired with the symbolic drowning of the immigrant.

For Ramon and any of the narrators in the collection of stories, existing in the New World implies facelessness. Immigrants are invisible to the native-born and they are treated as people without respectable face, identity. When Ramon suffers with an injured back, his employer will fire him since he does not care about the poor immigrant: he lacks distinguishable face and it does not matter which one of the myriad of immigrants will be working in his company. Cowart, however, points out that “at the same time, immigrants … as depicted by Díaz … are at pains to mask themselves, to avoid being seen in their vulnerability, their pain” (199). The boy with “no face” from the story of the same title symbolizes the faceless state of the immigrant. “He has his power of INVISIBILITY and no one can touch him” (155). At the same time, Rafa and Yunior are curious to see what’s behind the mask of Ysrael, the boy with no face from the first story. Finally, they take off his mask only to discover his vulnerability and pain.