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On Borrowed Words, February 20, 2006
At home abroad..
¡Gracias Ilán! A groisen Donk! Thanks Ilan!
A prototype intellectual memior
a memoir - language and marginality

On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language
Ilan Stavans
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0670877638
Release Date: 2001-08-23

Amazon.com

English is Ilan Stavans's fourth language, but you'd never know it from the elegance of his prose. Indeed, he claims in this fascinating intellectual memoir, he now thinks of himself "as having been born into Yiddish and Spanish and then having been lured away by English... [I] found my true self the moment I spoke Shakespeare's tongue." The grandson of Jewish immigrants, he never felt truly at home in Mexico, though he adored Spanish: "It is far easier for me to think of my birth as having occurred in the tongue of Quevedo, Cervantes, Borges, and Octavio Paz than to perceive myself as un mexicano hecho y derecho." He was thrilled to experience Hebrew (his third tongue) as a living language, but Israel proved only a way station for the writer, who eventually discovered that "the only place I feel I truly belong is New York." Certainly the inhabitants of America's polyglot, multicultural cities will feel the strongest affinity for Stavans's memories of his grandmother, who never again spoke a word of Russian or Polish after she emigrated to Mexico, and of a sense of self that shifted depending on the language he spoke. More personal in tone, though still firmly linked to his themes, are portraits of his father, an actor whose fluency with words of emotion and affection slightly overwhelmed Ilan, and of brother Darian, who compensated for a severe stutter by communicating through music but never quite outran his personal demons. The luminous closing section, "The Lettered Man," sums up the book's primary preoccupation: identity formation through language and literature. "Sometimes I have the feeling I'm not one but two, three, four people. Is there an original person? An essence? I'm not altogether sure, for without language I am nobody." --Wendy Smith

Book Description

Yiddish, Spanish, Hebrew, and English-at various points in Ilan Stavans's life, each of these has been the prominent and controversial scholar's primary language. His family's immigrant experience took them from Eastern Europe to the Jewish ghetto of Mexico City, which Stavans abandoned for Israel and subsequently the United States. In this rich memoir, the linguistic chameleon outlines his remarkable cultural heritage from his birth in politically fragile Mexico through his years as a student activist, a young Zionist in Israel, and a student of theology in New York to his career now as a noted academic and writer.

Since survival has meant borrowing other people's languages and pretending they were his own, Stavans offers a view of his journey from the perspective of words. Along the way, he introduces his remarkable family: his brother, a musical wunderkind; his father, a Mexican soap opera star; his grandmother who emigrated from Eastern Europe to Mexico in 1929. Masterfully weaving personal reminiscences with a provocative investigation into language acquisition and cultural code switching, On Borrowed Words is a memorable exploration of Stavans's search for his place in the world.

Customer Reviews:

On Borrowed Words, February 20, 2006.......2006-02-21

I read this book and I found that the author had been extremely careless in its writing. Even though it is an autobiography, the author makes reference to "historic facts" which are false. If this book reflects the author's cavalier attitude towards accuracy (in historic facts as well as in language accuracy) then this book casts a shadow on the author's intellectual integrity. Otherwise the book is an "easy read" and it is entertaining.

At home abroad.........2005-04-14

Ilan Stavans, Mexican/American Jewish writer, wrote a book about his experience as an insider/outsider. This is a condition shared by many in our times of high geographical mobility. It is a condition his/my people have known for at least two thousand years. The difference is that he, as many in the present, is not running away from persecution -- much as he might find himself in a somewhat more tolerant environment on an American campus than he did in his native Mexico City -- but one that moved from one culture to another by choice. The thing to note is that in both, the cultural context of his birth as well as his present cultural environment, he is still not quite mainstream. When it comes to language, this becomes a much more complex matter. It runs into the impossibility to render thoughts with mathematical precision in translation but it means more than that: translation has power over that which is translated, in a very active way.

This multi layered predicament is liberating and a bonus for those who know how to take advantage of it.

Ilan Stavans writes in a very readable and crisp and clear way. If you are a person with stakes in many cultures and languages, if you are a Jew at that, you will feel over and over again that you should have written this book. If you are not, you will come very close to understanding this predicament which will make so many things clear to you. In either case, read this book. It is so well written that you will be enriched by it and will enjoy the experience.

¡Gracias Ilán! A groisen Donk! Thanks Ilan!.......2003-10-01

As an American Jew with insider knowledge of the Mexico City Jewish community, I was startled and later heartwarmed by this book, and in the end proud of Stavans' courageous autobiographical outpouring. He has expressed facts about the Mexico City Jewish community and its effect on how one grows up there and how one views the world from this shtetl within one of the largest cities in the world.

I am enormously proud of how he has expressed himself in a language still somewhat foreign to him. He has given the reader some food for thought on how we all sometimes live on immigrant islands trying so ferociously to protect our languages and cultures while our offspring yearn to find a meaning in the country of their birth.

I suppose I'm a bit prejudiced since there are family ties here, but this book is outstanding and worth your reading. It definitely deals with the great questions of the humanities. His "let it all hang out" style must have cost him dearly amongst the family and the community, but as a writer he is definitely true to himself. I admire him greatly. This is a must read.

A prototype intellectual memior.......2003-01-16

Ilan Stavans' On Borrowed Words flows nicely. It is at once an autobiograpical account of Stavans' intellectual journey, a rich detail on the literary works that have shaped his worldview, and a commentary on the influence, power, and limitations of language. The reader will develop a greater awareness of the books and influences that form one's belief system after reading Stavans' memior.
Credit Stavans for not unnecessarily dwelling on his past as a minority, but for developing (though his detail of language in his life) his own persona.

a memoir - language and marginality.......2002-09-23

This book is a well-written, fascinating memoir of a childhood and young adulthood of a Jewish childhood in Mexico city. The characters are memorable - Bobbe Bela from Russia, the actor father, the talented and unstable brother, and the author himself seeking home and identity. A significant component of his seeking identity is found in language - Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, English. He compares multiple languages with masks of an actor, one of many elements in his tale that cause the reader to reflect. Another component is the author's finding his calling as an author - the influences (and absence of encouragement) that shape his writing, the language and the content. Another component is his searching for his Jewishness - in Israel, in Spain, in theology books (and classes), in Yiddish literature.

This memoir is excellent reading on being human - the reader gains insight into human experience as a whole through the detailed exposition of what it means to be a specific human, Ilan Stavans.

Average customer rating:

On Borrowed Words -A Memoir of Language
Illan Stavans
Manufacturer: Viking
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IO0ISW

Average customer rating:

On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language
Ilan Stavans
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJQJIO

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