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4.5
Once again Bension Varon writes his memoir. He did it when he wrote "Cultures in Counterpoint" (2009) . That was a fascinating excursion into the life of a Sephardic Jew who lived in Istanbul until 1960, later came to the United States and became a leading economist at the World Bank. But in this and the previous book, Varon writes his memoir in novel ways. For example, the first book had a chapter on the smells of Istanbul which he used to weave in, experiences of his youth. This time language and his language acquisitions, provide the back drop to invite us into a journey thru the Turkey of the 40's to the 60's, the Turkey of Ataturk, the Turkey of a multicultural modernizing western oriented country, no longer an empire and no longer Ottoman. It also gives us occasion to follow Varon in his work for the World Bank, when his language skills came to use. Varon speaks 6 languages: the Judeo-Spanish of his ancestors, Turkish, Hebrew, Greek, French and English. His acquisition of Judeo-Spanish, the language brought by Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 by the Catholic Kings, receives a good deal of attention. Here, as he describes how he learned it, Varon weaves in and provides us with many insights into the daily life of his family when he was a child. Varon also provides a postscript to his memoir titled "The future of the past: "Judeo-Spanish in the Twenty-First Century" in which he brings together current efforts to save this language which was classified in 2010 as severely endangered by UNESCO. In fact, as you read this fascinating book, you will wish you spoke more languages and you will also realize that contrary to what Varon tells us, he really speaks 7 languages since he has also been learning modern Spanish, which differs somewhat, from the more archaic Spanish infused with foreign words, he learned as a child.
