On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language

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.

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.

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.

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.