Marek reviewed Is That a Fish in Your Ear? by David Bellos
A wealth of wisdom, wit, and insight. Very highly recommended.
5 stars
This is an extraordinary book. It won a host of awards when it was released, and deservedly so. (I was given a copy as a gift and it went untouched on my shelf, a good intention only, until relatively recently. Thinking it might have been as much as five or six years since I'd been given it I was shocked and a little ashamed to see it had been fourteen.)
Immersed in language as a practice, rather than as an abstract idea, it tackles fundamental and deep questions by inviting the reader into various concrete situations and addressing how they are managed in direct, simple, and generally effective ways.
Philosophical, academic issues and notions are encountered in real cases. The collection of seemingly simple, sometimes almost trivial, points builds steadily, with delightful conversational prose. Examples are set out in a way that makes them disarmingly straightforward, but deeply …
This is an extraordinary book. It won a host of awards when it was released, and deservedly so. (I was given a copy as a gift and it went untouched on my shelf, a good intention only, until relatively recently. Thinking it might have been as much as five or six years since I'd been given it I was shocked and a little ashamed to see it had been fourteen.)
Immersed in language as a practice, rather than as an abstract idea, it tackles fundamental and deep questions by inviting the reader into various concrete situations and addressing how they are managed in direct, simple, and generally effective ways.
Philosophical, academic issues and notions are encountered in real cases. The collection of seemingly simple, sometimes almost trivial, points builds steadily, with delightful conversational prose. Examples are set out in a way that makes them disarmingly straightforward, but deeply satisfying.
Translators have been dealing with language, communication, and human interaction for so long (forever, and with useful records of their efforts as long as there has been writing), that the profession has a very deep wealth of wisdom to impart.
Told in a great many brief, easy to read snippets, it has the characteristic of so many of the most eye-opening books: big questions of humanity are opened up almost sneakily, and illuminated in a new, fascinating, and really very beautiful way. A treasure.