The Dictionary of Lost Words

Fine story following young Esme in parallel to the development of the first Oxford Dictionary. Gender roles were highlighted subtly at first and then more boldly as Esme's childhood gave way to womanhood and her own ambition. After the most metaphorical and vague fade-to-black I've ever read, Esme falls into a trope I didn't expect or appreciate. Later, the story peaks and suffragettes make the scene, but suddenly I hit diminishing returns. Gareth and Esme aren't given enough pages to sit with their emotions, so every chapter approaching the end seems anti-climactic, like sleep-walking through a misty, half-forgotten dream. Still, very much appreciate the attention paid to showing classcism, sexism, and misogyny.

I hadn't heard of this before I picked it up in a (real life!) bookshop, but apparently it garnered plenty of attention when it was published last year. And with good reason, I think.

It's the story of a woman, Esme, framed by the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the way the meaning of words are shaped by use (as her own life's meaning is shaped by use), the words/lives considered worthy or unworthy of recording for posterity and who gets to decide that worth.

I enjoyed this one: slow and character-driven, no high drama, some tearful moments. I would have appreciated a content warning, but it's seriously spoilery and it would have ruined the moment, but I leave it here for you: childbirth, child loss, adoption .

The final chapter and the epilogue continue past Esme's work on the Dictionary, and I feel the book would have been stronger without it. Ditte's final letter would have been the perfect end-point, in my mind although clearly Megan's lecture shows Esme's work given the public attention she hoped it would someday achieve . 

Favorite quotes:
“I often wondered what kind of slip I would be written on if I was a word. Something too long, certainly. Probably the wrong colour. A scrap of paper that didn't quite fit. I worried that perhaps I would never find my place in the pigeon-holes at all”. P. 123

“I had to think. ‘It's about seeing something before it's fully formed. Watching it evolve. I imagine sitting here on opening night and appreciating every scene all the more because I understand what has led to it. Bill laughed. ‘What's so funny?' ‘Nothing. It's just that you don't speak often, but when you do it's perfect” p. 149

“Maybe it's about time I became “more worldly”, as you put it. Things are changing. Women don't have to live lives determined by others. They have choices, and I choose not to live the rest of my days doing as I'm told and worrying about what people will think. That's no life at all” p. 169

“He'd given me something I'd wanted since the first time he took my hand. It wasn't love; nothing like it. It was knowledge. Bill took words I'd written on slips and turned them into places on my body. He introduced me to sensations that no fine sentence could come close to defining. Near its end, I'd heard the pleasure of it exhaled on my breath, felt my back arch and my neck stretch to expose its pulse. It was a surrender, but not to him. Like an alchemist, Bill had turned Mabel's vulgarities and Tilda's practicalities into something beautiful. I was grateful, but I was not in love.” p. 175

‘Fear hates the ordinary, she said. ‘When yer feared, you need to think ordinary thoughts, do ordinary things. You ‘ear me? The fear'll back off, for a time at least” p. 185

“There was none. There are none. There never would be a word to mach Her” p. 210

“There was the fainest smell of coal smoke and the sounds of birds calling their own to roost, their songs as clear and distinct as church bells. My face was wet with loss and love and regret. And woven through it all there was a thread of shameful relief” p. 226

“He came round to my side of the table and sat beside me. “Love, Easy. A good family is one where there is love” p. 234

“(...) You can't change what is. - “do you really believe that, Lizzie?” She looked at me, wary of the question. “Surely things could change if enough people wanted them to” I continued”. p. 246

“It struck me that we are never fully at ease when we are aware of another's gaze. Perhaps we are never ourselves. In the desire to please or impress, to persuade or dominate, our movements become conscious, our features set”. p. 317

“If war could change the nature of men, it would surely change the nature of worlds, I thought. But so much of the English language had already been set in type and printed. We were nearing the end” p. 342

Bookclub read [UoG]: I was interested in the premise of this, having always loved words - their beginnings, uses and the way their meanings can change. I've never really thought about the gendering of words, how they can mean different things to men and women and how each has their own vocabulary (how this works in our more gender-fluid time I would be very interested to read upon). This book made me think about the words of my childhood, from my hometown and those of my parents. The special words that only mean something to you and those close to you. The new words you find as you grow and travel. The meanings you make for yourself.
Based on the true story of the dictionary's creation with the beginnings of the suffragist and suffragette movements and the First World War it's hard to believe that Esme is fiction. She seemed so real, well rounded by Williams' words and imbued with life. I wanted so much for her and felt her losses deeply. In some ways it is sad that real women of the dictionary remain as peripheral characters in this book as they do on the actual history of creating the dictionary. However, I appreciate Williams not wishing to take liberties with their narratives. The fictional women, were well fleshed out from the crass Mabel to the (almost) modern day Meg.
There was little joy to be taken from the lives of the characters, everything was permeated with a bleakness - perhaps due to the time it was set. However there was joy in the words, in the claiming of them and I will look differently at many of them since reading this.