In Japanese, several features set it apart from a conventional Japanese-language novel. The words flow horizontally left to right as in many European-language books, as opposed to vertically and right to left as in most Japanese-language books. It also freely moves from English to Japanese and back, the way a fluent speaker of both languages like Mizamura might ... Carpenter’s compromise is to use different typefaces to represent the use of different languages. A great deal must be lost in translation, but the novel is still a thoughtful reflection on language and culture ... Mizumura’s reflections on race are some of the most eloquent in the book ... An I-Novel ends without a conclusive answer, but it becomes clearer that Mizumura’s distinction between her 'Japanese-language self' (her 'real self') and her 'English-language self' isn’t a comfortable one. Her dual identity makes her a keen critic of two very different cultures that are, in some ways, inseparable.
Innovative yet influenced by traditional Japanese literary style, An I-Novel focuses on subtle details within an intimate structure. There are evocative descriptions, as of the snow’s 'soundless dance' and how Nanae dates 'a merry-go-round of men.' More intense events, however, like the crime and veiled racism Minae encounters in the US, are included with detached yet troubled candor ... an intriguing, nuanced portrait of a family in flux, and of a young woman finding her creative center between two worlds.
In an age of so many books about identity, An I-Novel stands out for the tough questions it poses. It’s not difficult to read, since Mizumura is a fluent and entertaining writer ... Mizumura’s books reclaim the particularity, the untranslatability, of her own language. And they do so without the slightest whiff of nationalism ... What’s difficult about her work is the questions it raises. How to be national without being chauvinistic? How to be local without being provincial? How to use identity as the beginning of the discussion rather than — as it is so often today — the final word? In Mizumura’s works, the question is always open. She knows, from the very beginning of her American story, that this is not her country, not her language. But it’s one thing to realize that. It’s another thing to get back home.
... an immigrant story turned on its head ... Translations into English of important literary works from different languages are always exciting events — and this is certainly among the most important translations from Japanese this year. It is a tour de force by translator Juliet Winters Carpenter of one of Japan’s most exciting writers.
... a style that reimagines the memoir by borrowing from fiction to remake the past, to redefine it so that the internal can take center stage in conversation with the world as seen by the author. In doing so, it attempts, and mostly succeeds, in feeling like fiction. Sort of ... The recounting of the mundane day to day, heightened by the internal musings of the narrator create a bridge that, when well-done as in Mizumura’s An I-Novel, is in itself of feat of literary construction, creating the fourth wall even as it demolishes it. Erasing the narrative line separating fiction and nonfiction, the imagined and the lived ... you have choices. You can read An I-Novel as a great example of the Japanese I-Novel trend in literature. You can read it as a feminist literary landmark, or to inspire a conversation on language and its role in bridging the differences that distance forces upon people who love each other. Or you can just read it for the gorgeous prose, and it would be more than enough.
... fascinating, but the trouble is obvious. The friction that results from imposing a dual-language text onto a story about choosing between languages has been lost in “An I-Novel.” In fact, the book’s untranslatability is a feature rather than a bug ... English-speakers are left out, since a bilingual book cannot be reproduced for monolingual societies. As translating failures go, then, this one is healthy and instructive ... Americans are prone to the complacent expectation that every book of worth will eventually be delivered to their doorsteps. It is good to be reminded that some experiences are closed to us unless we work for them.
Mizumura weaves a compelling tale out of this, quite effortlessly moving back and forth between past and present-day (literally: day), introducing a variety of friends and acquaintances in passing -- none of whom she ever is really close to ... proves to be a fascinating way of dealing with her languages and her experience ... It is a fascinating literary experiment, but also a fascinating exploration of identity, place, language, and self; some of Mizumura's story (and narrative approach) will be familiar to readers of her other translated books, but this is the most thorough examination of self and family ... a very fine novel of the experience of growing up between (more so than in) two cultures -- cultures which were, on top of it, much more markedly different at that time -- and of trying to find one's place, in every respect.
A genre-defying meditation on emigration, language, and race ... Mizumura is an elegant guide to her narrator’s thoughts, which are both intimate and discerning ... As she alternates between the mundanities of her day—what to eat, when to make a phone call—and more philosophical reflections on racism, xenophobia, and linguistic alienation, Mizumura’s narrator (and her author) produces a brilliant document that seems, if anything, more relevant today than upon its original publication. Mizumura’s work is deeply insightful and painstaking but never precious.
