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A review by georgiaanneking
The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri
informative
reflective
fast-paced
2.5
Lahiri’s The Clothing of Books explores the visual identity of books. Lahiri explores her own relationship with the covers chosen for her novels and how she feels they reflect, of don’t reflect, the texts she has written.
More broadly, she’s speaking of identity. She’s speaking of the way her own identity feels split at times and how this is presented. She speaks of Italian versus American ways of choosing covers for books and how this reflects these two disparate cultural identities she holds. She speaks of the publishing industry and how they choose how her text is presented without any input, analogous to how she has very little input into how she’s presented to the world at large.
Lahiri covers a lot here. The insights into the publishing world are interesting and also into her own identity as a writer. For context, the text was originally written as the keynote speech for the ninth edition of the Festival degli Scrittori in Florence. The speech aspects do come through at points, in ways that don’t benefit the written text. There are moments where the link Lahiri is making to her identity is laboured over, slightly clumsy. Otherwise, the book is beautifully written, meditative and a quick, enjoyable read.
More broadly, she’s speaking of identity. She’s speaking of the way her own identity feels split at times and how this is presented. She speaks of Italian versus American ways of choosing covers for books and how this reflects these two disparate cultural identities she holds. She speaks of the publishing industry and how they choose how her text is presented without any input, analogous to how she has very little input into how she’s presented to the world at large.
Lahiri covers a lot here. The insights into the publishing world are interesting and also into her own identity as a writer. For context, the text was originally written as the keynote speech for the ninth edition of the Festival degli Scrittori in Florence. The speech aspects do come through at points, in ways that don’t benefit the written text. There are moments where the link Lahiri is making to her identity is laboured over, slightly clumsy. Otherwise, the book is beautifully written, meditative and a quick, enjoyable read.