Books: “Lost in Translation” – Eva Hoffman [1990]

The back of the book describes it as ‘graceful and profound’ and I will say simply that that is far too succinct a summation to be absolutely accurate. While the book does have a lot of interesting things to say about society and language and the complexities of moving between them it lacks a strong thread to bind the whole together. The narrative is a mind-bogglingly featureless one that fails to ever really grasp the reader’s attention. I found my mind wandering every few paragraphs and it was a force of will to actually affix my attention to it long enough to finish. No doubt my failure to find the core of the novel was at least in part due to my inability to read it for more than a few minutes at a time.

Putting aside the book’s merits as a whole, it did still manage to inspire new ideas though these appeared in very small increments primarily in accordance with the maximum attention span of the reader. The author moves from Poland as a young child and has only a tiny introduction to the English language. All of her internal dialog is in Polish and it is interesting to see how this colors the new world she’s living in. It emphasizes strongly the impact that the language in which we’re immersed has on our way of thinking and our way of interacting with others. As time goes on and she acquires more of a North American attitude her words too change both internal and external until her Polish language roots are no longer sufficient to sum up the whole that she has become as a person.

The other small hook in this novel lies in the cultural contrasts. She sums up well the “lostness” of American identify in which everyone seems to be pushing for more and more and more yet still feels they never have enough. While her more European background seems to be more placid, more content with the world as it is without having to constantly put such herculean effort into competing with everyone around you. These two combating viewpoints are a source of constant debate among her Polish friends until she too finally accedes to the American need to push.

So in summation, the book is a lot to digest and defied my expectations upon beginning it. It is a work to be studied and pondered upon rather than enjoyed. There is some small possibility of both, but the reader will be hard pressed to find an appropriate stopping point along the prosy primrose path to ponder the author’s intent since the book boasts three long chapters of 100 pages each and no real breaks anywhere in between where one can take a breath and internalize what has been presented.