Intimacies

A Novel

De: Katie Kitamura

Narrado por: Traci Kato-Kiriyama

A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2021

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE 2021 READS

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A BEST BOOK OF 2021 FROM Washington Post, Vogue, Time, Oprah Daily, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlantic, Kirkus and Entertainment Weekly

“Intimacies is a haunting, precise, and morally astute novel that reads like a psychological thriller…. Katie Kitamura is a wonder.” —Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward and Eat the Document

“One of the best novels I’ve read in 2021.” – Dwight Garner, The New York Times

A novel from the author of A Separation, an electrifying story about a woman caught between many truths.

An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to finally call home.

She's drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes increasingly obsessed with as she befriends the victim's sister. And she's pulled into an explosive political controversy when she’s asked to interpret for a former president accused of war crimes.

A woman of quiet passion, she confronts power, love, and violence, both in her personal intimacies and in her work at the Court. She is soon pushed to the precipice, where betrayal and heartbreak threaten to overwhelm her, forcing her to decide what she wants from her life.

Good Story - Tough Narration

Hard to get attached to the story with a halting monotone narration. Not much dialogue to work with.

Pretty Good

I'm not sure what this book was really about. A woman moves to The Hague in Amsterdam as an interpreter in the Court which entails reading the nuances of their language and tone of voice. It seems that this carries over to her relationships with her friends and acquaintances. I never got a sense of who this woman was but rather that she spends most of her time thinking about what is or isn't been said.

interesting book about a job I had never imagined

it took a while for me to get involved in this story but I did grow very interested in it. I was fascinated by the work of the translations that she did and her description of separating the words of the dictation with a feelings that it could arouse. overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

Very subtle storytelling and character building

I like the way the main character’s personality is almost kept at a distance from the reader, much the same way she does from herself and the world around her.

Work-life balance of intimacies

I'm not a dictator or defense lawyer, so this book challenged my guy-compromised EQ.

I loved Kitamura's writing, and the studied reflection she lent her protagonist on the intimacies of her work, social and love relationships. But the intimacies aren't just interpersonal, rather also with her sense of home in the city, her identity in the world at large, and with language, (See David Bellos' "Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything.")

I saw that some reviewers were unhappy with the narration, for what they described as its being monotonous. Similarly, readers noted the minimal punctuation in the printed book. I suggest that both are related to the protagonist's work as a court translator, in which she is expected to dryly convey the meaning of the speech, without adding any emotion of her own. I think Kato-Kiriyama struck the perfect balance in doing so in her narration.

Thank you, Yael, for this different reading experience.