Summary

In the section “Plumbing the Depths” Jhumpa refers to the way that Cesare Pavese encouraged Rosa Calzecchi Onesti to translate the works of Homer into modern Italian. She admires Pavese for his powerful knowledge of the English language. Although she has some of this ability in English, she lacks a thorough knowledge of Italian vocabulary. She doesn’t have the common knowledge of Italian to understand which words sound right, how Italians commonly express themselves and what words are outdated. She struggles to hone a style for herself in Italian. She admits to having times while writing “In Other Words” that she was so disheartened by the struggle that she wanted to stop.

Analysis

This chapter is dedicated to Jhumpa’s feelings of being a subpar writer in Italian. Because she didn’t grow up in Italy the flow of the language...