#fifty sounds

[slowmotionexcavation]

Another place where people burderned by a sense of the inescapable mire of inauthenticity might seek refuge is in the bosom of another culture. Your own language is irrevocably sullied, you feel; there is too much irony, fraudulence, and you have been too deeply steeped in it. You need a new start.

Polly Barton, Fifty Sounds

[bookymcbookface]

Fifty Sounds, by Polly Barton

Some terrifyingly pithy observations about gaijin life

[travelingviabooks]

Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton (DNF)

Genre: Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir

Country: Japan

Review:

I DNF’d this book at page 57. I did skip over some parts, particularly chapters where the author talked about Wittgenstein. I was pretty excited about this book and really liked the idea behind it, but I couldn’t get into it. I think this book would’ve been better split into two books, even though I understand the connection between Wittgenstein and the authors experiences with language and Japan. It just wasn’t for me. Maybe I’ll attempt it again at a later date, but for now I’ll return it to the library.

Would I recommend this book?: No.

[petitjeanofficial]

You are like the sound of a ship leaving shore.

Polly Barton (Fifty Sounds)

[kaggsy59]

"My body was alive with the sounds..." @FitzcarraldoEds #fiftysounds

“My body was alive with the sounds…” @FitzcarraldoEds #fiftysounds

Travelling to another country to live and work, with only a limited knowledge of the language, is a brave and perhaps risky thing to do. However when the culture you’re choosing to embrace is one which is a polar opposite to your own, the shock to the system is immense. That’s what author Polly Barton did, and in a recent release from Fitzcarraldo Editions she tells the story of the time she…

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