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thedogmother 's review for:
Intimacies
by Katie Kitamura
4.5 One of Obama’s favorites for 2021 & he doesn’t disappoint! I was on the fence about this one given the very mixed reviews it has here, but I found a cheap copy so figured why not & I’m glad I did. Intimacies is a beautifully understated novel. It’s a quiet, slow-burn.
To me, the novel is brilliant in its ordinariness. It’s a snapshot of an anonymous person’s life, which is ultimately what all of us are living. Although the protagonist lives a relatively eventful two months over the course of the book, they’re only eventful on a personal level, not the stuff of grand novels or movies. She’s quietly living out the ups and downs of her very lonely life, while everyone around her is silently doing the same. For this the novel feels very real. Despite its ordinariness, the many artfully understated twists kept me eagerly turning the pages.
The parts about translation were absolutely fascinating, and probably my favorite parts of the novel. I’m particularly struck by the scene where a woman’s testimony funnels through a chain of translation, passed on through two people and four languages. To me this represents the impossibility of ever fully translating ourselves. We are only ever who others interpret us to be, and even when we speak the same language we are beholden to this work of interpretation. Just like the words that lose meaning as she translates them, the protagonists life in translation and transition loses meaning, too. Her rootlessness and it’s resulting feeling of meaninglessness are, I think, very much so shared experiences of our modern world.
While I don’t exactly know what to make of the ending just yet, I think a favorite quote of mine from the book is a piece of the puzzle: “It means something, to face inward, to turn your back on the storm brewing outside.” This captures so well the interiority of this story, and the protagonists choices at the end are, I think, her way of facing inward.
To me, the novel is brilliant in its ordinariness. It’s a snapshot of an anonymous person’s life, which is ultimately what all of us are living. Although the protagonist lives a relatively eventful two months over the course of the book, they’re only eventful on a personal level, not the stuff of grand novels or movies. She’s quietly living out the ups and downs of her very lonely life, while everyone around her is silently doing the same. For this the novel feels very real. Despite its ordinariness, the many artfully understated twists kept me eagerly turning the pages.
The parts about translation were absolutely fascinating, and probably my favorite parts of the novel. I’m particularly struck by the scene where a woman’s testimony funnels through a chain of translation, passed on through two people and four languages. To me this represents the impossibility of ever fully translating ourselves. We are only ever who others interpret us to be, and even when we speak the same language we are beholden to this work of interpretation. Just like the words that lose meaning as she translates them, the protagonists life in translation and transition loses meaning, too. Her rootlessness and it’s resulting feeling of meaninglessness are, I think, very much so shared experiences of our modern world.
While I don’t exactly know what to make of the ending just yet, I think a favorite quote of mine from the book is a piece of the puzzle: “It means something, to face inward, to turn your back on the storm brewing outside.” This captures so well the interiority of this story, and the protagonists choices at the end are, I think, her way of facing inward.