My original Italian:
"A Venezia mi accorgo di uno stato d'inversione di quasi tutti gli elementi. Mi è difficile distinguere tra ciò che esiste e ciò che sembra un'illusione, un'apparizione. Tutto mi sembra instabile, mutevole. Le strade non sono solide. Le case sembrano galleggiare. La nebbia può rendere invisible l'architettura. L'acqua alta può allagare una piazza. I canali rispecchiano una versione inesistente della città."
A translation:
"I notice a state of inversion for almost all the elements in Venice. It is difficult for me to distinguish between what exists and what seems to be an illusion, an apparition. All seems unstable, changing. The streets are not solid. The houses seem to float. The fog can render the architecture invisible. The high water floods the piazza. The canals reflect a non-existent version of the city."
What I find most interesting about this piece is that the words are extremely easy to translate (if I ended up doing this correctly). Yes, I did utilize some online dictionary action, but for the most part, I just read this and recognized a few things. Some of my classmates and I were talking about how Jhumpa Lahiri's writing style is very simplistic and easy to understand. It makes it easy to translate because not a whole lot is complicated. What I found most interesting while translating was the fact that she writes very poetically while still maintaining comprehension with the languages. I admire this for many reasons: one being that, as a creative writer, I imagine that meaning is easily lost in translation, but I don't believe that occurs. I found this piece, as I've said before, easily translatable, and I believe it is because she translates her own work, or at least that is what I remember being prefaced to this assignment. She is able to modulate the work herself, so that might aid to the translation's accessibility.
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