Understanding humanity through animals: the injustice of a hen with a messy comb

The new book by Ilide Carmignani and Elena Battista is now available; these are the two translators who, in 2024, also for Rizzoli, produced the delightful "Saltare nelle pozzanghere". The inspiration behind "Portare un gatto in testa" is the same: travelling the world in search of idiomatic expressions (the ultimate challenge for a translator, as we’re talking precisely about those untranslatable phrases, the ones that warrant footnotes) which, through their imaginative constructions, help us embrace what unites us: our shared humanity across all corners of the globe. The effect is magnificent with the archive of expressions that describe states of sheer happiness: ‘Cwtch’, the Welsh word meaning ‘the embrace of a loved one that instils warmth and protection’? Or ‘Samar’, in Arabic, meaning ‘chatting late into the night with a loved one’. It warms the heart to know that human beings have used language in this way too.

This time, the authors have compiled a list of idioms which, by featuring animals, convey the joys, hardships, disappointments, enthusiasms or mistrust that we experience every day, whatever language we speak. From the foreword: “The range of roles historically assigned to the species that accompany humankind on this planet is vast and varied: animals are by turns wild beasts, tools of labour, food sources, companions, spare parts, living beings to be protected… Anthropology has summarised all this into two categories: animals ‘good for eating’ and those ‘good for thinking’. Today, however, many call for a less anthropocentric perspective in which animals can simply be ‘good to live alongside’.”

This is the common thread linking around a hundred expressions, many of which feature cats (the book is dedicated to Gioacchino the ginger cat):

Whether a hen has her feathers ruffled (in Spanish, an injustice is taking place), someone pulls a fast one on you (in Russian, plays a nasty trick on you) or a heron sneezes (in Fijian, a hard day’s work comes to an end), page after page, the exploration proves irresistible. Like its predecessor, it is rich in poetry, humour and humanity, and evokes the most complex and mixed of emotions, forming a small philosophical encyclopaedia of our pleasures and disappointments. With all the shades in between, stemming from the sense of confusion in one’s head (which, for a French person, is like being a chicken that’s found a knife), from an encounter with an ‘iron rooster’ (in Chinese, a very miserly person), exhausting waits (in Spanish, ‘to be like a parrot on a wire’), the stubbornness of someone (in Swahili) who has the head of an elephant, or that sense of omnipotence that leads the English to say ‘The world is your oyster’.

Within this treasure chest lies every possible way of expressing the inexpressible – the language of feelings – through the unwitting willingness of a non-human being that strikes the spark. Here, indeed, an idiomatic expression would be needed to convey the intimate joy of having understood without being able to put it into words. And as if the frogs, mice, bears, snakes, hens and pigs evoked in Chinese, French, Latvian, Malayalam and Genoese weren’t enough… Andrea Calisi’s images come to the rescue; he is like the bee’s knees or the eel’s ankle – that is to say, a cut above the rest.

By the end of this read, brimming with laughter and moments of sudden realisation, you’ll feel like a kangaroo on a trampoline – which, incidentally, in English means… head straight to page 102!