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The Other Language
Hailed by The New York Times as “a natural-born storyteller,” the acclaimed author of Rules of the Wild gives us nine incandescently smart stories, funny, elegant, and poignant by turns, that explore the power of change—in relationships, in geographies, and across cultures—to reveal unexpected aspects of ourselves.
Taking us to Venice during film festival season, where a woman buys a Chanel dress she can barely afford; to a sun-drenched Greek village at the height of the summer holidays, where a teenager encounters the shocks of first love; and to a classical dance community in southern India, where a couple gives in to the urge to wander, these remarkable tales bring to life characters stepping outside their boundaries into new passions and destinies. Enlivened by Francesca Marciano’s wit, clear eye, and stunning evocations of people and places, The Other Language is an enthralling tour de force rich with many pleasures.
This ebook edition includes a READING GROUP GUIDE.
Taking us to Venice during film festival season, where a woman buys a Chanel dress she can barely afford; to a sun-drenched Greek village at the height of the summer holidays, where a teenager encounters the shocks of first love; and to a classical dance community in southern India, where a couple gives in to the urge to wander, these remarkable tales bring to life characters stepping outside their boundaries into new passions and destinies. Enlivened by Francesca Marciano’s wit, clear eye, and stunning evocations of people and places, The Other Language is an enthralling tour de force rich with many pleasures.
This ebook edition includes a READING GROUP GUIDE.
304 pages, ebook
First published April 8, 2014
171 people are currently reading
3578 people want to read
About the author
Francesca Marciano
20 books277 followersFrancesca Marciano is an Italian novelist and a screen writer. She has lived in New York and in Kenya for many years. To date she has written three novels and two collections of short stories : “Rules of the Wild”, listed as one of the NYT notable books of the year, ”Casa Rossa”, “The End of Manners”, “The Other Language” shortlisted for the Story Prize in 2014 and "Animal Spirit". She’s currently living in Rome.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 262 reviews
May 21, 2021
My friend Francesca's beautiful collection of stories is among the finalists for the Story Prize which will be announced tonight in NYC. Fingers crossed!
http://www.thestoryprize.org
"In summary, such stories may sound like familiar tales of mid- and later-life crises, or like old-fashioned fables about privileged Europeans who have washed up in provincial or colonial outposts. What makes these tales stand out as captivating exemplars of storytelling craft is Ms. Marciano’s sympathetic, but wryly unsentimental knowledge of these people’s inner lives; her ability — not unlike Alice Munro’s — to capture the entire arc of a character’s life in handful of pages; and her precise yet fluent prose (the result, perhaps, of writing in a second language), that immerses us, ineluctably, in the predicaments of her men and women." Michiko Kakutani, NY Times
charm (v.)
c.1300, "to recite or cast a magic spell," from Old French charmer (13c.) "to enchant, to fill (someone) with desire (for something); to protect, cure, treat; to maltreat, harm," from Late Latin carminare, from Latin carmen (see charm (n.)). In Old French used alike of magical and non-magical activity. In English, "to win over by treating pleasingly, delight" from mid-15c. Related: Charmed; charming. Charmed (short for I am charmed) as a conventional reply to a greeting or meeting is attested by 1825.
Francesca Marciano's stories are as delightful and light as they are deep and complicated. They will charm the hell out of you at the turn of a sentence and fill you with a sudden desire for more exotic locales (Rome! Africa! India!) and a heightened sense of living. From the exquisite nostalgia of the story "Chanel" to the life-affirming epiphanies in "The Presence of Men", here is a writer whose humanity shines through and through in her sharp observations of women's inner lives. And what to say about the radiant beauty at work in "Quantum Theory".
Because the real exotic locales depicted here are the subtle tectonic plates at work inside these phenomenal female characters, always in motion, always shifting from one mood to the next, in constant evolution. These are women who are not afraid to be weak and untameable, needy and independent, light and impossibly heavy, courageous and riddled with doubt. The stories are brilliant at conveying the ebb and flow of women's psychological strengths and vulnerabilities. We know these women. We are these women.
A wickedly smart and elegant collection that I was damned lucky to read ahead of its publication date in April 2014, a gorgeous whiff of spring in the beginning of winter.
http://www.thestoryprize.org
"In summary, such stories may sound like familiar tales of mid- and later-life crises, or like old-fashioned fables about privileged Europeans who have washed up in provincial or colonial outposts. What makes these tales stand out as captivating exemplars of storytelling craft is Ms. Marciano’s sympathetic, but wryly unsentimental knowledge of these people’s inner lives; her ability — not unlike Alice Munro’s — to capture the entire arc of a character’s life in handful of pages; and her precise yet fluent prose (the result, perhaps, of writing in a second language), that immerses us, ineluctably, in the predicaments of her men and women." Michiko Kakutani, NY Times
charm (v.)
c.1300, "to recite or cast a magic spell," from Old French charmer (13c.) "to enchant, to fill (someone) with desire (for something); to protect, cure, treat; to maltreat, harm," from Late Latin carminare, from Latin carmen (see charm (n.)). In Old French used alike of magical and non-magical activity. In English, "to win over by treating pleasingly, delight" from mid-15c. Related: Charmed; charming. Charmed (short for I am charmed) as a conventional reply to a greeting or meeting is attested by 1825.
Francesca Marciano's stories are as delightful and light as they are deep and complicated. They will charm the hell out of you at the turn of a sentence and fill you with a sudden desire for more exotic locales (Rome! Africa! India!) and a heightened sense of living. From the exquisite nostalgia of the story "Chanel" to the life-affirming epiphanies in "The Presence of Men", here is a writer whose humanity shines through and through in her sharp observations of women's inner lives. And what to say about the radiant beauty at work in "Quantum Theory".
Because the real exotic locales depicted here are the subtle tectonic plates at work inside these phenomenal female characters, always in motion, always shifting from one mood to the next, in constant evolution. These are women who are not afraid to be weak and untameable, needy and independent, light and impossibly heavy, courageous and riddled with doubt. The stories are brilliant at conveying the ebb and flow of women's psychological strengths and vulnerabilities. We know these women. We are these women.
A wickedly smart and elegant collection that I was damned lucky to read ahead of its publication date in April 2014, a gorgeous whiff of spring in the beginning of winter.
May 18, 2018
This collection of short stories is absolutely entertaining. They transfer you to different places in Italy, Greece, sub-Saharan African village, New York and India. Imagine traveling with these interesting characters to some exotic places. I have read very few books of short stories where every story is a gem. The author is also a screenwriter and she knows how to conjure up an image in the reader's mind. The characters in these stories are intelligent, know what they want in life and are sometimes confused too. When they have to go through a transition, they are ready to take a risk and migrate to far away places not thinking about the consequences. Every story has a female protagonist and when the chapter ends, you are thinking if what she did was right or if you would do it differently if it were you.
May 28, 2016
You always take your chances when you pick up a book of short stories, especially when you've never even heard of the author. You automatically assume that there'll be some duds, some just so-so, and hopefully a couple of really great stories. That's what I was hoping for when I picked up this book that had been on my shelf for a couple of years.
Boy, was I surprised when every single one of these 9 stories turned out to be mini-masterpieces! EVERY SINGLE ONE! Each one was complete in itself, no regret that the story had ended abruptly or prematurely, but rather like a novel that could be read in a 30 minute time frame. Her writing style took me right inside the heads of the characters. Marciano is an Italian author, but there is no mention of a translator on the book jacket. All of these stories take place in Europe, mostly Italy, a couple in Africa; but all with very recognizable heroines with emotions that felt very real to me. I was amazed at the artistry of these little tales, and checked on GR to see if the author had written anything else.
I can happily report that she has written 3 previous novels. Apparently this is her first book of short stories. I am also happy to report that my library system has them all, so I don't have to go cold turkey on a new favorite author. I highly recommend this one to everyone, especially people who don't like short stories for whatever reason. This book just may change your mind.
Boy, was I surprised when every single one of these 9 stories turned out to be mini-masterpieces! EVERY SINGLE ONE! Each one was complete in itself, no regret that the story had ended abruptly or prematurely, but rather like a novel that could be read in a 30 minute time frame. Her writing style took me right inside the heads of the characters. Marciano is an Italian author, but there is no mention of a translator on the book jacket. All of these stories take place in Europe, mostly Italy, a couple in Africa; but all with very recognizable heroines with emotions that felt very real to me. I was amazed at the artistry of these little tales, and checked on GR to see if the author had written anything else.
I can happily report that she has written 3 previous novels. Apparently this is her first book of short stories. I am also happy to report that my library system has them all, so I don't have to go cold turkey on a new favorite author. I highly recommend this one to everyone, especially people who don't like short stories for whatever reason. This book just may change your mind.
December 3, 2019
[4+] Exquisite stories exploring the fragility of relationships. Each story feels almost like a mini novel, involving and satisfying. The most amazing thing about this collection is how consistently good each story is.
March 24, 2015
I feel as if I just discovered another goddess of the short story genre. Francesca Marciano’s nine stories are so beautifully realized, so breathtaking in their scope, that I lost track of time while under their spell.
“After seven years of European lie, she found herself smiling at the predicament she’d found herself in. It was a reminder that there were still places in the world where one could vanish, be lost, be found and rescued by strangers,” Ms. Marciano writes in one of her stories.
Indeed, each one is, in its own way, a study of reinvention: of suddenly becoming visible or invisible, of uncovering elusive truths in exotic locales, of turning one’s back on a tedious past, of recognizing the person one was meant to be.
In the Presence of Men – perhaps my favorite o the collection – a divorced woman named Lara attempts to reinvent herself in a charming and innocent Italian village. There she befriends an older woman, an extraordinary local seamstress. Yet when her brother arrives in town, accompanied by a famous actor, the ragged seams of the unspoiled town begin to reveal itself.
In another, Indian Soiree, an unmoored writer and his dissatisfied wife travel to India, where both begin to question the solidarity and trust of their relationship and who they really are. “The feeling they both had was of a tidal wave that kept gaining speed and had crashed upon them before they could take cover,” the author writes,’’
And, in the eponymous story, The Other Language, three young children travel from Rome to Greece with their father after the sudden death of their mother. “It impressed the children and seemed to cheer them up as if this time of greatest loss would coincide with the promise of a richer and more exciting lie. As if, by losing their mother, they had been promoted to a higher level of lifestyle.” Many years later, the middle child reflects on what she lost…and more importantly, what she gained.
There is not one mediocre story in this entire marvelous collection. Whether Francesca Marciano is writing about a penny-pinching Venetian woman who splurges on a Chanel dress that becomes a lifetime talisman or about a hermetic man who lives in a small island in Africa where he is found by a past girlfriend, the insights are extraordinary. (“Maybe he has chosen this place to venture inward rather than expand, since everything here – the people, the buildings, even the geography – lacks beauty and brilliance”).
Do I love this book? You bet! For anyone who gets enthused about internal or external journeys or who are prepared to believe that “one always had to be prepared for anything to happen”, this is a short story collection that will resonate long after you close the pages.
“After seven years of European lie, she found herself smiling at the predicament she’d found herself in. It was a reminder that there were still places in the world where one could vanish, be lost, be found and rescued by strangers,” Ms. Marciano writes in one of her stories.
Indeed, each one is, in its own way, a study of reinvention: of suddenly becoming visible or invisible, of uncovering elusive truths in exotic locales, of turning one’s back on a tedious past, of recognizing the person one was meant to be.
In the Presence of Men – perhaps my favorite o the collection – a divorced woman named Lara attempts to reinvent herself in a charming and innocent Italian village. There she befriends an older woman, an extraordinary local seamstress. Yet when her brother arrives in town, accompanied by a famous actor, the ragged seams of the unspoiled town begin to reveal itself.
In another, Indian Soiree, an unmoored writer and his dissatisfied wife travel to India, where both begin to question the solidarity and trust of their relationship and who they really are. “The feeling they both had was of a tidal wave that kept gaining speed and had crashed upon them before they could take cover,” the author writes,’’
And, in the eponymous story, The Other Language, three young children travel from Rome to Greece with their father after the sudden death of their mother. “It impressed the children and seemed to cheer them up as if this time of greatest loss would coincide with the promise of a richer and more exciting lie. As if, by losing their mother, they had been promoted to a higher level of lifestyle.” Many years later, the middle child reflects on what she lost…and more importantly, what she gained.
There is not one mediocre story in this entire marvelous collection. Whether Francesca Marciano is writing about a penny-pinching Venetian woman who splurges on a Chanel dress that becomes a lifetime talisman or about a hermetic man who lives in a small island in Africa where he is found by a past girlfriend, the insights are extraordinary. (“Maybe he has chosen this place to venture inward rather than expand, since everything here – the people, the buildings, even the geography – lacks beauty and brilliance”).
Do I love this book? You bet! For anyone who gets enthused about internal or external journeys or who are prepared to believe that “one always had to be prepared for anything to happen”, this is a short story collection that will resonate long after you close the pages.
April 14, 2014
Marciano writes with such naturalness and lack of artifice in each of these carefully composed and engrossing stories of women on the cusp that the reader is convinced the stories are about the author herself. By the fourth intimate portrait we bow to the skill and craft that brought these stories to life. We are privy to an entrancing fragility surrounding each central character as she faces choices and events that will shape her future. Her confusion and uncertainty is something we know very well indeed.
This sophisticated, sexy, adult collection about women not quite at ease in the world brings us to Italy, Africa, New York, and India. We feel no dislocation because we are privy to the intimate thoughts of our protagonist who carries her sensibility with her. The characters range from city to country and beyond but we never lose our vision of the internal.
Marciano’s characters are friends, charming friends, beautiful friends, who have our sympathy. They are vulnerable, capable, and sexual in ways we recognize. And perhaps they are a little deluded. In “An Indian Soirée,” “his wife” and “her husband” shrugged off their old lives as easily as old clothes only to discover they’d been together and away from the world too long. Moments of revelation are peeled so carefully, they are manifest in a look, or in a comment exchanged.
In “In the Presence of Men,” the richest and widest of the offerings, we see truths about a youngish divorcée, a small-town matron harboring an undervalued and unmatched skill, and an American filmmaker seemingly so sure of his attractiveness he disregards those that prop him up. When Lara’s high-profile guests leave her new house in the country, we see Lara standing at the kitchen counter eating a non-fat yogurt for dinner as she contemplates a full refrigerator, vegetables neatly stacked by color. The sadness, despair, even desolation that creeps over her afflicts us as well.
Stella and Andrea lie to one another, just a little, when they meet after many years in “Big Island, Small Island.” And Elsa lies to herself, just a little, in “Roman Romance.” But these lies are necessary. These infidelities we recognize but ordinarily cannot articulate, and we forgive them. We would have done the same.
A favorite among these bittersweet stories is “Chanel,” in which Caterina and Pascal try on designer clothes in fancy boutiques as a spirit-lifter and self-actualizing experience. Years pass, but the friendship, experience, and the dress (!) linger.
Best of all, in “Quantum Theory,” a man and a woman acknowledge a strong bond between them and do not act on it. The memorable visual in that story, the two reclining on parallel benches but holding hands, will stay with me a very long time.
This magnificent collection is a map to the hidden treasure of the female mind, each story adding to our delight and understanding and wonder. Marciano charts the inner landscape as intimately as a close friend fingering our sore spots, and we accept, rejoice, despair with her discoveries. I know now the tiny but scarring humiliations left from relationships are not mine alone to bear. We made a mess; Marciano made art. Even the cover rocks!
This sophisticated, sexy, adult collection about women not quite at ease in the world brings us to Italy, Africa, New York, and India. We feel no dislocation because we are privy to the intimate thoughts of our protagonist who carries her sensibility with her. The characters range from city to country and beyond but we never lose our vision of the internal.
Marciano’s characters are friends, charming friends, beautiful friends, who have our sympathy. They are vulnerable, capable, and sexual in ways we recognize. And perhaps they are a little deluded. In “An Indian Soirée,” “his wife” and “her husband” shrugged off their old lives as easily as old clothes only to discover they’d been together and away from the world too long. Moments of revelation are peeled so carefully, they are manifest in a look, or in a comment exchanged.
In “In the Presence of Men,” the richest and widest of the offerings, we see truths about a youngish divorcée, a small-town matron harboring an undervalued and unmatched skill, and an American filmmaker seemingly so sure of his attractiveness he disregards those that prop him up. When Lara’s high-profile guests leave her new house in the country, we see Lara standing at the kitchen counter eating a non-fat yogurt for dinner as she contemplates a full refrigerator, vegetables neatly stacked by color. The sadness, despair, even desolation that creeps over her afflicts us as well.
Stella and Andrea lie to one another, just a little, when they meet after many years in “Big Island, Small Island.” And Elsa lies to herself, just a little, in “Roman Romance.” But these lies are necessary. These infidelities we recognize but ordinarily cannot articulate, and we forgive them. We would have done the same.
A favorite among these bittersweet stories is “Chanel,” in which Caterina and Pascal try on designer clothes in fancy boutiques as a spirit-lifter and self-actualizing experience. Years pass, but the friendship, experience, and the dress (!) linger.
Best of all, in “Quantum Theory,” a man and a woman acknowledge a strong bond between them and do not act on it. The memorable visual in that story, the two reclining on parallel benches but holding hands, will stay with me a very long time.
This magnificent collection is a map to the hidden treasure of the female mind, each story adding to our delight and understanding and wonder. Marciano charts the inner landscape as intimately as a close friend fingering our sore spots, and we accept, rejoice, despair with her discoveries. I know now the tiny but scarring humiliations left from relationships are not mine alone to bear. We made a mess; Marciano made art. Even the cover rocks!
August 19, 2014
The language of love. The language of loss. The languages of betrayal, lust, disappointment, boredom, hope. Francesca Marciano speaks each with gorgeous fluidity and astonishing fluency. I had never heard of Marciano before the short story collection The Other Language was recommended to me. Now I am poised to seek out all of her works.
As a reader and writer for whom place is nearly as important as character, I was delighted to find that Marciano speaks my language. From her native Rome, to a haute couture boutique in Venice, and an old bakery turned House Beautiful in Puglia, to post-colonial Kenya, a remote village in Greece, central India, or New York City, Marciano shows us how place defines character, and how travel strips us of our inhibitions and sometimes, our conscience.
Marciano’s characters are on the cusp of change, brought about by crisis: death in the collection’s eponymous story and The Club; divorce in The Presence of Men; the approach of middle age—a theme that permeates several of the stories; and the gradual fizzling out of passion between lovers and within marriages.
Highlights include Emma’s coming of age after her mother’s death and her mistaken first love during a summer in Greece in The Other Language; Chanel, a story based on the simple premise of the right dress at the wrong time, but so full of depth and tenderness: it exemplifies the sense of loss felt by women as we reach middle age and examine the fading face in the mirror and our underwhelming résumé; The Club, a subtle treatise on interracial, intercultural marriage in Kenya; An Indian Soirée, where we witness how a dream and a dance dissolve a marriage; and Roman Romance, in which we meet the woman who inspired a rock star’s most popular song, twenty years after their affair.
The stories are long enough that we forget ourselves; our eyes and ears and thoughts become those of the women that Marciano so deftly portrays. But the short story demands a careful selection of detail and this author can turn the world on a phrase.
Francesca Marciano captures the small moments that, in retrospect, are the turning points of our lives.
Beautiful. Revelatory. Heartbreaking.
As a reader and writer for whom place is nearly as important as character, I was delighted to find that Marciano speaks my language. From her native Rome, to a haute couture boutique in Venice, and an old bakery turned House Beautiful in Puglia, to post-colonial Kenya, a remote village in Greece, central India, or New York City, Marciano shows us how place defines character, and how travel strips us of our inhibitions and sometimes, our conscience.
Marciano’s characters are on the cusp of change, brought about by crisis: death in the collection’s eponymous story and The Club; divorce in The Presence of Men; the approach of middle age—a theme that permeates several of the stories; and the gradual fizzling out of passion between lovers and within marriages.
Highlights include Emma’s coming of age after her mother’s death and her mistaken first love during a summer in Greece in The Other Language; Chanel, a story based on the simple premise of the right dress at the wrong time, but so full of depth and tenderness: it exemplifies the sense of loss felt by women as we reach middle age and examine the fading face in the mirror and our underwhelming résumé; The Club, a subtle treatise on interracial, intercultural marriage in Kenya; An Indian Soirée, where we witness how a dream and a dance dissolve a marriage; and Roman Romance, in which we meet the woman who inspired a rock star’s most popular song, twenty years after their affair.
The stories are long enough that we forget ourselves; our eyes and ears and thoughts become those of the women that Marciano so deftly portrays. But the short story demands a careful selection of detail and this author can turn the world on a phrase.
Francesca Marciano captures the small moments that, in retrospect, are the turning points of our lives.
They woke up early in the morning when the light was still soft, the water glassy and clear and one could make out every pebble on the bottom. ... Each one of them secretly believed this might be the end of the tears, and they marked that beach as the place where pain had ended and a new life could begin.
Beautiful. Revelatory. Heartbreaking.
November 1, 2015
Sòla grande, sòla piccola.
Ascolto alla radio l'intervista di Serena Dandini a Francesca Marciano.
Sono amiche le due, per cui i complimenti si diffondono nell'etere con lo spargi-zucchero-a-velo.
Però l'intervista è gradevole, e il mio interesse si accende quando viene fatto il nome di Alice Munro: Marciano dice di non aver dormito la notte quando ha saputo che niente-poco-di-meno-che la temutissima Michiko Kakutani, critico del New York Times, avrebbe scritto una recensione sul suo libro di racconti. E la temutissima cosa fa? La paragona niente-poco-di-meno-che a Alice Munro.
Francesca Marciano, sceneggiatrice scrittrice, un passato remoto da attrice, vive negli Stati Uniti, e sin dal suo primo libro, scritto quando viveva in Kenya, scrive in inglese, la lingua con la quale si esprime e con la quale ormai le viene spontaneo scrivere.
E anche questo è una nota di interesse, soprattutto quando aggiunge che se nelle opere precedenti si è sempre tradotta da sola dall'inglese in italiano, questa volta ha preferito affidarsi a una traduttrice professionista, perché aveva il desiderio di vedere in quale modo le sue parole inglesi venivano percepite in italiano.
Tergiverso: lo acquisto, non lo acquisto, lo acquisto, non... ehi, ma Amazon mi permette di scaricare un estratto del libro per il mio Kindle, meraviglioso!
Si tratta del racconto dal titolo «L'altra lingua»: meraviglioso (e due), cosa meglio di un racconto dell'autrice per decidere se mi piace o no, se mi incuriosisce o no, se poi acquistarlo oppure no?
Confesso: aspettarmi Alice Munro è ingiusto, non rende giustizia a qualsiasi autore, per quanto bravo, non sia Alice Munro, ma è ovvio che le aspettative siano alte, l'ha scritto Michiko Kakutani, mica la Gazzetta di Casalpalocco.
Il racconto procede placido, come lo scorrere dell'acqua dell'isola greca in cui è ambientato, nella quale evidentemente non soffiava il meltemi, e l'inizio è forse la parte migliore, anche se sussulti non ce ne sono, né di stile né di contenuti.
Proseguo imperterrita, sia pure a vele ammainate per assenza di vento, in attesa di quel guizzo rivelatorio, di quel colpo di coda che, come in alcuni racconti di Alice Munro, mi farà contrarre lo stomaco, sussultare l'animo.
E invece, proprio quando Emma e David se ne vanno a fare una nuotata ristoratrice, presagio di qualcosa che di sicuro accadrà fra loro, l'ebook cosa fa?
Si interrompe.
Ebbene sì, si interrompe lasciando il racconto incompiuto.
Ora, dico, gran bella trovata.
No, davvero: complimenti, Bompiani, davvero complimenti vivissimi, perché forse stavo leggendo un giallo e non l'avevo capito.
O forse... ah, ecco, ora ho capito! Stavo leggendo un Harmony, e giustamente mica mi si può rivelare aggratise se Emma e David su quell'isolotto faranno sesso!
Lo capisco, giusto così.
Cara Marciano, mi spiace, ma io a questi giochetti di marketing estremo mi sottraggo, e francamente di sapere se i due al termine della gita consumeranno, me ne infischio, perché pensavo, speravo, credevo di aver capito, che la sostanza fosse altra.
Con gli Harmony, oltretutto, ho già dato a tempo debito, tanto che ero addirittura passata ai Blumoon.
Poteva diventare amore, peccato, invece rimarrà un calesse.
http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2014...
[edit - 22 giugno su aNobii] (dimenticato di aggiungere anche qui su Goodreads e aggiunto ora, 1 novembre)
Per amore della verità devo aggiungere una postilla, e cioè il commento che mi ha lasciato in bacheca qualche giorno fa Matteo Di Giulio.
Ecco qua:
«Ciao, mi ha divertito il commento sulla Marciano. Però, se hai scaricato l'estratto Kindle, non devi aspettarti un racconto completo, ma solo una percentuale (il 5% mi sembra) per fartene un'idea. Bompiani non c'entra nulla, è Amazon che ti mette a disposizione un estratto incompleto per valutare l'acquisto; e per farlo usa un algoritmo, non seleziona libro per libro cosa offrirti.»
Ascolto alla radio l'intervista di Serena Dandini a Francesca Marciano.
Sono amiche le due, per cui i complimenti si diffondono nell'etere con lo spargi-zucchero-a-velo.
Però l'intervista è gradevole, e il mio interesse si accende quando viene fatto il nome di Alice Munro: Marciano dice di non aver dormito la notte quando ha saputo che niente-poco-di-meno-che la temutissima Michiko Kakutani, critico del New York Times, avrebbe scritto una recensione sul suo libro di racconti. E la temutissima cosa fa? La paragona niente-poco-di-meno-che a Alice Munro.
Francesca Marciano, sceneggiatrice scrittrice, un passato remoto da attrice, vive negli Stati Uniti, e sin dal suo primo libro, scritto quando viveva in Kenya, scrive in inglese, la lingua con la quale si esprime e con la quale ormai le viene spontaneo scrivere.
E anche questo è una nota di interesse, soprattutto quando aggiunge che se nelle opere precedenti si è sempre tradotta da sola dall'inglese in italiano, questa volta ha preferito affidarsi a una traduttrice professionista, perché aveva il desiderio di vedere in quale modo le sue parole inglesi venivano percepite in italiano.
Tergiverso: lo acquisto, non lo acquisto, lo acquisto, non... ehi, ma Amazon mi permette di scaricare un estratto del libro per il mio Kindle, meraviglioso!
Si tratta del racconto dal titolo «L'altra lingua»: meraviglioso (e due), cosa meglio di un racconto dell'autrice per decidere se mi piace o no, se mi incuriosisce o no, se poi acquistarlo oppure no?
Confesso: aspettarmi Alice Munro è ingiusto, non rende giustizia a qualsiasi autore, per quanto bravo, non sia Alice Munro, ma è ovvio che le aspettative siano alte, l'ha scritto Michiko Kakutani, mica la Gazzetta di Casalpalocco.
Il racconto procede placido, come lo scorrere dell'acqua dell'isola greca in cui è ambientato, nella quale evidentemente non soffiava il meltemi, e l'inizio è forse la parte migliore, anche se sussulti non ce ne sono, né di stile né di contenuti.
Proseguo imperterrita, sia pure a vele ammainate per assenza di vento, in attesa di quel guizzo rivelatorio, di quel colpo di coda che, come in alcuni racconti di Alice Munro, mi farà contrarre lo stomaco, sussultare l'animo.
E invece, proprio quando Emma e David se ne vanno a fare una nuotata ristoratrice, presagio di qualcosa che di sicuro accadrà fra loro, l'ebook cosa fa?
Si interrompe.
Ebbene sì, si interrompe lasciando il racconto incompiuto.
Ora, dico, gran bella trovata.
No, davvero: complimenti, Bompiani, davvero complimenti vivissimi, perché forse stavo leggendo un giallo e non l'avevo capito.
O forse... ah, ecco, ora ho capito! Stavo leggendo un Harmony, e giustamente mica mi si può rivelare aggratise se Emma e David su quell'isolotto faranno sesso!
Lo capisco, giusto così.
Cara Marciano, mi spiace, ma io a questi giochetti di marketing estremo mi sottraggo, e francamente di sapere se i due al termine della gita consumeranno, me ne infischio, perché pensavo, speravo, credevo di aver capito, che la sostanza fosse altra.
Con gli Harmony, oltretutto, ho già dato a tempo debito, tanto che ero addirittura passata ai Blumoon.
Poteva diventare amore, peccato, invece rimarrà un calesse.
http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2014...
[edit - 22 giugno su aNobii] (dimenticato di aggiungere anche qui su Goodreads e aggiunto ora, 1 novembre)
Per amore della verità devo aggiungere una postilla, e cioè il commento che mi ha lasciato in bacheca qualche giorno fa Matteo Di Giulio.
Ecco qua:
«Ciao, mi ha divertito il commento sulla Marciano. Però, se hai scaricato l'estratto Kindle, non devi aspettarti un racconto completo, ma solo una percentuale (il 5% mi sembra) per fartene un'idea. Bompiani non c'entra nulla, è Amazon che ti mette a disposizione un estratto incompleto per valutare l'acquisto; e per farlo usa un algoritmo, non seleziona libro per libro cosa offrirti.»
May 1, 2014
I'd rate this 4.5 stars.
Change can be difficult to deal with, and how we handle it defines us as a person. Whether it's a change in a relationship, career, location, age, even the death of a loved one, change is often unexpected and it can produce some tumultuous results.
The characters in Francesca Marciano's story collection, The Other Language, are all facing change of one sort or another. Marciano's stories take place in foreign countries—Italy, Greece, Tanzania, Kenya, India—but although the settings may be different from what we're used to, the themes are universal and many of the characters' struggles will seem familiar.
In "Roman Romance," an Italian woman deals with the return of an old boyfriend, who is now an iconic rock star—and must continue to confront people's suspicions that one of his most famous songs is about her. "Chanel" follows a filmmaker and her best friend/roommate as they struggle with the end of their relationship, which culminates with her buying a Chanel dress for a film awards show, although she cannot afford it. In "The Presence of Men," a woman's difficulties becoming acclimated in the small Italian village she has moved to becomes more complicated with the arrival of her film agent brother and one of his most famous clients. The long-married characters in "An Indian Soiree" find their relationship tested by dreams of past loves and the promise of new ones. And in the moving title story, three children on the cusp of adolescence spend two summers on a Greek island following the death of their mother, which changes their relationship with their father, even as they are trying to figure out who they are as individuals.
I thought this was a really terrific collection. I enjoyed all nine stories tremendously, and thought Marciano created such vivid, complex, and emotionally rich characters. And honestly, there's something about the locations of these stories, and the fact that the majority of the characters were foreign, that made them just a little more exotic and intriguing, even as they were dealing with familiar feelings and crises.
These stories are at times funny, at times poignant, and all tremendously interesting. I've never read anything by Marciano before but I'm definitely interested now, as this collection really showed off her talents. Definitely pick this one up—and I would be surprised if you don't want to travel after you read these stories, as I'm totally jonesing to go to Italy now...
Change can be difficult to deal with, and how we handle it defines us as a person. Whether it's a change in a relationship, career, location, age, even the death of a loved one, change is often unexpected and it can produce some tumultuous results.
The characters in Francesca Marciano's story collection, The Other Language, are all facing change of one sort or another. Marciano's stories take place in foreign countries—Italy, Greece, Tanzania, Kenya, India—but although the settings may be different from what we're used to, the themes are universal and many of the characters' struggles will seem familiar.
In "Roman Romance," an Italian woman deals with the return of an old boyfriend, who is now an iconic rock star—and must continue to confront people's suspicions that one of his most famous songs is about her. "Chanel" follows a filmmaker and her best friend/roommate as they struggle with the end of their relationship, which culminates with her buying a Chanel dress for a film awards show, although she cannot afford it. In "The Presence of Men," a woman's difficulties becoming acclimated in the small Italian village she has moved to becomes more complicated with the arrival of her film agent brother and one of his most famous clients. The long-married characters in "An Indian Soiree" find their relationship tested by dreams of past loves and the promise of new ones. And in the moving title story, three children on the cusp of adolescence spend two summers on a Greek island following the death of their mother, which changes their relationship with their father, even as they are trying to figure out who they are as individuals.
I thought this was a really terrific collection. I enjoyed all nine stories tremendously, and thought Marciano created such vivid, complex, and emotionally rich characters. And honestly, there's something about the locations of these stories, and the fact that the majority of the characters were foreign, that made them just a little more exotic and intriguing, even as they were dealing with familiar feelings and crises.
These stories are at times funny, at times poignant, and all tremendously interesting. I've never read anything by Marciano before but I'm definitely interested now, as this collection really showed off her talents. Definitely pick this one up—and I would be surprised if you don't want to travel after you read these stories, as I'm totally jonesing to go to Italy now...
April 6, 2014
Marciano's "The Other Language" is a collection of short stories loosely held together by the theme of how language and culture shape us in ways we can't understand and can't change, no matter how much we might try. While that is a compelling idea, there was so much missing from this book, which kept the stories from being fully satisfying. Sure there were some beautiful passages and the stories take place in exotic locales, but I simply wasn't moved by these characters who are mostly young and well travelled but who are also somewhat brittle, self-absorbed, and superficial--a woman who obsesses about a designer dress whom she at one point thinks of "like a child" (80), another who grows from a girl into a woman denying to herself that she has been raped and so she rewrites her life story to reflect a different reality, and finally another woman who moves into a small village and remodels a house with no regard for the history of the place or her home. These characters' concerns are never imbued with any great significance or depth by the time the stories end.
"The Other Language" is like that dinner of Chinese food, tasy enough at first but that almost always leaves the diner hungry an hour later. Or it is what at first seems like the ideal date--being wined and dined in a romantic restaurant by a rich suitor--only to find out later that he is not only a conservative Republican but also lousy in bed. In short, the stories of these characters' lives ultimately left me cold.
"The Other Language" is like that dinner of Chinese food, tasy enough at first but that almost always leaves the diner hungry an hour later. Or it is what at first seems like the ideal date--being wined and dined in a romantic restaurant by a rich suitor--only to find out later that he is not only a conservative Republican but also lousy in bed. In short, the stories of these characters' lives ultimately left me cold.
March 31, 2017
I started out having a love-hate relationship with this book.
What did I love? The rich language, insightful characters, and exotic locales. These nine stories are about women who follow their impulses, embrace change, and allow themselves to be vulnerable. There is sadness and happiness and courage and passion. The stories transport you to faraway lands, such as Italy, India, Africa, and they make you want to travel even if you’ve sworn off it. I liked every one of the stories, and I suspect they’ll stick with me.
What did I hate? The many grammatical and content errors. They were most prevalent in the first story but I found several in later stories as well. It could be that the errors exist only in the Kindle edition. And the fact that English is the second language of the author could also have something to do with it. But still, the mistakes shook me up. Should I rue the day I ever became an editor? Wouldn’t life have been better if I had not seen these things? Ignorance is bliss.
The next day…..continuing this review. Omg, seriously, I was going to give you a long list of the supposedly egregious errors I found (my OCD at its finest). To tell you the truth, I had already started the list and it was totally obnoxious. Thank God I came to my senses! Why on earth would anyone, except maybe the writer or publisher, want to see such a list? Am I crazy? What a snoozefest that would have been!
But it’s not easy to ignore my nitpicky list. Because after a found a couple of bugs, I was afraid I’d find more and they’d eat me alive. I became hyper-aware of every sentence, terrified that the book would be ruined for me. I started to distrust the writer, even though I told myself that the mistakes probably weren’t hers, but rather, the editor’s or the publisher’s. Meanwhile, the author was winning me over, inviting me into this exotic and cozy world where complex women dealt with tough yet familiar emotions. By the second story, as I safely read big chunks devoid of errors, I stopped the vigilance and went with the flow, and it was a beautiful trip down the river of good.
How did I resolve this love-hate thing?
I would like to say that I fought the hate, and the love won, but that’s giving myself the credit. The stories are so good that I didn’t have to fight. As I continued to read, I continued to get sucked in. I started to relax. So what if there are grammar or content problems? Big deal. I had stepped into the wonderful world of this incredible author’s imagination, and I didn’t care if the road wasn’t always paved with perfectly smooth asphalt.
One other thing that bothered me: with the exception of the first story (which involved a teenager), the women didn’t seem to have separate personalities or different ages; they all seemed like they were one person who moved around the globe. Maybe the book is autobiographical and each woman is a slight variation of the writer? Luckily, the woman was complex and likeable. Still, it would have been cool to see more unique personalities.
As the New York Times writes, Marciano is definitely “a natural born storyteller who has the ability to capture the entire arc of a character’s life in a handful of pages.” Amen. Highly recommend.
What did I love? The rich language, insightful characters, and exotic locales. These nine stories are about women who follow their impulses, embrace change, and allow themselves to be vulnerable. There is sadness and happiness and courage and passion. The stories transport you to faraway lands, such as Italy, India, Africa, and they make you want to travel even if you’ve sworn off it. I liked every one of the stories, and I suspect they’ll stick with me.
What did I hate? The many grammatical and content errors. They were most prevalent in the first story but I found several in later stories as well. It could be that the errors exist only in the Kindle edition. And the fact that English is the second language of the author could also have something to do with it. But still, the mistakes shook me up. Should I rue the day I ever became an editor? Wouldn’t life have been better if I had not seen these things? Ignorance is bliss.
The next day…..continuing this review. Omg, seriously, I was going to give you a long list of the supposedly egregious errors I found (my OCD at its finest). To tell you the truth, I had already started the list and it was totally obnoxious. Thank God I came to my senses! Why on earth would anyone, except maybe the writer or publisher, want to see such a list? Am I crazy? What a snoozefest that would have been!
But it’s not easy to ignore my nitpicky list. Because after a found a couple of bugs, I was afraid I’d find more and they’d eat me alive. I became hyper-aware of every sentence, terrified that the book would be ruined for me. I started to distrust the writer, even though I told myself that the mistakes probably weren’t hers, but rather, the editor’s or the publisher’s. Meanwhile, the author was winning me over, inviting me into this exotic and cozy world where complex women dealt with tough yet familiar emotions. By the second story, as I safely read big chunks devoid of errors, I stopped the vigilance and went with the flow, and it was a beautiful trip down the river of good.
How did I resolve this love-hate thing?
I would like to say that I fought the hate, and the love won, but that’s giving myself the credit. The stories are so good that I didn’t have to fight. As I continued to read, I continued to get sucked in. I started to relax. So what if there are grammar or content problems? Big deal. I had stepped into the wonderful world of this incredible author’s imagination, and I didn’t care if the road wasn’t always paved with perfectly smooth asphalt.
One other thing that bothered me: with the exception of the first story (which involved a teenager), the women didn’t seem to have separate personalities or different ages; they all seemed like they were one person who moved around the globe. Maybe the book is autobiographical and each woman is a slight variation of the writer? Luckily, the woman was complex and likeable. Still, it would have been cool to see more unique personalities.
As the New York Times writes, Marciano is definitely “a natural born storyteller who has the ability to capture the entire arc of a character’s life in a handful of pages.” Amen. Highly recommend.
July 18, 2015
I so enjoyed "The Other Language". Often when I read short stories they can feel obscure or unfamiliar, distant from any of my own experience. The best part of Francesca Marciano's book for me was the familiarity of her voice. These stories are a part of many women's stories. As if your visiting a friend you haven't seen for years and you catch up on what's been happening in their life. You can nod your head and say "yes, yes, I've experienced those same feeling's".
She understands women at the most human level. It's not just women though, she also pulls off the same feat with the husband in her story "An Indian Soir'ee".
Our inner dialog and thoughts. What a gift to make that kind of connection with readers.
I enjoyed each one.
After reading each story I would say to myself " Oh, that's my favorite". And then I would re-read and read the next!
If I had to pick one moment or one story, as my favorite, it would be the first story and the last lines. When the husband and wife are driving, the women has an epiphany about how her life was altered because of her experiences as a young girl during a particular summer. And as she's expressing this moment to her husband, he's missing the importance of what she is telling him. It's completely lost on him. He's not listening, just wondering if they missed the turn off on the road. How many times we feel like that!
These stories are full of those moments and connections. We are reminded that we are more alike than we might choose to believe.
She understands women at the most human level. It's not just women though, she also pulls off the same feat with the husband in her story "An Indian Soir'ee".
Our inner dialog and thoughts. What a gift to make that kind of connection with readers.
I enjoyed each one.
After reading each story I would say to myself " Oh, that's my favorite". And then I would re-read and read the next!
If I had to pick one moment or one story, as my favorite, it would be the first story and the last lines. When the husband and wife are driving, the women has an epiphany about how her life was altered because of her experiences as a young girl during a particular summer. And as she's expressing this moment to her husband, he's missing the importance of what she is telling him. It's completely lost on him. He's not listening, just wondering if they missed the turn off on the road. How many times we feel like that!
These stories are full of those moments and connections. We are reminded that we are more alike than we might choose to believe.
July 13, 2016
At a Remove
All nine of the wonderful stories in this collection involve characters who are removed from their former selves in either space or time, and often in both. As an example, take the shortest story in the book, "The Italian System." Although by no means the best, it is emblematic and probably autobiographical. A young Italian woman comes to New York to take a summer writing course. She falls in love with the city and gets a job teaching at a language school to stay there. But about a decade later, she begins writing again, and we get short extracts from her book on how Italians know the secret to style and contentment, mainly by avoiding American short-cuts. It is almost like a miniature version of the blogs in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. But as in that book, when she finally goes home again, she discovers that her view of her native land has, in the intervening years, also become a fiction.
Most of the other stories explore the theme in more personal, less schematic ways. Emma, the protagonist of the title story, is twelve when her mother is killed in her car, and her father takes the children to Greece to recuperate. There, Emma meets two English boys; she takes English lessons in the intervening year so that she may make more of the friendship the following summer. But the point of the story is not so much the Aegean idyll, which comes to an abrupt end, but Emma's continued life over the next few years, touched by the experience but nonetheless moving on. A slightly similar situation is seen in reverse in "Quantum Theory" in which a young woman working for a NGO in Kenya meets a man with whom she had flirted years before. A further passing of these two ships-in-the-night, now years later again, will lead to an unexpectedly oblique and beautiful ending.
This is one of three stories that take place in East Africa, the setting of Marciano's novel Rules of the Wild (which I read only since originally posting this). Both the others are about European immigrants who have rejected the colonial world of whites-only social clubs and in some sense "gone native." In "Big Island, Small Island," a woman looks up a former lover who has gone to live in a small island off the coast, and finds it very difficult to make meaningful contact with him. In "The Club," a widowed woman who has lived in Kenya for years is pleased when some former acquaintances take the house next to hers on a lonely part of the coast, but gradually discovers that she doesn't need them; she has become her own person.
While all the stories in this collection will appeal to people who, like me, have moved from one country to another, the remove in time is at least as an important an element in Marciano's stories. The change in place may be no more than a brief catalyst. In "An Indian Soirée," for instance, a husband and wife's stay in a former Maharajah's palace in Northern India leads to outcomes that, though brushed off as trivial in themselves, reflect back on the many years of marriage that preceded them. And the remove in location need not be large at all. In "The Presence of Men," it is no more than a divorcée's move from Rome to a small village in the south. In what may be my favorite story, "Chanel," another Roman woman, caught up in the heady atmosphere of Venice at the Biennale and Film Festival, buys a dress that is wildly more expensive than she can really afford. But the story is not about the wearing of the dress, rather the non-wearing of it, and the rapid tracking of the woman's life over the many years that follow.
Did I say that Marciano was oblique? Yes, but in that obliquity, through her ellipses and what she leaves out, she can speak volumes.
All nine of the wonderful stories in this collection involve characters who are removed from their former selves in either space or time, and often in both. As an example, take the shortest story in the book, "The Italian System." Although by no means the best, it is emblematic and probably autobiographical. A young Italian woman comes to New York to take a summer writing course. She falls in love with the city and gets a job teaching at a language school to stay there. But about a decade later, she begins writing again, and we get short extracts from her book on how Italians know the secret to style and contentment, mainly by avoiding American short-cuts. It is almost like a miniature version of the blogs in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. But as in that book, when she finally goes home again, she discovers that her view of her native land has, in the intervening years, also become a fiction.
Most of the other stories explore the theme in more personal, less schematic ways. Emma, the protagonist of the title story, is twelve when her mother is killed in her car, and her father takes the children to Greece to recuperate. There, Emma meets two English boys; she takes English lessons in the intervening year so that she may make more of the friendship the following summer. But the point of the story is not so much the Aegean idyll, which comes to an abrupt end, but Emma's continued life over the next few years, touched by the experience but nonetheless moving on. A slightly similar situation is seen in reverse in "Quantum Theory" in which a young woman working for a NGO in Kenya meets a man with whom she had flirted years before. A further passing of these two ships-in-the-night, now years later again, will lead to an unexpectedly oblique and beautiful ending.
This is one of three stories that take place in East Africa, the setting of Marciano's novel Rules of the Wild (which I read only since originally posting this). Both the others are about European immigrants who have rejected the colonial world of whites-only social clubs and in some sense "gone native." In "Big Island, Small Island," a woman looks up a former lover who has gone to live in a small island off the coast, and finds it very difficult to make meaningful contact with him. In "The Club," a widowed woman who has lived in Kenya for years is pleased when some former acquaintances take the house next to hers on a lonely part of the coast, but gradually discovers that she doesn't need them; she has become her own person.
While all the stories in this collection will appeal to people who, like me, have moved from one country to another, the remove in time is at least as an important an element in Marciano's stories. The change in place may be no more than a brief catalyst. In "An Indian Soirée," for instance, a husband and wife's stay in a former Maharajah's palace in Northern India leads to outcomes that, though brushed off as trivial in themselves, reflect back on the many years of marriage that preceded them. And the remove in location need not be large at all. In "The Presence of Men," it is no more than a divorcée's move from Rome to a small village in the south. In what may be my favorite story, "Chanel," another Roman woman, caught up in the heady atmosphere of Venice at the Biennale and Film Festival, buys a dress that is wildly more expensive than she can really afford. But the story is not about the wearing of the dress, rather the non-wearing of it, and the rapid tracking of the woman's life over the many years that follow.
Did I say that Marciano was oblique? Yes, but in that obliquity, through her ellipses and what she leaves out, she can speak volumes.
April 25, 2019
Such a powerful collection of stories! I loved it and even got inspired.
My Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by: Mrs. N
My Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by: Mrs. N
October 31, 2015
A six star read. Beautiful and insightful writing about culture, our past (how we deal with it, our perception of it, and how it molds us), love, relationships, and women. I highlighted so, so much, as there is so much to savor.
dnf
August 3, 2020DNF 30%
The first story in The Other Language is chock-full of stereotypes. Greek women are “mainly dressed in black and neither swam nor sunbathed; most had the faint shadow of a mustache darkening their upper lip”. Greeks are “loud” and “unsophisticated”. Someone mentions that Emma, our protagonist, has a poor opinion of Greeks...once. When she grows up she doesn't really change her prejudiced view of others (and she's meant to be likeable, we are supposed to care for her “journey” of self-discovery). A lot of the clichés in this story didn't even emerge from Emma herself as it is told by a third pov. There is a British guy with “jumbled and yellowing” teeth. Emma also glimpses a crowd Korean women (it isn't specified how she knows they are Korean as she doesn't mention overhearing them speak in Korean...she just knows they are by glimpsing them...and she notices that “they have short legs”).
There is an eye-rolling scene describing Emma's first sexual encounter that is pure cheese (and here Marciano's language is overwhelmingly corny).
I was willing to try another story, hoping that it wouldn't have such lazy stereotypes....but it did. Within the first two pages “a large West African woman with a complicated hairdo” bumps into our main character. In the Italian version Marciano specifies that the woman is Senegalese...let's bear in mind that the character is in a bus (in Rome), and that the woman who bumps into her is a total stranger. Similarly to Emma, who in the previous story could just tell that the crowd of East Asian women were Korean, this Italian woman knows that the woman who accidentally bumps into her is Senegalese? And of course, she had to be “large”.
I picked this collection up because Jhumpa Lahiri described it as “an astonishing collection”....and I trusted Lahiri's judgment....sadly, unlike Lahiri, I believe that the only astonishing thing about this collection is how clichéd and pedestrian it is.
The first story in The Other Language is chock-full of stereotypes. Greek women are “mainly dressed in black and neither swam nor sunbathed; most had the faint shadow of a mustache darkening their upper lip”. Greeks are “loud” and “unsophisticated”. Someone mentions that Emma, our protagonist, has a poor opinion of Greeks...once. When she grows up she doesn't really change her prejudiced view of others (and she's meant to be likeable, we are supposed to care for her “journey” of self-discovery). A lot of the clichés in this story didn't even emerge from Emma herself as it is told by a third pov. There is a British guy with “jumbled and yellowing” teeth. Emma also glimpses a crowd Korean women (it isn't specified how she knows they are Korean as she doesn't mention overhearing them speak in Korean...she just knows they are by glimpsing them...and she notices that “they have short legs”).
There is an eye-rolling scene describing Emma's first sexual encounter that is pure cheese (and here Marciano's language is overwhelmingly corny).
I was willing to try another story, hoping that it wouldn't have such lazy stereotypes....but it did. Within the first two pages “a large West African woman with a complicated hairdo” bumps into our main character. In the Italian version Marciano specifies that the woman is Senegalese...let's bear in mind that the character is in a bus (in Rome), and that the woman who bumps into her is a total stranger. Similarly to Emma, who in the previous story could just tell that the crowd of East Asian women were Korean, this Italian woman knows that the woman who accidentally bumps into her is Senegalese? And of course, she had to be “large”.
I picked this collection up because Jhumpa Lahiri described it as “an astonishing collection”....and I trusted Lahiri's judgment....sadly, unlike Lahiri, I believe that the only astonishing thing about this collection is how clichéd and pedestrian it is.
May 1, 2014
I cannot rave enough about this stunning book of short stories. Sweet and charming without being trivial or insincere, they’re all immensely impactful. Marciano’s simple and straightforward writing style serves as a gorgeous contrast to the incredibly complex emotions she conveys within her characters. Feelings of inferiority, unrealized dreams, personal disappointments and failures, and changing values plague all of the women in these stories, but the sadness never overwhelms, and hope for change and a newly realized life never feels far from reach. Rich descriptions of food, the feel of fabrics, and similar ambiances created by tea lights and the movement of water serve to further tie together the related themes and tone that run throughout each story. There’s not a sore thumb to stick out in this collection, and each story begs multiple re-reads.
April 24, 2015
I have great admiration for short story writers - the writing has to be tight with not a lot of time to unfold the storyline and connect the characters to the reader. Francesca Marciano does all this in her nine short stories. Each one is quite unique and different. We travel the world -- to Greece, Italy, India, Kenya, islands off Tanzania and the U.S. and meet people at different times in their lives, love lost, friendship found, and childhood remembrances not quite the same. Well written and engaging, Marciano does a fine job capturing the emotions, decisions and the essence of life. Some of my favorites are: The Other Language. Chanel, The Club and Quantum Theory. A highly recommended read.
March 16, 2014
Marciano's stories are set in suggestive and striking locales and capture the thrill and alienation of being citizens of the world, of being everywhere and nowhere at the same time, embracing and fighting off multiple personalities. Her female characters are layered and complex: sometimes sexy, sometimes funny, sometimes desperate – always human. You will read this book and you will feel like you've visited all its countries and learned the secret ingredient of what makes up the cultures of the world. A powerful, magnetic mood stretches through each story, making the entire reading experience more similar to that of a novel than a collection of separate stories.
March 14, 2021
Nine closely observed longer stories set in Italy, Greece, Kenya, East Africa, and India. In the title story, three children, Emma, Luca, and Monica, have recently lost their mother and their newly widowed father takes them to Greece for a summer holiday, to put aside the grief for a while. Emma, 12, does not want to make friends, does not want to have to answer where their mother is. But over the course of two summers there, friends will be made, the truth about their mother's death will come out, Emma will fall in love with a young English boy named Jack, but it's his adopted older brother with whom she'll have her first sexual experience, and years later, she'll run into Jack in Rome. Two stories deal with marriage - The Presence of Men, with the aftermath when the divorced woman buys an old villa in a small Italian town, and An Indian Soiree, when a couple, he a writer, travel to India and in a heartbeat the marriage collapses. In another, a scientist in Africa for a conference travels to a small unattractive island to meet a former lover. And on it goes. I was caught up in each of the stories, the characters fully developed, the situations compelling.
April 7, 2014
A delightful, aspiration-tinged beach read? Check. A series of explorations on how we change our perspective and reinvent ourselves to meet the circumstances of a new homeland, deal with painful life events, or simply come to terms with who we are now versus who we thought we might have become when we were younger? Also check.
This unmissable short-story collection starts with a quote: "To change your language you must change your life." Anyone who's lived in a foreign country where they speak a language different than the one you grew up with knows this is true. You become someone different as you speak and think in the new language. Is that a fake you? A betrayal of who you were? It turns out that personalities are a lot more malleable that what convention would have us believe. And there are other reasons which may lead us to rewrite our present or our past in a different light--as a way to cope with a traumatic event, for instance, or simply perceived failures. It's a fascinating defense mechanism and it is a the center of Marciano's intriguing stories.
There are plenty of dreamy scenarios in these stories: winning a European film festival award and buying a designer dress to wear at the party; finidng out your foreigner boyfriend from college has become a massive rock star and wrote a song about you (and he's coming to play in your town!); abandoning everything to start over on a paradisical island on the Indian Ocean; and the list goes on. Many stories take place in fabulous places: East Africa, India, Venice, a Greek island. However, below that layer of fun fantasy there are real people dealing with these situations in a very realistic way and the resolutions are nothing short of thought-provoking. Make sure you take the time to absorb and think about each one before you start the next.
The final verdict: If you ever lived in a foreign place with a different language and culture, you absolutely must read this NOW. It will easily become a favorite. If you haven't, do yourself a really big favor and don't miss this. It is one of the most fun and stimulating books you could read this Spring/Summer. Put on your warm weather clothes, clear your schedule for half-hour (for starters), and enjoy.
This unmissable short-story collection starts with a quote: "To change your language you must change your life." Anyone who's lived in a foreign country where they speak a language different than the one you grew up with knows this is true. You become someone different as you speak and think in the new language. Is that a fake you? A betrayal of who you were? It turns out that personalities are a lot more malleable that what convention would have us believe. And there are other reasons which may lead us to rewrite our present or our past in a different light--as a way to cope with a traumatic event, for instance, or simply perceived failures. It's a fascinating defense mechanism and it is a the center of Marciano's intriguing stories.
There are plenty of dreamy scenarios in these stories: winning a European film festival award and buying a designer dress to wear at the party; finidng out your foreigner boyfriend from college has become a massive rock star and wrote a song about you (and he's coming to play in your town!); abandoning everything to start over on a paradisical island on the Indian Ocean; and the list goes on. Many stories take place in fabulous places: East Africa, India, Venice, a Greek island. However, below that layer of fun fantasy there are real people dealing with these situations in a very realistic way and the resolutions are nothing short of thought-provoking. Make sure you take the time to absorb and think about each one before you start the next.
The final verdict: If you ever lived in a foreign place with a different language and culture, you absolutely must read this NOW. It will easily become a favorite. If you haven't, do yourself a really big favor and don't miss this. It is one of the most fun and stimulating books you could read this Spring/Summer. Put on your warm weather clothes, clear your schedule for half-hour (for starters), and enjoy.
July 26, 2016
The first story in THE OTHER LANGUAGE took me by surprise and completely blew me away. The beauty and grace and urgency of each moment captures a life in full color. Full glory and hurt. Every scene is full of promise and romance, from a Greek beach, Piaza Navona in Rome, and dinner on the floor of a north-facing Boston apartment. The story is sensual yet it builds an urgency I wouldn't expect from a story narrated from some nostalgic future. It'll stick with me for a long time, like one of my own memories.
From there Francesca Marciano spans the globe finding people in myriad romantic places, working out issues that are both everyday and revelatory. It is a total pleasure.
This is a completely lovely collection of stories.
From there Francesca Marciano spans the globe finding people in myriad romantic places, working out issues that are both everyday and revelatory. It is a total pleasure.
This is a completely lovely collection of stories.
July 28, 2014
While I think this is an author to watch, I felt a bit underwhelmed by this short story collection. I'm not sure if it's that I'm just not a short story person, or if in fact there was something missing here.
The writing was good, and I did get a feel for many of the characters. Despite this, the stories didn't particularly grab me and I did not find any of them particularly memorable even shortly after I'd read them.
Pleasant enough to pass the time with, but not something that will stick with me.
The writing was good, and I did get a feel for many of the characters. Despite this, the stories didn't particularly grab me and I did not find any of them particularly memorable even shortly after I'd read them.
Pleasant enough to pass the time with, but not something that will stick with me.
February 25, 2016
I enjoyed these stories very much. Original and distinct but accessible, they took place all over the world, in well-developed, interesting settings, and had lots to say about place and identity. Each story stood out in my mind fully by the end of the book, and I always ended up being convinced by them, even when I'd been dubious along the way.
May 24, 2019
I loved each of these stories, and each left me wanting more. I especially enjoyed Chanel and Roman Romance. These and most of the others, I think, were about women finally coming to terms with their pasts, with their dreams and with their choices. This was quite a special little collection.
March 26, 2021
So good it hurts. I put off finishing this forever because I didn't want to come to the end. I'll read anything Marciano writes. Give me more please!
May 16, 2014
If the first story is just a preview of the rest of the book, this is going to be amazing.
okay just finished the last story; indeed it was amazing. nothing magical just each story as interesting as the one before. I don't usually go for short story collections for the usual reason of having this idea that you get jipped. Like a short story, just because it's not 300 pages long means you don't get depth and you want to get in to a juicy story without an end to come up against.
This collection was an example of why the short story is an art. It gives you just enough information - told in succinct tight sentences where you can't afford to wast on superfluous details - and then either carries you across some time periods with purposeful prose, or it gives you an event or catalyst that propels you to the end.
The stories were about different lands other than the good ol' USofA. They were somewhat melancholy dealing with death and loss and breakups but they weren't really sad. they were real and truly showed a talent from the author. It was like a little passport to bring me to Italy, Africa, different places in Europe yet the themes were universal. We are born. We deal with some shit. And at some point we realize that we are all truly alone and we die.
brilliant.
okay just finished the last story; indeed it was amazing. nothing magical just each story as interesting as the one before. I don't usually go for short story collections for the usual reason of having this idea that you get jipped. Like a short story, just because it's not 300 pages long means you don't get depth and you want to get in to a juicy story without an end to come up against.
This collection was an example of why the short story is an art. It gives you just enough information - told in succinct tight sentences where you can't afford to wast on superfluous details - and then either carries you across some time periods with purposeful prose, or it gives you an event or catalyst that propels you to the end.
The stories were about different lands other than the good ol' USofA. They were somewhat melancholy dealing with death and loss and breakups but they weren't really sad. they were real and truly showed a talent from the author. It was like a little passport to bring me to Italy, Africa, different places in Europe yet the themes were universal. We are born. We deal with some shit. And at some point we realize that we are all truly alone and we die.
brilliant.
July 13, 2015
Wow. The stories in this collection are sharp, and each one perfectly captures something lovely about relationships—with people, yes, but also with places and possibilities. The protagonists are mostly female, well-travelled, and call many places home which is probably why I found them so relatable. For me, every story elucidated something I have thought and felt but never quite been able to articulate. This is the first book I've read in a long time that I didn't want to devour. I wanted to savor it, and I stretched reading it out over a month or so, which is probably the way to do it as there is too much to absorb in the last story to move immediately on to the next. Highly recommended, especially if you think a lot about travel and missed connections and your place in the world.
May 4, 2014
This is a book of nine stories, about Italians, mostly women in different different countries: Greece, USA, India, Kenya etc. Themes revolve around relationships of women and men, foreign cultures with lot introspection by characters. Often men-women relationships in transplanted cultures.
The book is a slow read, sometimes languid. Many people are comparing it to Jhumpa Lahiri - and on the cover they even have a quote by Lahiri herself "An astonishing collection".
I must say, I did not find it astonishing like Lahiri because this book lacks the easy flow of Jhumpa Lahiri's writing. But will make a good read on a slow afternoon in sun or on the beach.
The book is a slow read, sometimes languid. Many people are comparing it to Jhumpa Lahiri - and on the cover they even have a quote by Lahiri herself "An astonishing collection".
I must say, I did not find it astonishing like Lahiri because this book lacks the easy flow of Jhumpa Lahiri's writing. But will make a good read on a slow afternoon in sun or on the beach.
January 2, 2014
I was lucky enough to receive an advanced reader's copy of this book of stories through the Goodreads First Reads program. I enjoyed every one of Marciano's stories; her characters are so human, so real, that it is easy to get sucked into their stories and develop a real connection to them in the short 50 pages that they occupy her book for.
All of the stories have a strong female protagonist and an equally strong European feel. Even those stories that aren't set in Europe, always have ties to Europe. The stories are exotic and enchanting. A wonderful read, overall.
All of the stories have a strong female protagonist and an equally strong European feel. Even those stories that aren't set in Europe, always have ties to Europe. The stories are exotic and enchanting. A wonderful read, overall.
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