The Dictionary of Lost Words
The Dictionary of Lost Words
By: Pip Williams
[Fulfilled ‘Book with ‘lost’ in the title’ for Shelf Reflection’s 2023 Reading Challenge]
“Some words are more important than others. But it took me a long time to understand why.”
I’m disappointed I didn’t love this one. The cover made it look whimsical and I’ve always loved words. I used to collect words and definitions when I was younger and I still like to point out in my reviews new words or phrases that I read.
But this book has a more serious tone than I was expecting and some of the writing style was frustrating when it came to understanding our main character.
This book chronicles (in historical fiction fashion) how the first Oxford English Dictionary came to be. To liven the story up and explore the role, or lack of thereof, of women in this process, the dictionary’s story is wrapped around our main character— Esme— whose father is part of the decades long process.
Williams incorporates the threads of both women’s suffrage (throughout) and WWI (just the last bit of the book) which historically were happening at the same time as the dictionary project.
This is the kind of book where you kinda need to know WHY the author chose to write the book. What was she exploring and what message was she wanting to send? Here are a couple quotes from the author’s note to help us understand the origin and process of this book:
“This book began as two simple questions: do words mean different things to men and women? And if they do, is it possible that we have lost something in the process of defining them?
“I decided that the absence of women did matter. A lack of representation might mean that the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was biased in favor of the experiences and sensibilities of men… This novel is my attempt to understand how the way we define language might define us.”
My Stream of Consciousness
Even though it wasn’t necessarily a pleasure to read, I suppose this might make a good book club book purely for the discussion topics therein.
One of the things I was unprepared for as I read this book was the types of ‘lost’ words that were being collected.
As a young girl, Esme collects disposed, forgotten, hidden, or dropped words written on slips of paper as she huddles under the sorting tables. But as she grows she comes to think about what makes a word ‘ineligible’ for the dictionary and how that impacts the people who use them.
“‘Words define us, they explain us, and on occasion, they serve to control us or isolate us. But what happens when words that are spoken are not recorded? What effect does that have on the speaker of those words?’”
So she starts collecting words from people who perhaps have no voice. But they are mostly the crass or slang terms. One of her first words is the c-word. She adds to that clitoris, dollymop, shaft, etc. It seemed the more vulgar the more she wanted to document it.
Even in the story this exchange happens:
“‘She collects words.’
’What kind of words?’
’Women’s words. Dirty ones.’”
This made me think. Because my knee-jerk reaction is- why would we want to make sure to include vulgar words in the dictionary. Doesn’t that dignify them?
But the book’s argument would be less about dignifying the words as dignifying the people who use them. That their way of speaking that gives context to their person, their life, their identity, goes unnoticed, ignored, forgotten, if it’s not written down.
One character says, “We are arbiters of the English language, sir. Our job, surely, is to chronicle, not judge.”
And I suppose that’s correct. The dictionary is a book that is supposed to provide people with access to the meaning of words so that they might understand one another. It’s not meant to surmise moral merit on those words.
However, it has to give some sort of context to how the word is used— whether it’s vulgar or meant as an insult— or we won’t be understanding properly.
I know I don’t have the same perspective on vulgarity as many do. I don’t swear or speak crassly and I try to avoid books seeped in it.
A character says, “‘A vulgar word, well-placed and said with just enough vigor, can express far more than its polite equivalent.’”
I’m sure I’m naive to a lot of slang or terminology that is used regularly. And I’m personally glad for it. I don’t feel like it would be God-honoring to immerse myself in that. I’m not sure I’m convinced that even if it’s more expressive that we should use vulgar words. Is there something more important than being able to express our deepest feelings however we want?
I think the language we use can be a sin. Especially if it disrespects God’s name or his image-bearers. THIS ARTICLE and THIS ARTICLE give good biblical insights on the irreverence of profanity and vulgar language.
I’m not sure I would say it disqualifies those words from being defined, but I’m not sure if it’s right or dignifying to make sure we attribute them to people’s identity.
We have to use words to define ourselves because words are our form of communicating and understanding. But I think we can place too much emphasis on the words themselves then what the words tell us.
The Power of Words
One thing that can’t be denied is the power of language and the power of controlling language. I can see how the job of putting together a dictionary and defining words is a powerful position, one that must have accountability and voices heard from multiple places.
I couldn’t help but think of a couple nonfiction books I’ve read that explore this very thing.
First, Cultish by Amanda Montell is all about the ‘language of fanaticism.’ She says,
“With a glimmer of willingness, language can do so much to squash independent thinking, obscure truths, encourage confirmation bias, and emotionally charge experiences such that no other way of life seems possible.”
She specifically looks at the way language powers cults:
“From the crafty redefinition of existing words (and the invention of new ones) to powerful euphemisms, secret codes, renamings, buzzwords, chants and mantras, forced silence, even hashtags, language is the key means by which all degrees of cult-like influence occur.”
Similarly, Rod Dreher in his book, Live Not by Lies, explores how communist countries controlled and redefined words and how we’re seeing a lot of that today. Certain powers that be would like to redefine what a woman is or make hate speech the same as violence. And what about what ‘true’ means, because it seems less and less about reality and more and more about feelings.
It’s telling that Dreher would indicate- “language creates reality.”
He takes it further: “According to Hannah Arendt, the foremost scholar of totalitarianism, a totalitarian society is one in which an ideology seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions, with the goal of bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology. A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality. Truth is whatever the rulers decide it is.”
If language creates reality then a force may try to control what creates that reality—language.
Another book that speaks a lot about language and power is Cynical Theories. It explores the postmodern thought that the way we talk about things holds a lot of power:
“Theory assumes that objective reality cannot be known, “truth” is socially constructed through language and “language games” and is local to a particular culture, and knowledge functions to protect and advance the interests of the privileged.”
and:
“If knowledge is a construct of power, which functions through ways of talking about things, knowledge can be changed and power structures toppled by changing the way we talk about things.”
The Dictionary of Lost Words looks at the power struggle between men and women in the time of the compiling of the dictionary and how poor or female voices weren’t allowed a big enough influence into what became written.
This is an important aspect of words, but if we were to look at how this book applies to us today, I don’t think it’s about how men vs women define words. I think it’s how progressives vs conservatives use and change language.
Women are no longer kept from virtually any job or standing. We have the vote. We can own businesses and property. We can be homemakers or CEOs. We can write bestselling books, billboard topping songs, or personal blogs that can be seen worldwide. We have a voice.
But progress never stops. It’s always going to find a tradition to tear down, regardless of its merit.
I won’t beat a dead horse, but I think it would be a really good discussion to think about how language is used and redefined today and whether we think that’s a good thing. Are all voices being heard and heard equally? Should they? If not, how does that relate to the time period this novel was written? How can we better separate what some people use a word to mean and what we think it should be used for? Is there an appropriate way to stop a redefining or new usage of a word?
A few other quotes worth a conversation:
“Words are like stories, don’t you think? They change as they are passed from mouth to mouth; their meanings stretch or truncate to fit what needs to be said.”
“I realized that the words most often used to define us were words that described our function in relation to others.”
“‘Words are meaningless without action.’
’And sometimes action can make a lie of good words.’”“If war could change the nature of men, it would surely change the nature of words.”
The Character of Esme
I mentioned earlier that one thing I didn’t like about this book was that it was frustrating understanding the main character. This is because it felt like every time some big life moment was about to happen Williams cuts it off and jumps ahead.
Even after Esme’s father dies we hardly know her thoughts or her grief. It’s like she didn’t want us to get too attached to Esme because the focus of the book was supposed to be about how the dictionary was put together. Esme is just there to point at stuff, we’re not actually supposed to know her.
The most extended feeling and transparency we get is when Esme talks about her baby that she has to give up for adoption. This struggle drew me to her because as a mother I know the bond of a mother to her baby and I can’t imagine what it would take to let go of that baby.
I am also glad for her relief when she finds out she is too far along to abort the baby. I was happy to know that even though she called it ‘an inconvenience’ she still recognized the little life and desired to see her borne and given life outside the womb even if she couldn’t be the one to sustain it. To me, this pain was the most humanizing part of Esme’s character.
At the beginning I wasn’t sure if I was even going to like her. She is described as a scapegrace (a mischievous little person) which is endearing at first. But her mischief and defiance aren’t always used endearingly.
She says of the words she has collected in her trunk:
“My trunk is like the Dictionary. Except it’s full of words that have been lost or neglected.”
Except really it starts as stolen words. A lot of the words she kept she didn’t even give them a chance to be considered in the dictionary. You can’t take a word and then complain that they didn’t care about it enough to put it in.
When she takes the word ‘abandon’ she basically claims that the word belongs to her because it describes her. There is some entitlement here. She feels justified in doing something she knows is wrong because she feels like the act is important to her identity. It’s a symbolic thing because she doesn’t need ‘the word’ to feel what it describes. I don’t like this attitude and it made it harder to like her as a character.
Of course, she grows up and resists her compulsion to take the slips. She goes and starts collecting her own words and finds a more constructive way to find her voice.
A Little Dull
Other reviewers have commented that it could have been a shorter book and I agree the length didn’t do it any favors. It seemed to drag a lot, especially because we weren’t allowed into too much of Esme’s life and we kept getting jerked back to slips and pigeonholes and fascicles and proofs. These words are probably used more than Esme’s name.
I thought it was clever how the author sectioned the book off with words like a dictionary- like the first and last terms in a volume or on a page. That was a unique touch. Some of the words I didn’t know what they meant and I probably should have looked them up to see if both words summarized the vibe or purpose of that section of the book. I’m assuming it did and if it didn’t, that’s a big miss for Williams.
The book covered so many years but it was hard to picture Esme progressing along. The chapters were headed with the year, but I couldn’t keep straight how old Esme was at that time. Sometimes it would eventually be said as you kept reading, but it’s hard to understand her character like we’re supposed to if we don’t know the age at which her actions, behaviors, thoughts, and words are being carried out. Again, it made it seem like we just weren’t supposed to focus on her.
It’s a bold move to write a book where the main character is an inanimate object (a dictionary) and a somewhat dull one at that. Readers need a relatable character they can connect with throughout the book and over and over again it seemed like Williams kept redirecting us from what we actually wanted to read about.
Recommendation
If you like historical fiction and are particularly interested in words or the dictionary, I would say this is a book for you, however, I would have categorized myself that way and I didn’t really enjoy it. So take it for what it’s worth.
It brings up some great conversation topics and touches on important things like the power of words and the people who define them, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the drag of the long book and the bait-and-switch character of Esme that the author uses.
It does provide interesting information on how the Oxford English Dictionary was compiled and historical things like Hart’s Rules, the Bodleian Library, the Esperanto language, the missing ‘bondmaid’ word, etc. I enjoyed learning these things and I’m glad that Ditte is a historical person because her letters to Esme were one of my favorite parts. So if you want to learn that information in a slightly more exciting way than just reading Wikipedia pages, you’ll probably like it.
[Content Advisory: some crass and vulgar language (i.e. the c-word) but from a distanced use; some descriptions when Esme first gets her period]
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