Grammar lessons Translating a life in spain

Michele Morano

Book - 2007

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Subjects
Published
Iowa City, Iowa. : University of Iowa Press c2007.
Language
English
Main Author
Michele Morano (-)
Physical Description
156 p. ; 25 cm
ISBN
9781587295300
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Morano has a broad perspective on both grammar and traveling. To her, grammar as language and storytelling are key to understanding culture. Traveler is a term she associates with a way of being in the world. Here, in a deceptively slim volume comprising 13 essays, Morano shares experiences living and traveling in Spain during a year of teaching English to university students. Readers will long remember this unusual book--because of the author's premise and perspective on living in a new language, to be certain, but also because of the imaginative effect the places she has been have on her. Enjoy her remembrances of motion sickness, hiking and enjoying views of the Spanish Alps, dining alone, witnessing an accident, and getting her hair cut. The final section of the book is particularly memorable. Here, the author concentrates on the aftereffects of travel. What does it mean to retell and understand the stories of our lives? For readers who pay close attention to language, who are drawn to new contexts both on the page and on wilder shores, and who are not afraid to come to a place of insight, this book will provide much satisfaction. --Sarah Watstein Copyright 2007 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In 13 lyrical essays, Morano details the personal impact of her long relationship with Spain, beginning with her first visit at age 18, continuing through a post-graduate year teaching English in Oviedo and a series of return trips a decade later. As a guiding theme, Morano uses the rules of grammar to organize and explain how Spain has affected her life. (The word "grammar," she notes, has Latin roots meaning "the process of ingesting experience.") Against a dichotomous Spanish backdrop of stillness and bravado, Morano proves her versaility in topics such as grammatical moods, motion sickness and having (or not) the panache to dine alone. Teaching and being taught provide a recurring through-line. One lesson she teaches is that "language is power," urging her students to "take notice, again and again, until a word feels less like an enemy than like a piece of fruit they want to pick and bite into." Learning experiences include an awe-inspiring jaunt into an ancient cave and a moving visit to Guernica, in which Morano narrates, superbly, the attack that inspired Picasso's famous painting. Having carried the angst of a failed relationship with her across the Atlantic, Morano does not lack for internal dialogue and thoughtful self-questioning; these slick travel stories hide a wealth of lived experience. (Mar.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.