JELLYFISH HAVE NO EARS
A deeply moving debut novel about the flaws of language, the fear of silence, and the power of imagination
Since she was little, Louise has been not quite hearing and not quite deaf—her life with this invisible disability has been one of in-betweenness. After an audiology test shows that almost all her hearing is gone, her doctor suggests getting a cochlear implant. The operation will be irreversible, making the decision all the more fraught. The technology would give Louise a new sense of hearing—but it would be at the expense of her natural hearing, which, for all its weakness,
A deeply moving debut novel about the flaws of language, the fear of silence, and the power of imagination
Since she was little, Louise has been not quite hearing and not quite deaf—her life with this invisible disability has been one of in-betweenness. After an audiology test shows that almost all her hearing is gone, her doctor suggests getting a cochlear implant. The operation will be irreversible, making the decision all the more fraught. The technology would give Louise a new sense of hearing—but it would be at the expense of her natural hearing, which, for all its weakness, has shaped her unique relationship with the world, full of whispers and shadows.
Hearing, for Louise, is inseparable from reading other people’s lips. Through sight, she perceives words and strings them together like pearls to reconstruct a conversation. But when the string breaks, misunderstandings result and eccentric images fill her thoughts. As she weighs the prospect of surgery, fabulous characters begin to accompany her: a damaged soldier from the First World War, an irritable dog named Cirrus, and a whimsical botanist. This ethereal world, full of terror and beauty and off-kilter humor, keeps erupting into the equally chaotic reality of Louise’s life as she experiences a new relationship, suffers through her first job, and steadies herself with friends.
With Jellyfish Have No Ears, Adèle Rosenfeld shines an extraordinary light on the black hole of losing a sense and on the vibrancy that can arise to fill the void.
- Graywolf Press
- Paperback
- August 2024
- 192 Pages
- 9781644452967
Buy the Book
$17
About Adèle Rosenfeld & Jeffrey Zuckerman (Translator)
Adèle Rosenfeld lives in Paris where she runs writing workshops. Jellyfish Have No Ears was a finalist for the 2023 Prix Goncourt for a first novel.
Jeffrey Zuckerman is an award-winning translator of French writers, including Jean Genet, Hervé Guibert, and Ananda Devi. He lives in New York.
Praise
“A Parisian woman, growing increasingly deaf, contemplates the self, her body and artificial hearing as she considers a cochlear implant.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Jellyfish Have No Ears is a literary marvel that brings light to the experience of hearing loss with generosity, curiosity, and enlightening prose.” —Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books
“At its best, fiction remakes the world, turning what we think we know totally upside down. That’s the case in Rosenfeld’s imaginative debut novel. . . . An utterly original take on self-perception and perception.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Spectacular. . . . Zuckerman’s craft shines, as he translated not just content, but phonemes to evoke Louise’s lipreading. . . . From hearing to listening, Jellyfish Have No Ears is ultimately a powerful, necessary meditation on the connections formed through silence.” —Elizabeth McNeill, Chicago Review of Books
Discussion Questions
1.How does Adèle Rosenfeld introduce the reader to Louise’s experience of the world? Which senses and details are evoked first?
2. On page 71, Louise hears mention of “treed camels,” “greedsome elks” and “creeked-up pelts.” How do these half-heard, echoing images affect Louise’s experience of the world? How do they shape the experience of reading Jellyfish Have No Ears?
3. With her partial hearing loss, Louise occupies a kind of in-between space between the hearing world and the Deaf community. What are your own experiences within or related to these communities? How did reading the novel interact with or change your understanding of what it means to be deaf or hearing?
4. Various structures for understanding the world (archives, Louise’s “sound herbarium,” even mathematical formulas) recur throughout the novel. Are certain examples of these structures more or less effective for Louise?
5. How are Louise’s relationships with surreal figures (the soldier, the dog, the botanist) important to the novel? Do you see these figures as being imagined or hallucinated or something else?
6. Along with the recurring presence of the soldier, what are the other threads that connect Louise’s life to World War I, and how are they significant?
7. On page 58 Louise states, “Only reading, only the ink-black words intact in my hands, could assuage the dread of disappearing.” What are some of the surprising ways language serves to anchor Louise and keep her connected to others?
8. Now that you’ve finished the novel, which descriptions of sense experiences stand out most in your mind? How did the novel change your own perception of hearing and your other senses?
9. Jellyfish Have No Ears is closely attuned to words as words—hearing, understanding, and misunderstanding them, as well as puns and plays on words. Approaching this work in an English edition, translated from the original French, adds another layer of complexity. The translator, Jeffrey Zuckerman, mentions in his acknowledgments that he relied on a lifetime of lip-reading as he worked on the book. As you read the novel, how conscious were you of the process and choices involved in its translation? How did this affect your overall experience of reading the book?
10. On page 78, Louise states simply, “Sometimes, not being able to hear well made me hypermnesic,” a state of unusually heightened and precise memory or recall. Along with memory, are there other examples of heightened senses or modes of cognition? How does Jellyfish Have No Ears as a whole embody this kind of enhancement, rather than diminishment?