Wednesday 10 December 2014

Living in a Multilingual World (The One About Taking the Plunge)

It is that time of the year when I think of the books, music and movies that made a deep impact on me in the previous twelve months. I usually share this information with you, my dear fellow bloggers and readers, in my last post of December but tonight I would rather use the space where I regularly muse on our multilingual world to promote two books I know some of you might enjoy. One of them I read over the summer just before I got on the plane to France. The other one I have just started and I can’t put down. Both volumes are my must-reads of 2014.

The first book is a novel called Heureux les Heureux. The title is taken after a line in a poem by the late, renowned Argentinian poet, essayist and short-story writer Jorge Luis Borges. What catches the eyes immediately is the way this roman is structured: each chapter is a monologue through which the reader gets acquainted with the characters whilst the plot unravels. Bearing in mind that the author, Yasmina Reza is also a playwright, I found myself at times wondering where the bracketed and italicised stage directions had gone. The second book is called D’Autres Vies que la Mienne and deals with the aftermath of the terrible tsunami that devastated South East Asia ten years ago in 2004. It was an interesting and intriguing interview with the author, Emmanuel Carrère, in The Observer that made me want to investigate his writing further.

It was also the fact that both books were available in French.

I don’t read in French as much as I used to years ago and this has always been a cause for regret in my case. After spending three years learning the language and becoming fluent in it, I lost many of my oral and listening skills when I relocated to the UK. That is the reason why going back to the Gallic lexicon feels usually like travelling to another country, a familiar and friendly land, if only in my mind.

One of my two books of the year

Those of you who speak more than language and are fluent in it/them will probably recognise this phenomenon. It has probably been a while since you dabbled in unusual grammar and syntax constructions, so you get a book in the language in which you want to regain your fluency and you dip your big toe in the water first. No headfirst plunge, mind you, just a shy re-acquaintance. If the water is too cold, you close that first page and go back to your warm comfort zone. I did it a few years ago with a novel in German and I regret it now. My advice is, plough on, and make sure that you understand the reason why the water feels cold. You see, you have not swum in this beach for a long time. So, you must wade in the water first, and then little by little, ensuring you have got a firm footing (i.e., a good dictionary) you carry on, until the water level reaches your waist. It is only then, that you dive headfirst.

That is how reading in a foreign language, especially French and German (and more the former than the latter) feels to me. Like immersing myself in the vastness of a great big ocean. Along the way I am helped by friendly winks and nudges that reassure me I’ll be supported on my journey. In the case of books written in French I feel as if there is always an ellipsis hanging over the pages. Not a clear-cut omission of items in order to avoid repetition, but rather a mark or marks along the lines of  “...” that signify the sentiments and emotions left unexplained. Both Heureux les Heureux and D’Autres Vies que la Mienne are full of examples. In the former there is a character called Paola Suares, who is sleeping with a married man, Luc Condamine. Since his wife is not home, he decides to take Paola to his house. The scene that follows is full of small, descriptive details that render the situation absurd. Whilst he is taking his clothes off, ready to have sex with her, Paola is showing more interest in the house décor: “Luc a défait sa braguette. J’ai attend un peu. Il a libéré son sexe et tout à coup j’ai réalisé que le canapé était turquoise. Un turquoise chatoyant sous la lumière artificielle d’alcôve, et j’ai pensé qu’au milieu de reste était assez surprenant d’avoir choisi cette couleur de canapé. Je me suis demande qui était responsable de la décoration dans ce couple.” There is humour in the scene as well. The man unfastens his trousers but his female companion is more interested in the couch and its colour. The chapter ends on a more serious note, though, with Paola stating the obvious: you will never leave all this, will you? Luc’s elliptical response indicates that there is a suppression of thoughts. Thoughts that will come out in his monologue, pages later, but which, for the time being, will remain under wraps.

Those of us who live in a multilingual world, even if we forsake one of the languages in which we are fluent for a while, always have the opportunity to come back and take the plunge. But do not be afraid to dip your big toe in first. Should the water be cold, plough on, please, do plough on.

© 2014

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 14th December at 10am (GMT)

20 comments:

  1. While I've never come close to being fluent en français (although I have enough French to grasp most of the paragraph you quoted), I did grow up in Montreal and know what you mean about the familiarity of the language.. if not in reading, at least in hearing it spoken unexpectedly, in this mostly-English area in which I live. Hearing it is like pulling on a cozy, old robe. It's familiar and reassuring.

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  2. Does rhyming count is another language? lol I can understand a bit of french, but that is it.

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  3. I loved your post. It certainly stirred a certain nostalgia in me... for the kind of literature you're describing here and which I haven't read in a long time... European as opposed to Anglo-Saxon... Now I want to read Borges again (though I cannot do it in Spanish, unfortunately) and these books that you've mentioned too...
    There's an older book that comes to mind "L'ile d'un autre" by Jacques Perry. Give it a try... :-)

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  4. I was born and raised here in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. My mother tongue is English but I am fluent in French. Good thing, because here in Quebec everything is in French. :)

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  5. Yet again I mourn my monolinguistic state. I have a little school-girl french but no more. And my world is diminished.

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  6. hard for me to imagine reading in another language...i am def not that fluent, though i am intrigued by the premise of these books...i wonder if they are available in english?

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  7. Ah, you are unique, dear Cubano, for being multilingual and working at maintaining such skills. I recently reconnected with relatives in Italy who found me through my blogs. They wrote to me in English, and I responded them in English. Truth be told, my Italian has suffered without the practice, my French has slipped to just a few formalities. When I lived in California I could maintain my Spanish; now that I live in Oregon, not at all.

    Yesterday, I met a family from Ghana in the grocery store, and though I didn't understand a word they spoke with each other, I greeted them and asked where they came from. Their perfect English stunned me. The rest of the world can communicate with us, I thought. Yet, we make no effort to communicate with them.

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  8. It's years since I dabbled in reading in French - I feel it a measure of success that I can now read a menu in Spanish (oh the angst to get this far!) - so maybe I'll press on until I can manage something demanding. Harry Potter maybe - a stepping-stone to Borges, maybe!

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  9. Foreign languages never came easily to me, and I'm certain that has been a great loss in my life.
    French was compulsory for one year at my school, but I learned very little.
    Hmm...perhaps the time has come to make an effort to learn...having to read movie subtitles is a pain too! *smiles*

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  10. Oh, I do love Borges! I must try and regain my fluency in Spanish - it's been replaced by Swedish!

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  11. i read most books in english nowaday even though i remember how tough it was when i started out... sometimes i'm not sure if i read something in english or german and that always is a good sign... i wish my french was fluent enough to read a book.. maybe i should give it a try anyway...

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  12. Hi A Cuban ... I'd love to be able to speak, read and understand more than one language - sadly I was frightened as a kid and never pushed myself ... equally it's not an obvious talent.

    How wonderful you can move across those barriers and see places and life from those writer's points of view ..

    I'm glad you're opening our eyes to other cultures and thoughts ... cheers Hilary

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  13. Well, I started to learn German and Italian but never finished. I can get by, if you know what I mean, but I guess I was not interested enough to continue. I admire your dedication though.

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  14. This is such great advice. I have studied french and picked up a fair amount of Spanish due to travel and very close friendships, and used to practice reading and I really should try again. What I did, funnily, to practice Spanish, which was my weaker language in terms of reading, as I've never studied it formally very much, was to read a Harry Potter book in translation. This felt very silly to me on one level, because I feel I would like to use the skill to read a book in its native language. However, because my Spanish is relatively weak it made reading possible since it was a text I knew fairly well. I should try something French in French--alas, I am very lazy and it is only when I think of travel that I think of practice. Your post is very inspiring though, so maybe will try again. Certainly it would be good for my brain if not my toes! k.

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  15. I definitely wish I learned a second language but I think it might be a little late now. I learned spanish and knew enough to use it when needed but never enough to consider myself fluent.

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  16. Great advise! I used to be quite fluent in French, but it's been many years since I've immersed myself in that beautiful language. Maybe it's time to dip my toes in again.

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  17. Hello Greetings.

    Interesting post. In India we have a multitude of languages such as Hindi, Gujarathi, Marathi, Konkani, Bengali, Oriya, Kannada,Tamil,Telugu, Malayalam,Punjabi, Assamese etc. I don't think any other country has so many languages. I know Malayalam, Tamil,Hindi and English. I can manage with these languages.
    Best wishes

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  18. Thanks for your comemnts. I'm really enjoying D'Autres Vies... It's like disappearing into another world.

    Greetings from London.

    PS: For some reason blogegr has decided to include word verification even for me. I disabled that function last year after some of you told me that you found it hard to read the numbers. The current word verification has nothing to do with me. Sorry.

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  19. I meant "blogger". :-)

    Greetings from London.

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  20. I love reading in French, German and italian. I know that someotimes I lose some of th3e overarching story by being so focussed on understanding what's in front of me, but I love the sense of language moving differently and the spaces in between words. Therer's also something about the extra effort being rewarded. I have to admit though, I am more inclined to give up on a book if I'm reading it in a foreign language....

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