PositiveReadings (AUS)This strange world and its characters are made fathomable through O’Farrell’s use of detail. Her descriptions are visceral, arresting and transportive. She understands that it isn’t the expected that makes historical fiction ‘believable’, but the unexpected.
Jhumpa Lahiri
PositiveReadings (AUS)Lahiri gives insights into her processes, as well as penetrating and perceptive thoughts on the act of translating that will be especially illuminating for readers who enjoy translated works.
Jhumpa Lahiri
PositiveReadings (AUS)Lahiri’s first novel written in Italian – a remarkable feat considering she learnt the language later in life. It’s incredible then to discover that after the Italian publication Lahiri also translated the work back into English herself. It’s debatable whether having this context prior to reading is necessary, although it’s hard not to notice, and be fascinated by, how this Italian filter has changed her writing ... Much of the novel is made up of her small, intimate moments: a conversation overheard at her local swimming pool, a run-in with a stranger at a friend’s dinner party, a chance encounter with a former lover. These events are often understated, and mostly unconnected, but almost always punctuated by beautiful moments of clarity and small revelations ... It should be said that readers hoping for an armchair tour will be disappointed. Only the tiniest clues are given that we are in Italy, and maybe Rome, but otherwise Lahiri’s lack of use of the classic Italian tropes are stark and pointed in their omission. This is a novel about its narrator and the people around her.
