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A review by emmareadstoomuch
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
5.0
I have many answers to the question "why do you read," which makes sense considering it's all I do to the detriment of my life, responsibilities, and personal relationships.
I read to escape. I read to travel. I read to learn. I read because I have no hobbies and a lot of free time. I read to compete with myself. I read because I like adding books to my reading tracker spreadsheet. I read because I am cursed with the knowledge of what a reading challenge is. I read so I can write reviews so I can have the serotonin burst that comes from getting likes on those reviews.
And sometimes, I read for realizations! This is one of those times.
Books are made up of language. They must submit to the failings and shortcomings of words, and yet we habitually forget this when we read, immersed as we are.
A book like this one, about an interpreter, helps to remind us of this, just as a book that takes place in the Hague, at its court, detailing the true evil that is found there, must remind us of the gray areas of morality that we find ourselves surrounded by every day, those which we too habitually forget.
Intimacies makes you question so much of what fades into the monotony of quotidian life: What is it to know someone? To find intimacy with them? To literally have it in proximity without having it in the poetic sense, and the inverse?
And what makes evil? What makes good? As we read about our interpreter, a woman of many countries who leaves America to arrive at a court that treats itself as the great decider of morality in spite of its decidedly Western outlook, how do we decide whether she is good? Or her coworkers, entangled in translations with life and death consequences? Her friends and lover, with their shifting allegiances? The work she does, the life she lives?
One of the best kind of books is that which makes you question everything - questions beginning within the pages and extending far beyond them.
Bottom line: I get why so many people I love loved this so much.
-----------------
pre-review
my favorite non-author writer said this was her favorite book of the year. so i have to like it, right?
...right?
update: finally, a win for my complete illogic.
review to come / 5 stars
I read to escape. I read to travel. I read to learn. I read because I have no hobbies and a lot of free time. I read to compete with myself. I read because I like adding books to my reading tracker spreadsheet. I read because I am cursed with the knowledge of what a reading challenge is. I read so I can write reviews so I can have the serotonin burst that comes from getting likes on those reviews.
And sometimes, I read for realizations! This is one of those times.
Books are made up of language. They must submit to the failings and shortcomings of words, and yet we habitually forget this when we read, immersed as we are.
A book like this one, about an interpreter, helps to remind us of this, just as a book that takes place in the Hague, at its court, detailing the true evil that is found there, must remind us of the gray areas of morality that we find ourselves surrounded by every day, those which we too habitually forget.
Intimacies makes you question so much of what fades into the monotony of quotidian life: What is it to know someone? To find intimacy with them? To literally have it in proximity without having it in the poetic sense, and the inverse?
And what makes evil? What makes good? As we read about our interpreter, a woman of many countries who leaves America to arrive at a court that treats itself as the great decider of morality in spite of its decidedly Western outlook, how do we decide whether she is good? Or her coworkers, entangled in translations with life and death consequences? Her friends and lover, with their shifting allegiances? The work she does, the life she lives?
One of the best kind of books is that which makes you question everything - questions beginning within the pages and extending far beyond them.
Bottom line: I get why so many people I love loved this so much.
-----------------
pre-review
my favorite non-author writer said this was her favorite book of the year. so i have to like it, right?
...right?
update: finally, a win for my complete illogic.
review to come / 5 stars