The Liar's Dictionary | Babel | TinyCat |

2024-06-01 7:17 am

The Liar's Dictionary

by Eley Williams

Ebook, 2020

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Tags

fiction, kindle, ebook

Genres

General Fiction

Historical Fiction

Publication

Cornerstone Digital (2020), 288 pages

Description

"Peter Winceworth, a disaffected Victorian lexicographer, inserts false entries into a dictionary - violating and subverting the dictionary's authority - in an attempt to assert some sense of individual purpose and artistic freedom. In the present day, Mallory, a young overworked and underpaid intern employed by the dictionary's publishing house, is tasked with uncovering these entries before the work is digitised. As the novel progresses and their narratives combine, as Winceworth imagines who will find his fictional words in an unknown future and Mallory discovers more about the anonymous lexicographer's life through the clues left in his fictitious entries, both discover how they might negotiate the complexities of an absurd, relentless, untrustworthy, hoax-strewn, undefinable life.Braiding together contemporary and historical narratives, the novel explores themes of trust, agency and creativity, celebrating the rigidity, fragility and absurdity of language."--Provided by publisher.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member LyndaInOregon

Delightful, delicious, daffy, dazzling– well, you get the idea. Readers who loved Mark Dunn’s ‘Ella Minnow Pea’ and Kory Stamper’s 'Word by Word’ will likewise devour ‘The Liar’s Dictionary’ with great relish.

There is a plot here – more or less. Two plots, to be precise,

intertwining across a century and anchored by a never-quite-completed dictionary. One thread involves the purposeful insertion of mountweazels (look it up) and the other involves an attempt to locate and expunge them from the soon-to-be digitized version. There’s also a connecting thread of throwing off the traces of classism and conformity, and of having the courage to embrace one’s true self, along with a couple of love stories – one more successful than the other.

But let’s be honest here. This work is mostly an excuse to revel in words. Exquisite, exuberant, effervescent words, spilling off the page and snapping in the atmosphere like the bubbles from the finest Champagne. This reviewer begs the reader to not spoil the vintage by keeping a dictionary at hand. Just imbibe and enjoy. One might, via context, be able to puzzle out the meaning of mimolette, corymb, zugzwang, and pelike (and some in fact are presented gratis). If not, so what? It’s still a party in print, and it won’t even leave the reader with a hangover.

What more could one ask?

LibraryThing member hubblegal

I’ve never used the dictionary feature on my e-reader as much as I did with this book! Delightful, creative and endearing.

LibraryThing member cougargirl1967

It took some time for me to "get" what was going on in this story. Still an interesting read especially for any word birds.

LibraryThing member skavlanj

A Book Based Entirely On Its Cover

About halfway through The Liar's Dictionary, I found myself wanting to enjoy Eley Williams' novel more than I was. The interplay between present and past, between 30-something intern Mallory's quest to uncover all the false entries hidden within Swansby's

Encyclopaedic Dictionary and awkward lexicographer Peter Winceworth's struggle to contribute to the same-said work, should engage a reader's imagination. But layer in Mallory's inability to profess her lesbian relationship to her employer and parents, add a bomb threat to Swansby's, provide ne'er-do-well Peter with a love interest who turns out to be engaged to his nemesis, send him on an ill-fated train ride to the site of an industrial accident, and suddenly you have a plot that runs on longer than this sentence.

Maybe it was the incongruity of the behavior one expects of gentlemen of the late Victorian age employed in writing a dictionary versus their actual behavior. Maybe it was the endless stream of esoteric and arcane words strewn across the pages (admittedly to be expected in a book about words) which I tired of looking up in my own dictionary. Maybe it's just all these events compacted into two forty-eight-hour timespans occurring more than a century apart that made the plot feel more than a little contrived.

In the end, Mallory's story ends with a bang literally, Peter's with a whimper. What should be a satisfying conclusion to Mallory's struggle to out herself is overshadowed by the deus ex machina quality of the plot twist leading up to it, while Peter's emergence from his shell is likewise marred by the underwhelming circumstances surrounding it.

This has proven to be a tough category on my reading list, one I'm zero for three in.

LibraryThing member hemlokgang

The mission? Find every word in their new dictionary that was fake, not really a word. What? I think this book is for a very distinct niche group of readers. Are you passionate about words? Do you ever just flip through a dictionary for the most fascinating words? Well, if you answer yes, then this

is a book for you! If yes, read this book and savor the tongue-in-cheek humor of this wonderful tale! If you answer no, well, then skip it! I chuckled all the way through, at the fastidiousness of the wordsy folks.

LibraryThing member Hccpsk

Creating a dictionary at the end of the 19th century was no easy task--dozens of workers toiled away, traveling and researching to write meticulous definitions on index cards they collected as they worked through all the words one letter at a time. In The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams, Peter

Winceworth labors at Swansby’s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary, so bored with his job and life that he fabricates a lisp to provoke his co-workers as he tackles the letter S. He also enjoys making up words to counter the tedium (i.e. relectoblivious (adj.), accidentally rereading a phrase or line due to lack of focus or desire to finish) and secretly inserts them into the book. Flash forward to modern-day London, we find Mallory similarly toiling in boredom at the same Swansby’s trying to find all of Winceworth’s mountweazels (it’s a word...look it up) before her boss finally publishes Swansby’s online. The action moves back and forth between the two characters as they navigate their way through the dictionary and a strange few days of their lives.
The Liar’s Dictionary is about love, creativity, and finding yourself, but first and foremost it is an homage to words and the people who love them. Nearly every paragraph includes an interesting and obscure word, the characters (both modern and not) banter with funny references and pun-filled witticism and the action revolves around the words themselves. If wordplay, British humor, or the need to look up definitions every few minutes will make you crazy, then this may not be the book for you--but at a slim 200 pages, it may work for almost anyone. I adored every minute of it and highly recommend it.

LibraryThing member froxgirl

My favorite quirky book of 2021 features alternating chapters of an intense love of language by a young woman and a young man, taking place in two different centuries. In the modern day, Mallory is an intern at a publisher that is known only for a never-completed dictionary, and back in 1899, Peter

Winceworth is one of many lexicographers at work on that same book, but he has decided to add his own words and definitions to the publication. In the now, Mallory is charged with finding Peter’s false words and eradicating them, and, back in the turn of the century, Peter has fallen in love with the fiancé of an obnoxious scion of the publishing house. There are some amusing intertwinings between the characters and the generations, and the most intensely lovely and clever wordplay imaginable. If you enjoy the study of English, this novel will be a true joy and an amazing source of Scrabble words, if you can separate the wheat from the invented chaff.

Quotes: "It occurred to me that I might be fired. From a cannon, in a kiln, from a job."

"One page required students to rank the following verbs according to their pace: jaunt, stride, amble, lumber, strut, patrol, plod, prance, run, saunter, shamble, stroll, and traipse."

"There should be a word for knowing when the pasta is perfectly cooked just by looking at it."

LibraryThing member Capybara_99

A joy of a book. It must have been great fun to write and it is fun to read.. The prose is precise and playful and with a reason tied to the story for being so.

LibraryThing member bell7

Mallory is an intern for Swansby's dictionary where the heir, David, is attempting to digitize the dictionary and update entries despite the fact that Swansby's great claim to fame is that is was unfinished. Winceworth, 100 years ago, is one of the plodding lexicographers who worked to make the

original dictionary. Each chapter brings readers back and forth in time following these two and they discover what is really important to them and find the freedom to be themselves.

This book, with its wordplay, riffs on dictionaries and changing language, and mountweazels scattered throughout, is very cleverly done. That, for me, was both its intriguing aspect and its downfall. I was so taken with the cleverness and paying attention to every word, that the characters were held at arms length and kind of lost in the weeds of the wittiness of it all. It's fun and goes down easy, but I wanted just a tad more.

LibraryThing member RandyMetcalfe

In alternating chapters set nearly a century apart, two sets of loves are chronicled. The first involves Peter, a falsely lisping lexicographer working on the letter ’S’ for Swansby’s Encyclopaedic Dictionary, and Sophia, a free-spirited Russian distantly related to the Tsar. The other love

is between Mallory, working a long-term internship to digitize Swansby’s unfinished dictionary and Mallory’s love, Pip, who works at a coffee shop, doodles on her digits, and, as opposed to Mallory, is fully forthright about being out. The chapters are organized alphabetically with either real or mountweazel definitions of words from the dictionary. It is a clever structure that offers up the opportunity for a series of sometimes comic, sometimes painfully sweet set-pieces.

So far, so charming, but does a larger narrative arc emerge? Eventually, perhaps, but the two storylines remain fully separated and only loosely parallel. However, just as you begin to think that it’s all just a bit of contrived fun (with added wordplay), you may find yourself actually caring about each of these characters in their separate stories. That took me by surprise. Perhaps romance trumps cynicism after all.

Gently recommended for word lovers and those who enjoy a sweet read that isn’t necessarily saccharine.

LibraryThing member Gwendydd

This book has two storylines: In the early twentieth century, a social outcast works for Swansby's Encyclopedic Dictionary, writing definitions for words while tolerating bullying from his coworkers. He falls in love with a coworker's fiancée, and Wodehouse-worthy hijinks ensue. Meanwhile, in the

current day, a young woman gets an internship at the same dictionary, which was never finished and is a financial failure, so she and the owner are digitizing it as a last effort to keep it alive. In the process, they discover that the dictionary is full of fake words. The intern is madly in love with her girlfriend, but is also in the closet and struggling with her public identity.

Both storylines take place over a few chaotic days, giving the book a frenetic energy. Williams' writing is utterly brilliant - I literally laughed out loud in the preface. The book toys with language and words in delightful ways.

As much as I adored this book, and as much fun as I had reading it, the end didn't quite come together as neatly as I wanted it to. I wish the characters had been able to make the connection between the two storylines.

LibraryThing member brangwinn

I love words. I grew up with a dictionary next to the table where we ate our meals, so this book was written for me. Based on the premise that a multi-volume dictionary written in the 1930’s was to be digitized with no update with new words, Mallory, who is the only employee of the dictionary’s

London office. It is also the story of Winceworth, who lived 100 years ago and was in charge of the “S” section of the dictionary. It took me a while to figure out that the two narrators were living in different times. Winceworth, to stave off boredom, created made up words or mountweazels. As Mallory reads the dictionary in preparation for digitizing, she begins to sense Winceworth’s personality in the words he has made up. The characters are important in the story, but first and foremost it’s the exploration of language, words and meanings that take center stage. And while, I enjoyed the book, I found myself counting the number of pages until the end.

LibraryThing member pgchuis

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I was disappointed by this book. I love words and language and was intrigued by the idea of mountweazels. However, I found the preface very hard to read - I would have given up except that I was meant to be providing a review. Once

the two narrative threads got under way things improved and there was at least the semblance of a plot, although I disliked Mallory and found Winceworth ineffectual. I did very much enjoy his required speech therapy for his entirely fabricated lisp, but that was really the high point for me. There was too much word play and it was all very self-referential and dull.

LibraryThing member nicole_a_davis

It was enjoyable at first, with all the word play and interesting vocabulary, but the novelty of that wore off and then the plot wasn't very exciting. The characters were interesting but not terribly complex. It was a fast read and there were some very funny parts.

LibraryThing member rmarcin

Quirky story told in 2 timelines. Swansby’s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary has never actually been finished. Started years early, at the end of the 19th C, Peter Winceworth is working through the letter S. His colleague, Frasham, is engaged to Sophia, the woman Winceworth loves. After realizing

that his colleagues are playing loose with language and facts, Winceworth begins to place fake words, or mountweazels, in the dictionary.
A century later, Mallory, is an intern at Swansby’s, The only employee other than David Swansby, heir to the dictionary’s founder, she received threatening phone calls each morning, and tells her girlfriend, Pip about them. When the man in charge of digitizing the dictionary finds some mountweazels, he enlists Mallory to help find them and rid them from the dictionary.
If you love words and their meanings, you will enjoy this. At times, this book made me laugh out loud, esp. with some of the mountweazels and their definitions.

LibraryThing member ablachly

An utterly unexpected delight of words.

LibraryThing member JohnnyOstentatious

I gave up on this novel after about 40 pages. The introduction/prologue was way overwritten. And I have the habit of looking up words up I don't know — I was doing that at least five times a page . . . got old after a while. Also, I have average intelligence, and this book seems like light

reading for graduate students.

LibraryThing member JBD1

Good on the words and wordplay and lexicographical history, but a bit of a letdown on the story.

LibraryThing member LynnB

I loved this book. I found the idea of made-up words so delightful and intriguing, even though the plot was a bit thin. This is a book where the4 quirkiness and word play carry the story. It also made me think about things we can, or can't decide. Like what is a real word. Like who we fall in love

with.

My favourite mountweazels:

Agrupt: having a denouement ruined
Winceworthliness: the value of idle pursuit

And a real word: Zugsway -- having to make a disadvantageous move

LibraryThing member Charon07

A logophile’s delight, and also a charming love story with endearing characters. Two awkward misfits, one in the past and one in the present, whose stories overlap as they work at Swansby House on Swansby’s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary, discover what’s important in life. I’m glad I read

this as an ebook because I could easily look up words in the online dictionary and, especially, google the mountweazels, which constitute the heart of the story.

The preface is perfection. If I were Eley Williams, I could die happy, knowing I’d left the world a better place.

LibraryThing member sriddell

A very unique novel.

Dual timelines: the late 19th century and modern day. The thread tying the two stories together is a failed, incomplete dictionary - full of nonsense words referred to as "mountweazels". The mountweazels are written into the dictionary by an obscure scrivener in the 19th

century. The words are discovered as the dictionary is about to be digitized in the 21st century.

The two main characters each have secrets to be kept and a love of unusual words.

I really loved the back and forth between the two timelines and the backstory of each mountweazel.

LibraryThing member adzebill

Fizzing clever little novel about two lexicographers only connected by index cards. Lots of fun dictionary facts, a bit too show-offy for my tastes though.

LibraryThing member Paperandkindness

This book is adorable! Yes, it does sometimes cross the line into twee, but I enjoyed it anyway. The wordplay was so much fun and the characters were loveable. The dual timeline structure worked and I felt like the storylines were balanced.

LibraryThing member arubabookwoman

This is a charming book full of special words and wordplay about an attempt to update and digitize a dictionary. Swansby's multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary was originally compiled in the late 19th century, but has been dormant since it was abandoned in the 1930's. Now David Swansby, a

descendant of the original compiler, has hired Mallory to assist with the update. The chapters alternate between the present, as narrated by Mallory, and the 1890's, told from the point of view of Peter Winceworth who is working on the letter "S" for the dictionary.
In the present, Mallory is tasked with searching out "montweazels," which are imaginary words inserted into dictionaries. This is done for copyright protection reasons, and there are usually only one or two monweazels inserted in a dictionary. Here, however, David Swansby has discovered there are many, many more such false entries in the Swansby Dictionary. There is also a subplot involving bomb threats.
In Peter Winceworth's time, we learn that he is a Walter Mitty-sort--overlooked, ignored, and sometimes ridiculed by his colleagues, though he is actually very smart. He takes his revenge by inserting the false entries:

"He sketched these idle thoughts on borrowed notepaper whenever the mood took him: sometimes inspired by interactions with his colleagues in the Scivenery--biefoldian (n.), an annoying fellow; titpalcat (n.), a welcome distraction. Sometimes he just improvised little fictions in the style of an encyclopaedic entry. To this end he made up some fourteenth century dignitaries from Constantinople and a small religious sect living in the volcanic Japanese Alps. More often than not, however, these false entries allowed him to plug a lexical gap, create a word for a sensation or a reality where no other word in current circulation seemed to fit the bill."

I didn't look up every strange word I came across in this book, but of those I did some were real and some appeared to be made up. All of the wordplay, not the plot, is the point of this book, and I imagine the author had great fun making up a lot of these words, and discovering the unusual words that are real.

Recommended
3 1/2 stars

LibraryThing member brianinbuffalo

Given that Williams' book was lauded as a "clever delight for language lovers," I was looking forward to this literary adventure. For inexplicable reasons, it just didn't "click" with me. Granted, there are many laugh-out-loud encounters. Also, the book's format — fittingly organized

alphabetically — is inventive. Finally, Williams is a skilled word merchant. But I just couldn't get into the characters or the plot. In fact, I almost stopped reading it a couple times and probably would have given up if it hadn't been such a slim volume.

Awards

Betty Trask Prize and Awards (Award Winner — Shortlist — 2021)

Desmond Elliott Prize (Shortlist — 2021)

NPR: Books We Love (2021)

Language

Original publication date

2020

More

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