Ambitious or ridiculous?

Being creative when writing in another language can be considered – as Melvin Burgess pointed out to me on Skype – ambitious. He has been kind, as has almost everyone I’ve met in England, a country of encouraging and unflappable people. In Italy we generally don’t believe in aplomb in life and the most likely reaction would be – and actually sometimes has been – : “WHAT? WHY? ARE YOU NUTS? IT IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE, COME BACK!”.

Every so often I agree with this shouted line. Creativity is about designing your ideas but also about freeing yourself, liberating your inner voice. Instead, when using English words I need to check every single step I take. Most of all, I need a whole band supporting me: a proofreader, an English teacher, a copyeditor, a translator. Writing becomes like conducting an orchestra and the process slows down; every mistake appears as a tragedy which signals to the world just how foolish you are.

Such a little tragedy was the title of my blog, a reference to Oscar Wilde’s “A Woman Of No Importance”. I insisted on writing “WITH no importance” everywhere, on my Research Methods coursework, on my Poster Presentation, on the first chapter I sent to Melvin Burgess before the face-to face with him on Skype. I wasn’t aware of this language slip, even having read Wilde’s play.

Nobody seemed to notice though, or maybe they were being kind. Except Marinella Mezzanotte, my ex-Italian-now-British copyeditor and cultural advisor. She added: “I like it. It’s a slap in the face. It shows your uniqueness as a foreign writer”. She had an interesting point, only I wasn't sure I wanted my readers to be slapped in the face. As a foreign writer, my only desire is not to sound ridiculous. My translator, Denise Muir, agreed. However, Kate Willman, my proofreader, told me that a lot of native speakers are not sure about prepositions, spelling and other stuff.

A little word, OF, took me as long as writing a chapter of a novel in my mother tongue. During the night, it haunted my dreams: “I’m a writer OF no importance WITH no chance to be taken seriously... forgive me, readers.... forgive me, Melvin....”. The mistake had been online for a few days. How many people had read it? How many had left my blog thinking that foreigners should learn their limits? Anyway, I’m bankrolling four British people (there’s also Charlotte M., the teacher struggling to improve my pronunciation, in vain), so I’m contributing to the national GDP. I have the right to ignore my limits and make a fool of myself, don’t I? 

Totò (aka Antonio De Curtis, 1898-1967) is one of the several
examples of the Italian clever foolishness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p71q1Kh4XdU