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A review by georgiarose888
Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
2.0
Glup-glup: the sound of mournful tears glupping onto the page as you write your self-indulgent memoir.
Look, if there is any person who should love this book, it is me. Ms. Barton and I came to Japan in bizarrely similar circumstances. We were both 21-year-old BA Philosophy graduates, who applied for the JET Programme mainly because a boyfriend-at-the-time was applying, (who happened to be way more into Japan than us) and both ended up getting in while the boyfriend-at-the-time did not. We both broke up with said boyfriends, and came to Japan alone, with a beginner's textbook in Nihongo clutched under our arms.
That being said, I did not love this book. At face value, Fifty Sounds is a Wittgenstein-filled exploration of a language lover's journey. What I saw it as was a collection of melancholic lamentations that never quite reach the level of self-realisation that you want them to.
Either create a very dry, bare-bones novel about literary translation and the Japanese language- OR transcribe your therapy sessions into prose. Doing both leaves the whole endeavor feeling unsatisfying on both ends.
Look, if there is any person who should love this book, it is me. Ms. Barton and I came to Japan in bizarrely similar circumstances. We were both 21-year-old BA Philosophy graduates, who applied for the JET Programme mainly because a boyfriend-at-the-time was applying, (who happened to be way more into Japan than us) and both ended up getting in while the boyfriend-at-the-time did not. We both broke up with said boyfriends, and came to Japan alone, with a beginner's textbook in Nihongo clutched under our arms.
That being said, I did not love this book. At face value, Fifty Sounds is a Wittgenstein-filled exploration of a language lover's journey. What I saw it as was a collection of melancholic lamentations that never quite reach the level of self-realisation that you want them to.
Either create a very dry, bare-bones novel about literary translation and the Japanese language- OR transcribe your therapy sessions into prose. Doing both leaves the whole endeavor feeling unsatisfying on both ends.