RaveThe Arts FuseOn the most obvious level, these essays track Jhumpa Lahiri’s deepening mastery of Italian and through it, a more profound understanding of English, the language in which she is most comfortable, if not too comfortable. Yet they also reveal a mind inclined to metaphorical thinking, endlessly circling the alchemical mystery of translation, comparing it now to this, now to that: to an echo, a metamorphosis, a doubling, a mirror in which one sees someone other than oneself, a conversation, a marriage between texts, etc. Each metaphor reflects some aspects of translation, never all. Still, the cumulative effect over the course of this book sharpens our view of what the imperfect art of translation can, in fact, do ... Translation is like the air we breathe: we take it for granted until we lose it. Lahiri’s essays, to extend this metaphor, are a gust of oxygen-enriched air.
