Love in a Dead Language

by Lee A. Siegel

Book Overview

Love in a Dead Language is a love story, a translation of an Indian sex manual, an erotic farce, and a murder mystery rolled into one. Enticing the reader to follow both victims and celebrants of romantic love on their hypertextual voyage of folly and lust-through movie posters, upside-down pages, the Kamasutra: Game of Love board game, and even a proposed CD-ROM, Love in a Dead Language exposes the complicities between the carnal...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226756998
• ISBN13: 9780226756998
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Narrative as Hall of Mirrors

There have been enough summaries of this text in other reviews so I won't venture my summary here. Perhaps it's enough just for me to say I experienced the book as a journey, an interloping & interlooping series of stories that may (or may not) involve the author with the narrator(s) & the narrators appearing to come to life & enter into the (presumed) real life of the author, Lee Siegel. Just who is who in this moebius strip of self revelation? The chief narrator, Roth, is a creation of the author, Siegel, but Roth is translating the KamaSutra & in doing so has so fallen for the narrative that he is possessed by the desire to act it out, regardless of reality, his (fictional) position & truly wonderful wife. He loses touch with his (fictional) reality to create his text within a text reality of India & romantico-erotic love with his alluring but bland student. Not only is nothing real in their relationship, it soon becomes clear that Roth (who is fictional) is imposing his vision of ancient, classical & wondrous India upon the current run-down state of the Indian cities & temples. All this writing seems to wear out our author (Siegel) who seems himself to feel the text of the KamaSutra & Roth's infidelities wearing on him so he must enter the (fictional) text in person to intervene. The whole thing is a wonderful phantasmagoria, with stories within stories within stories. Is it comedy? Sure, if you like. Is it tragedy? Undoubtedly, if you read it as such. Is it love story? Well, I found it to be one, partially, sometimes. Is it erotic literature about erotic literature within erotic literature? Absolutely, whatever that means.I agree with others who say the book is not for everyone, as some very disgruntled reviews show. But that makes it all the more special. It is for readers with acumen, some willingness to suspend expectations, to follow narratives back into themselves instead of steadily progressing to a satisfyingly expected conclusion, & to ask questions about writing, about loving, about textuality & reality that perhaps can never really be answered. *...Dead Language* could be labelled as postmodern, but the truly postmodern resists such labels. It just is what it is and what it is to me is a book that breaks open barriers in writing, self, characters, authors, narrators, & events in a way that feels ultimately unspeakably enlightening. In short, I feel this wondrous, sometimes befuddling, book is a masterpiece.

one of the very best books i've read in the last year

Utterly. Absolutely. Stunning. Enough new words and lexical tomfoolery to keep the left-brained wordfetishist part of my brain occupied, with a compelling plot and a refreshingly novel structure.I will recommend this book to friends, and since I borrowed the copy I read, I'll buy a copy to loan to them.

A Virtuoso Feat of Methodical Madness

One of the most striking things about Love in a Dead Language is that it has, not one, but five, dedications. This is the first indication that this book is going to be something completely out of the ordinary. And it is.The first dedication is from Lee Siegel, a professor of Indian religions at the University of Hawaii, the author of this very unusual book. The second is from the Hindu sage Vatsyayana, author the classic (and silly) treatise on love, the Kamasutra. Then there are also dedications from the novel's own cast of characters: Leopold Roth, a fictional professor of linguistics who attempted to translate the Kamasutra; Pralayananga Lilaraja, a medieval scholar; and Anang Saighal, and Indo-Jewish graduate student, who, according to this story, has just put the entire volume together.After this rather unorthodox beginning, Love in a Dead Language just keeps getting better and better and more and more inventive. It is, reportedly, Roth's failed attempt at translation, along with his commentary. Together they form, not his own view of the Kamasutra, but rather his obsession with, and seduction of, a beautiful Indo-American girl, Lalita Gupta. (Yes, this is an allusion to Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, and it is not the only Nabokov allusion in this novel, all to the good.)These two texts are accompanied by comments and footnotes from Pralayananga, also autobiographical, and Saighal, who completes the narrative after Roth is murdered when an unknown assailant hurls a Sanskrit-English dictionary squarely at his head.Interspersed among this madness are extracts of Hollywood movie scripts about India, posters of Mira Nair's film, Kamasutra, a term paper complete with the teacher's notes and pages from a comic book Kamasutra (as if the original isn't comic enough). Then we have the real and imagined quotes from the real and imagined writers on India from various centuries, letters, including one from Siegel, and, most hilarious of all, bits and pieces from the memoirs of a ninety-five year old movie star which are, amazingly, dedicated to a porn actress. The above are already more surprises than almost any book packs, but Love in a Dead Language packs even more. A little more than halfway through, we must turn the book upside down, since one of the chapters is printed that way. Deliberately, of course.Siegel's inventiveness and originality of style are not the only thing that distinguishes this book. His use of language is nothing if it is not brilliant and creative. Siegel masters so many styles and voices it's difficult to believe he created them all. There is the erudite academic, the barely-literate jock, the silly campus newspaper, the just-average student. Amazingly, Siegel writes parodic Hinglish, American slang and flowery Victoriana with equal style, wit and aplomb. The result is both hilarious and hysterical.The book ends with a bibliography that is so convincing you will be tempted to take it seriously. Don't. It would

Wonderfully unique. Amazing!

I too am rather shocked at the negative reviews given to this book, and at how these readers are all judging the book by what it is NOT rather than what it IS.This novel is a complex, multi-layered commentary on love in our day and age, perhaps not unlike the Kama Sutra must have been in its day. It is a deeply ironic parody, on oh-so many things (including itself), and a new playful voice in both subtext and style. But rather than being just parody, the book finds its own voice, its own life, and becomes a unique entity in itself. It is hilarious, touching, and poignant. This is the most original novel I've read in some time. The patchwork of styles and formats bring an entirely new element to the physical book, while the plays on forms and perspectives and TRANSLATIONS on the meanings of love and life (through the eyes of many characters) give the book a new style of MEANING. Perspectives are askew, points of view are varied in the extreme - much like the format they are printed in. His parodies and literary charades are in the most amazingly scholastic detail, so well done, in fact, I can see how many might (consciously or subconsciously) mistake the whole thing for a scholarly textbook. But read between the lines, know the jest, and the novel comes to life.The novel is not a rip-off of Lolita but a parody. In this respect the main character is obviously NOT an alter go of Siegel. As for Seigel including himself peripherally (at best) in the story is a jest on himself (Seigel's main character invites Siegel to a `most boring person' contest).Some have also claimed this novel not to be a good story. I beg to differ. Granted it is not an OBVIOUS story; those I'm sure Siegel will leave to the Grisham/Crichton/King school. Siegel's story is not only a good one, but a profound one. In this novel, his story bridges the gap between love and obsession, comedy and tragedy, life and death. The question is not whether or not Siegel can tell a good story, the question is rather who is able, and willing, to read a good story.

Unfu-kin' Unbelievable Says Lalita!!

I just finished Love in a Dead Language and pulled up the reviews to see the superlatives used to describe it. I was blown away at the poor reviews! Based upon the other reviews, it is clear that this book clearly isn't for everyone, but I found it erudite, challenging, engaging, laugh-out-loud funny and very entertaining. I couldn't put it down. With the weaving together of all the different authors/commentaries/texts/footnotes -- I kept asking myself if this was really fiction. Prof. Siegel should be praised and encouraged to do it again! I especially loved Saighal's scarcasm. Literary Reader: Do not be put off by the negatives. A fantasy world awaits you!