Love in a Dead Language

by Lee A. Siegel

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 Game of Love board game, and even a proposed CD-ROM, Love in a Dead Language exposes the complicities between the carnal and the intellectual, the erotic and the exotic and, in the end, is an outrageous operatic portrayal of romantic love.

"Rare is the book that makes one stop and Is this a literary masterpiece or do I need my head examined? But such is the alternately awe-inspiring and goofy thrall cast by Lee Siegel's Love in a Dead Language . . . . His work stands out as a book that is not simply a novel but its own genus of rollicking, narrative scholarship . . . it is just the cerebral aphrodisiac we need." —Carol Lloyd, Salon

"Immensely clever and libidinously hilarious. . . . [T]he most astonishing thing about Love in a Dead Language is its ingenious construction. Insofar as any printed volume can lay claim to being a multimedia work, this book earns that distinction." —Paul di Filippo, Washington Post Book World

"Now along comes Lee Siegel, who mixes a bit of Borges with some Nabokov and then adds an erotic gloss from the Kama Sutra to write Love in a Dead Language , a witty, bawdy, language-rich farce of academic life. . . . Whether it is post-modern or not, Love in a Dead Language is pulled off with such unhinged élan by Mr. Siegel that it is also plain good fun, a clever, literate satire in which almost everything is both travestied and, strangely, loved by its author." —Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

" Love in a Dead Language deserves space on the short, high shelf of literary wonders." —Tom LeClair, New York Times Book Review

1999 New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year

Genres: Fiction, India, Novels, Romance, Sexuality, Literary Fiction, American

408 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Lee A. Siegel is a novelist and professor of religion at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is not related to the critic Lee Siegel. In 1988 Siegel was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow [1]. He has received numerous fellowships and grants including five Senior Research Fellowships from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Smithsonian Institute (1979, 1983, 1987, 1991, 1996), four research grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council (1982, 1985, 1987, 1990) and one from the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies. In addition Professor Siegel has been two Presidential Awards for Excellence in Teaching (1986 and 1996). He has been a scholar-in-residence at the Rockefeller Foundation, and twice at the Bellagio Study Center (1990 and 2003). He also was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College of Oxford University (1997).
Siegel has published a number of novels including: Who Wrote the Book of Love, Laughing Matters, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his novel, Love in a Dead Language. His most recent novel is Love and the Incredibly Old Man (2008).
His son is film actor Sebastian Siegel.

Reviews

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Love in a Dead Language belongs to what I’m calling a perversity trinity of age-gapped intellectual horndog novels in love with both language and illegal labium, the other two being the popular Lolita and the invisible Darconville’s Cat."

You can read my full review for free here: https://thecollidescope.com/2021/08/2...

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extravagant novel and an orgasmic feast for fans of intertextual and metatextual and hypertextual and encyclopedantic überworks. Boasting more Nabokovian tricks and references than in four Nabokovs, this pastiche of the campus adultery novel packs more hilarity, knowing winks, Kamasutran wisdom, and spurious/real scholarly trivia than some writers manage in a corpus, and keeps the pace and ludic loveliness for its entirety, pleasuring the reader with a wonderful prose style, replete with word games and typographical lunacy aplenty, along with a sumptuous book design that earns another five stars for brilliance. As one reviewer said, “just the cerebral aphrodisiac we need.”

[Meredith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ambitious, daring, experimental, intelligent, hilarious, deliciously snarky. I could go on for hours. The last page doesn't just break the fourth wall--it decimates it.

Lee Siegel has to be one of the most inventive American writers I have ever read. It is a shame that he isn't more well known. I am a lucky reader indeed to have unearthed this treasure from my library stacks.

[Julie Alisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was sorely tempted to give this book another star on sole account of this paragraph(one of the better riffs on _Lolita_ that I've read):

"Lalita, I want to hear you speak to me someday in tongues, paying lip service; let me taste You (with a kiss that forms a gustatory Mobius strip, organ of taste tastefully tasting the tasty taste of the tasting organ of taste), smell You (alone, I slowly, nervously inhale and tre-tre-tremble with lie-centious anticipations), feel You (right now I rub my fingers lightly over the cover of my ninety-seven-year-old copy of the text and the faded black cotton is the skirt tight around Your hips, and I open up the well-fingered book and You and tenderly rub fingertips across delicate pages that are the color of Your transubstantiated skin, the slightly raised bumps and faint depressions, imprint marks of Devangari script on both sides of the fragile page, are pores and goose bumps. Will You ever be real to the touch? Will You ever cast a shadow on my wall or be a reflection in my mirror?"

The parenthetical aside in which the protagonist channels Daisy Buchanan paralyzed me with happiness and I need to say that the passage in its entirety added to the initial experience of cracking Part One of my college library's eighty-three-year-old edition of _The Decline of the West_ at my thesis desk (ahh, yeah) later that evening immeasurably. Overall, I thought the novel to be exemplary of the juxtaposition of a classic tragic plot and an equally callous contemporaneity much in the manner of _Youth in Revolt_ but more touching and less like a play. The reason I didn't rate it higher is because the portion of the (larger) part of the novel (which is set in India) isn't in my opinion, nearly as tightly constructed as its first 171 pages from wherein originated the quote above. Nonetheless, I would recommend _Love in a Dead Language_ to anyone interested in its themes (summarily and satisfactorily investigated), and the smattering of incisive meta observations that bevel Siegel's prose and startlingly unvulgar_Tristram Shandy_esque typesetting.

[Eric Shaffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a fan--as I am--of innovative and alternative fiction, then this novel may be for you. I'd place it with PALE FIRE by Nabokov, BOOK by Grudin, POSSESSION by Byatt, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Vonnegut, and, of course, my own BURN & LEARN, which I shamelessly recommend if you like any of the above. Read on.

[Ipso · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so creative. It's part annotated Kama Sutra, part parody of academia, part pulp novel, part comedy, part multimedia adventure. I would love to get another copy of this book some time (I gave mine away...)

[giovi · Rating 5 out of 5]

more a 4.5. i think some parts near the end couldve been cut and perhaps the book didnt need to be so long.

really loved how siegel addresses the fetishization of indian women in both a serious and hilarious way. the ridiculousness of the narrator's POV he lands very well. the narrator is unreliable, disconcerting, and always pathetic in that very humbert humbert way. siegel obviously leans into the lolita comparisons (lalita) to heighten the absurdity of the book which i thought was a smart move. i laughed out loud at a lot of this book; cant remember the last time i was both very disturbed and very amused by the same book. the last page is a truly perfect ending, will most definitely be reading more of this author in the future

[Paula · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book awhile ago and I kept putting off writing a review... partially because I wasn't sure how I felt about it. But it's been a couple of months, so now I can say: not positively.

It's got a clever concept. A really, too clever concept. It's the translation of and commentary on the Kama Sutra, written by a prominent (fictional) scholar. A lifelong student of all things India, Professor Roth has never even kissed an Indian woman,let alone slept with one, which he believes will give him a more complete knowledge of his subject. So he ends up concocting a scheme/ kidnapping/ seducing a young Indian student (who's American and mostly ignores her heritage). Unfortunately for him, he's discovered, his career ended, and ultimately, he's found murdered in his study.

Or perhaps I should say penultimately. Because it so happens that his luckless T.A. Anang is stuck finishing his translations and, along the way, adding his own commentary. So yes, you have a frame within a frame within a frame. It gets a little tedious and you have to read a lot of footnotes. I only kept reading because I wanted to find out the murderer. It turns out it was the book's author, Siegel (who is also mentioned as a rival professor in the book) did it, because he was tired of spending so much time on writing about Roth. Haha.

What bothered me most (the other points were just mildly irritating!) was the portrayal of Lalita, Roth's love interest and student. Yes, that's a thinly veiled reference to Lolita, two points! I realize Siegel writes from the perspective of a scholar idealizing a concept, just as Lolita has no personality other than what Humbert attributes to her. But Siegel's not as good a writer as Nabokov, and it just comes off as a shallow, unconvincing sketch of a stereotypical coed, Indian or otherwise.

Ahhh, much better. I actually borrowed this from my downstairs neighbors; guess I can finally return it.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! It's laugh out loud funny, original, highly unusual, and a real palate cleanser. The mix of classical erotica, murder mystery, (of age) Lolita, academia, family dynamics, an Indian adventure, and a midlife crisis all combine into epic absurdity. This was exceedingly entertaining.

I think this may take a special kind of reader because the story is so much of a frame within a frame within a frame; but if you're patient, and can tolerate the multi-dimensionality of it, it's definitely worth it. I don't think I've ever encountered anything quite like this before.

Word of warning: the prologue is a bit slow, but it's highly worth slogging through it. The rest of the story moves more quickly. Also, don't skip the footnotes! The commentary there is the funniest part.

Really good. A great read. Thoroughly enjoyable.

[Ken Langer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just reread Love in a Dead Language by Sanskrit professor Lee Siegel. The protagonist, a college professor, gives us a translation of the Kama Sutra followed by commentary and footnotes; at the same time, he tells his own parallel story about his pursuit of female student. Granted, Siegel's thrown politically correctness (and the law) out the window; but, as fiction, I think we can give him a pass. The novel is brimming with irony, wit, and language that reminded me of Tristram Shandy. It's MC Escher in novel form.

This book is a must read for anyone who would enjoy a riff on ancient textual exegesis, such as was practiced by the Talmudic rabbis or, in this case, ancient Sanskrit scholars. But the text in question is no yawn-inducing book on ceremonial law -- it's the Kama Sutra. Love in a Dead Language is not the lightest reading. Like some authors (I'm thinking of Rushdie's in Midnight's Children), Siegel can sometimes be too witty by half; but if you like mind-bending fiction and have a taste for India, you won't be disappointed.

[Janel Atlas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book incredibly fun, smart, and interesting. Plot twists and turns kept me intrigued, and the frame narrative within a frame narrative ad infinitum, replete with multimodal inclusions and charming footnotes, made my brain hurt (in a good way). Especially for readers who are or spend time with academics, Siegel's book will hit close to home.

[Mo]

Maybe I've just changed, but so far this is a hard read; even though I'm engaged, curious, and WANT to read it I'm struggling lol. But I guess that's a good thing, and probably what the author wants. Or maybe when I used to read this type of stuff easily I was just really messed up in the head lol

[Ryan Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was ok. There were times it was really good and times it just droned on. Also, quite a weird ending. I won't recommend it, there are better reads out there.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well done riff on Lolita. This is heresy, but in a lot of ways more engaging and well-spun than Nabokov.

[Whitney Wolf · Rating 1 out of 5]

Original reviews found this book funny, clever and witty.
I don't think an elaborate kidnapping scam and grooming a student is any of those things
DNF

[Manuel Batsching · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is very hard to find words to describe this book. Lee Siegel is not only dealing with what is probably the most popular piece of classical Indian literature, but also with the complex system of cultural bias that stems from it's western reception. And he does so in a very inspired way, by telling a crazy love-crime-pulp-story that links in an inter-textual way to the works of Vladimir Nabokov and Philip Roth.

A peculiarity of this book is, that it contains lots of unusual things: a Kāmasūtra board game, poems in mirror writing, the necessity to turn the book 180° and so on. Beside this, what I like most about this book is that Siegel, a Sanskritist himself, seems to pay homage to the way in which the kind of literature, to which the Kāmasūtra belongs, was usually taught and read in India: intertwined with commentaries and sub-commentaries. Siegel's book presents itself basically as the reprint of a typescript which was found in the office of a sanskritist, who died under mysterious circumstances (in which the probably most widely used Sanskrit-English Dictionary was involved). This typescript contains the professor's quite peculiar translation of certain passages from the Kāmasūtra and a journal-like commentary which documents the professors endeavour to seduce a student of his, a young half-Indian girl named Lalita. A critical sub-commentary and a different perspective is provided by one of the professor's phd candidates, who appears as the editor of the typescript.

This book has it's lengths too, but all in all it is a good read and certainly one of my favourites. In my opinion it would have deserved to win the Pulitzer price for which it was nominated.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

written in a very peculiar way...a translation of the kama sutra followed by commentary from a professor that is simultaneously narrating the story about his love and attempts to seduce a student, then with footnotes from a research assistant who is finishing the text after the professor is murdered. plus, the author makes reference to himself in the book, yet it's a novel (i think). confused yet? It's a pretty spicy novel, seeing as it involves the kama sutra, and the story is engaging once you get used to the format. We'll see how it ends up.

it ended up just being ok. It kept my attention, but started to get tedious & disjointed towards the end.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hilarious book, especially if you're an academic and even more especially if you're an academic who studies anything to do with classical India. You'll never look at the Monier-Williams Dictionary the same again...

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

For school (Kama sutra class). Laugh-out-loud funny, bawdy, intelligent, irreverent, truthful, mocking, yet educational - a great read line by line and BETWEEN the lines. The format is especially clever.

[Dottie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a literary carnivale, a romp. Convoluted layers of writing, scrumptious language and all sorts of shenanigans among the characters and the purported authors. A delightful read!

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish people would write more books that have the kind of scrap-booky style of this book with better characters.

[Saya · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel with footnotes so it makes you feel brainy.

[Carly Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird book on sex. Creatively layed out, though.

[Audrey P · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this a long time ago and remember being more than a little confused by the plot. Perhaps a re-read is in order...?

[Laura M.]

Recommended by Myron S.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

ya- pretty much my favorite.

[Gopa Thampi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lolita meets Kamasutra in this creative farce.

[Anil Srivastava]

A rumbustiously funny romp with a young maiden through the wiles of the Kamasutra.

[Rick Goff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is an edifying mix of formal experimentation and cultural explication. And it's all about sex. What's not to love?

[Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very clever and funny. One of my favorite books.