The Word Exchange in What's the Name of That Book???

Jan 05, 2015 jo rated it liked it

Shelves: audio, spec-fantasy-sf

let's get the misconceptions out of the way: this is not an alt reality book, this is a dystopian book. it is narrated in alternating chapters by two characters, both in the first person. this does not make things confusing. it is not a difficult book and the vocabulary is rich but perfectly comprehensible. it is beautifully written (having listened to the audio version i can't vouch for the punctuation, but what i heard was beautiful: beautiful sentences, beautiful words). one of the characters let's get the misconceptions out of the way: this is not an alt reality book, this is a dystopian book. it is narrated in alternating chapters by two characters, both in the first person. this does not make things confusing. it is not a difficult book and the vocabulary is rich but perfectly comprehensible. it is beautifully written (having listened to the audio version i can't vouch for the punctuation, but what i heard was beautiful: beautiful sentences, beautiful words). one of the characters has a bit of a hard on for hegel, the 19th century german philosopher you may or may not have heard of, and unless you know hegel you will probably glaze over those bits. they are few and far between. they are lovely in their own poetic-philosophical way. they are very short, like one sentence or two.

there are footnotes. the footnotes are part of the text, except they are at the bottom of the page and in smaller type. they require that your eyes move down and then up again, with the added chore of finding where you left off in the body of the text. it's really no biggie. Junot Díaz and David Foster Wallace do it too, but i haven't seen anyone go ballistic over their doing it -- to the contrary. alene graedon is a terrifically gifted writer and this novel is tremendously original. no, she's no [insert favorite fantasy/sci-fi possibly male author here]. the reason for that is that she is herself. and what a splendid self she is.

the book is on the long side. there is some repetition. it could be a trimmer book. is it the only book that could use some trimming in the eyes of this reviewer? most certainly not. there's a certain dickensian quality to the length, and if you go for the sort of thing (i don't) you won't complain; if you don't, you'll be mildly frustrated, on occasion. i punished graedon for this minor irritation by docking one star.

you can read about the story elsewhere, though i recommend you don't. there is brilliance to the way in which greadon builds a story around how digital technology is affecting our use of language (and our way of living, but she doesn't dwell on that much). i am not a luddite and i like my internets; when people rant about how the internet isolates us or makes us less smart or drastically reduces our attention span, i shrug. it's not like IT and digital communication are going away any time soon. so this is really the first time that i took a long hard look at my internet habits. since this is a dystopia as much as a fairy-tale, it is not preachy. i guess the lack of preachiness is what kept me from dismissing its critique of The Way We Live Today (all dystopias are critiques of TWWLT).

more than that, though, this is a lovely and totally spot-on reflection on language. what it does. how it gets lost. how it changes. language as a social phenomenon. language as a philosophical entity. how poor language leads to poor thought. how poor thought leads to poor feelings. how love requires that we have words and thoughts. how the impoverishment of language is an impoverishment of humanity.

i think i'm doing okay with language. i think everyone who reads this review is doing okay with language, because this is a site for readers. we all love language kind of desperately. most of us (all of us?) would give up just about anything before we gave up reading. language sustains and nourishes us. language consoles us. one can weather many a rough day with the simple knowledge that a good book is waiting when the lights dim, the noises quieten, and the tears dry up. language is our emergency raft and our permanent cruise ship. we live and float on language.

the only regret i have is that i'm pretty much losing the capacity to write with pen and paper. not only does my hand hurt after about two lines, but i keep making mistakes. how bizarre. my brain has unlearned how to write cursive. i remember the distinct delight of putting words on paper. it was as pleasurable as reading. i remember thinking very often that a lot of the text was in the interstices between words. i found that miraculous. i reveled in that. such wealth of meaning.

there are no interstices in typed text (included text typed on manual typewriters) and that's just the long and the short of it, at least for me. also, typing is so much faster. i truly mourn the slowness of writing with a pen. and of course i miss the ink, the friction of the
pen's tip on the paper, the noise this friction produced. i spent so much time in stationary stores. remember the smell? i had special pens for special needs. some pens were faster. some pens wrote prettier. and the paper. beautiful paper. so many textures. even the most ordinary paper (white newsprint paper) had its magic.

all of this i grieve daily (seriously) but i seem unable to go back (i've tried so many times). sometimes i fantasize about black-outs that would force me to write with pen and paper. but black-outs bring a lot of misery, too.

i occasionally worry about the loss of privacy. more than that, perhaps, i worry about what might be diminished ability to spend time with myself. but this doesn't hit me as hard. those times spent with myself weren't awesome, and i love chatting with you all. i'm happy, though, that i don't have a smart phone. i can still spend time alone when i'm not at home. that is valuable. i think i'll try to hold on to that, as long as civilization allows me.
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Mar 16, 2014 Erin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: arc-review

ARC for review.

A thriller of lexicography that will appeal to language lovers this book follows Ana, a young woman in search of her father. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances just before the launch of the final edition of his world-renowned dictionary (a victim of our digital age which, in this book, is a few steps further along the interactive road). Plus, a potentially fatal "word flu" has appeared and maybe Ana's missing father holds the key?

At first I thought this would be an exa ARC for review.

A thriller of lexicography that will appeal to language lovers this book follows Ana, a young woman in search of her father. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances just before the launch of the final edition of his world-renowned dictionary (a victim of our digital age which, in this book, is a few steps further along the interactive road). Plus, a potentially fatal "word flu" has appeared and maybe Ana's missing father holds the key?

At first I thought this would be an example of a book it was easier to admire than to truly enjoy, especially since, occasionally there were moments when the author seemed very pleased with her own braininess, but it really grew on me. There are some moments of incredibly vivid imagery that I just loved especially resonant today in "the changing world I'd come of age in-slowly bereft of books and love letters, photographs and maps, takeout menus, timetables, liner notes, and diaries" (105)

A few quibbles - the footnotes. Ugh. Some rationale was provided at the end, but the reasoning wasn't strong enough to make up for the pointlessness. There were also diary sections written by someone with aphasia, so those were tough. And several times there's some heavy-handed foreshadowing which I could have done without. However, most of the loose ends are knotted and though I didn't quite grasp some of what Graedon was selling (I never understood why people would be willing to pay for nonsense words and there seemed no entertainment factor to the game such that people would keep coming back) that was probably more me versus her.

To be fair, I might have enjoyed this more had I not just read Max Barry's Lexicon which is, like this, a thriller of sorts about language. Though I've read and liked Barry in the past I didn't feel Lexicon was successful. This was definitely a more enjoyable book, especially with the reflections on how language draws us all together and why we read, but it was probably a bit of an overload on a very specific genre. Incredibly ambitious - Graedon is one to watch. ...more

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