Review of Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton

“Very often a desire to write is a desire to live more honestly through language’ (Rachel Cusk)…In writing, one can be at a remove not only from the observing eye of society, but also from the somatic memories attached to conversation.”

— Polly Barton

One day I was wandering my library, my tote bag already full of books, when I stumbled into the world history section. Outside of Europe, the world history at my local library isn’t the greatest.

I often stumble into this section in search of something weirdly specific, like South Korean economic history, and am somehow disappointed every single time when I am unable to find what I am looking for. The East Asia section in particular is quite small, but when I was combing through it on this particular visit, I spotted this memoir.

First of all, this memoir shouldn’t have been in this section, but I didn’t care in that moment. I picked it up, read the synopsis, and decided I was very interested in what Polly Barton had to say.

I had never heard of Barton before this moment, but moving to Japan right after college and basing a memoir around learning certain concepts of language is something that is right my alley if we’re going to be honest.

I’ve studied nine languages now and plan to do more in the future, since it’s my passion, and the nuances of studying a language and interacting with people from a different country is so fascinating to me. I read the book in two sittings while on a train to Washington D.C. and when I made it to my dorm room for a conference.

That said, onwards with the review!

Fascinated by Japan, Barton moves to an island to teach English there and gets lots of life and language lessons in the process.

When Polly Barton graduates from college, she decides she is going to act on her fascination with Japan. She applies to the JET Program to teach English and is waitlisted, her boyfriend is straight up rejected, but when push comes to shove, she ends up being accepted to a government program and packs her bags to teach English on a small island off the coast of Japan.

Each of the chapters of Fifty Sounds (and there are indeed fifty sounds included within the book) are about learning moments she has about a particular phrase.

For example, there are some colloquial phrases one would learn when only speaking to natives of the language in a natural context, and a lot of the scenarios she experiences involve these words coming up in a certain situation. When on the island, she engages in a sexual relationship with one of the Japanese teachers at the school, and no one knows about.

He’s also married, but estranged from his wife—they live in two completely different houses. That’s why he is able to get away with this kind of affair with Polly, and there’s a bit of a dance between the two of them on deciding whether they actually care or not.

As Polly realizes later when reflecting, this teacher tends to reflect the excitement of the great unknown of coming to a foreign country. Her sexual escapades with him are a form of exploring Japan as well, the newness of the situation and the adrenaline rush of being abroad.

Although their relationship becomes a consistent theme throughout the book, as they still meet in Tokyo even after she has moved to greener pastures, it’s not meant to last. I think they might’ve cared about each other romantically, but they were on different wavelengths. Barton implies there were big cultural difference, one of them straight up being how people communicate during sex, and that creates a lot of barriers as well.

There are other learning moments as well. There’s when Polly is driving a car and realizes the rules of the road are different in Japan, leading her to get into a car accident.

There are also mishaps with the language that she doesn’t realize may come off as sexual, and a relationship with a Japanese woman that ends up poorly.

Barton acknowledges that being a white woman in Japan, no matter how much she tries to assimilate, makes it harder, whether it’s for dating or other opportunities. The relationship with the Japanese woman is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to that issue, especially because they also seemed to be on two different wavelengths.

So she moves home and ends up working as a Japanese translator for a British company. Even then, despite all the experiences she had in Japan, she’s still learning. It becomes really hard to replicate fluency of a native speaker in another language, and there is still so much more left for her to learn.

For those looking for a book about living in Japan, this isn’t it. This is a memoir about the impacts of living in Japan and studying the language, the little moments that make life frustrating as an expat and trying to learn to overcome.

Overall Thoughts

The core of the book lies in the meditations on learning a language and how it changes and challenges you. These are concepts I personally can understand on a deeper level, but I can see how people looking for more of the travel aspects of the narrative might be disappointed by the memoir.

I’ve never studied Japanese, but from what I understand, each of the words and phrases she chose throughout the memoir evoke certain sensations, which I find to be so poetic to connect them to actual situations. It’s unique way of looking at someone’s experiences abroad and I loved the concept if we’re going to be honest.

I do also think there’s some elements to think critically about when it comes to privileges and her reactions to things while in a foreign country, but overall I enjoyed the memoir.

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