Polylingual novels = critical acclaim? It certainly seems so. It also seems like I can't help picking them up like a case of head lice in a pre-school classroom.
I was less-than-thrilled with the the multiple languages used in A History of Love and Stones From the River, and I hardly noticed them in Eat Pray Love. Maybe because a dear friend of mine is Arabic, and I have grown used to hearing the music of an ancient language in my daily life that I really loved the Farsi that was woven throughout the text of House of Sand and Fog. Rolling the consonants and vowels around in my mouth, saying the words aloud - it seemed to soften the narrative somehow; to slow down the plot train as it charged toward an inevitably climactic end. It was beautiful.
