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A review by barel93
An I-Novel by Minae Mizumura
4.0
I'm biased, insofar as books about language and belonging are basically my catnip. But they can also be a bit formulaic, except that An I-Novel is the right opposite of that. I think when you deal with questions like homesickness, not belonging and immigration, it can be so easy to fall for the trap of nostalgia, making the prose saccharine and unrealistic. It's also entirely possible to begin looking at yourself from the outside, especially when you've been alienated for so long, and in adopting someone else's gaze, you fall into dangerous tropes.
I don't even know what I'm listing all these things when again, An I-Novel manages to sidestep them all, delivering instead a poignant story about not feeling at home anywhere, and how the intense desire for belonging, for the place you've left behind (perhaps in the guise of something akin to "cruel optimism" ) can ruin your present, squander your potential, as the ghost of the life you never had haunts you to inaction.
I don't look for relatability as such in my books, but damn if this one didn't get me.
The translation is incredibly well-done, but this book made me wish I was further along with my Japanese, so I could read it in its original. I mean, it's kind of hard to replicate the experience through font from what I saw in the sample page from the Japanese.
I don't even know what I'm listing all these things when again, An I-Novel manages to sidestep them all, delivering instead a poignant story about not feeling at home anywhere, and how the intense desire for belonging, for the place you've left behind (perhaps in the guise of something akin to "cruel optimism" ) can ruin your present, squander your potential, as the ghost of the life you never had haunts you to inaction.
I don't look for relatability as such in my books, but damn if this one didn't get me.
The translation is incredibly well-done, but this book made me wish I was further along with my Japanese, so I could read it in its original. I mean, it's kind of hard to replicate the experience through font from what I saw in the sample page from the Japanese.