Book Review: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

The novel is rife with easily identifiable issues, but it only occasionally distracts from the general enjoyment of reading it. Before we get into the bad (is it just me that always finds the negative aspects more interesting and more fun to write?), let’s start with the good:

• The book has a Table of Contents and a map in the front matter. Automatic points.
• I noticed the descriptive power early on in the novel. Imagery like “a curtain of sparkling dust hung between two chairs” transported me and placed me right there with the character. The writing style struck a good balance between poetic and simple. 
• I never thought about the history of the Oxford English Dictionary or the making of historical dictionaries in general, and it was fascinating to learn more about it. The compiling and publishing of the Oxford English Dictionary took three-quarters of a lifetime. I love how Pip Williams drew from fact and used historical figures to back the secondary characters. 
• I also never fully considered how language could be oppressed along with a gender. Women in the 1800’s (and very early 1900’s) didn’t have as many rights as men, were considered lesser to men in terms of intelligence and emotional maturity, and were inevitably complicit in natural activities that were taboos in social conversation (menstruation, hormonal changes, pregnancy, etc.). As the novel describes, a lot of words that describe a woman’s lot were left out of official dictionaries, which is why Esme, our protagonist, collects them. When discussing a word that describes a woman’s lot, one of the characters says, “It should be in your dictionary. It’s too common not to be understood” (217). In the modern world, we have a lot of words that describe a woman’s lot. Postpartum depression comes to mind. Back then, things like this were contributed to “Female Hysteria,” and women were prescribed the “rest cure” like described in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a prevalent misunderstanding that was detrimental to women’s mental health. But even today, some words that describe a woman’s lot are neglected or flinched at. Mention a period or menstruation around a man, and many flinch or become uncomfortable, and some refuse to learn more about it, even though it is a normal, monthly part of a woman’s life. Something so common is insistently being misunderstood. 
• Although the beginning of the novel was a bit slow (which I’ll get into below), the second half of the novel was much more engaging, and the book became harder to put down. 

Now let’s dive into the parts of the novel that I didn’t like:

• Like I said above, the first half of the novel was a bit slow. A big part of that had to do with Esme’s character. I didn’t really like child Esme. She was a spoiled, self-centered thief who was often inconsiderate of others. I also didn’t understand all of the motivations or emotions in this part of the novel. I thought the prologue was a little dramatic with Esme reaching into the fire for a slip of paper with her mother’s name on it. To understand her devastation, I tried to place myself into a historical setting without technology or the internet, where knowledge only existed on paper, but I still thought the whole plot point was a bit overdramatic. Esme’s emotions regarding the near divinity of slips of paper confused me throughout the first half of the novel. It went beyond recognizing the importance of each word’s inclusion into the dictionary, and strayed into irrational obsession. I just didn’t fully understand Esme, I suppose. But it wasn’t just Esme whose motivations I didn’t understand. After Esme went off to boarding school, she was rather a brat to her father and adopted aunt about being sent there, although her guardians were obviously acting with the best intentions. They were furthering her education, which was a gift for a woman at the time, and Esme didn’t appreciate it at all. Yes, they ended up physically abusing her at the boarding school, but that definitely was not Ditte’s (Esme’s pseudo-aunt) or her father’s fault. But Esme punishes them for it anyways, including shunning Ditte for years. Instead of setting her straight and having adult conversations about it, Ditte and Esme’s father bow at her feet and beg for forgiveness, which actually really annoyed me. Esme didn’t have a parent who provided discipline or structure, so it’s a wonder that she didn’t grow up into someone who would annoy me, which is why I enjoyed the latter half of the novel more.
• The actual plot of the novel was different than I expected based on the summary of the book. I expected the book to be more plot-driven, but it was definitely more character-driven, which I would usually applaud, but the Dictionary of Lost Words, or the words Esme collected, wasn’t as heavily featured as I would have liked. Esme was also a bit too passive to be the protagonist of a character-driven book. I actually don’t mind passive protagonists as a general rule, because I differentiate between passive characters whose passivity fits a reserved personality and characters who have no agency. I felt like Esme did have agency, but not when it mattered. The most egregious part of the book is when Esme’s publicized collection of words ended up being a gift from a man. It was the man’s brainchild, Esme didn’t even know the publication was happening. What??!! Let me quote from the summary on the back cover: “Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words.” Doesn’t this make it seem like she’s intentionally going to record women’s words in a dictionary that she is going to fight to get published in a man’s world? The dictionary that is published: Women’s Words and Their Meanings was compiled and edited by Esme, and the man who gifted it to her just placed it in type and bound it, so it’s not like it changed into a man’s narrative, but if it weren’t for the man, the words Esme collected would have lived in a trunk forever, never seeing the light of day. The entire point of the novel was recognition of women’s language, couldn’t it at least have been Esme’s idea to publish it and act on it? It makes sense for Gareth to make it into a physical book, because that was his job, but couldn’t Esme have at least asked him to do it?

I’m sure you can tell that some things about this novel bugged me. It’s definitely not perfect. But when I think of the novel, my main takeaway is how much I learned about the history of compiling dictionaries. And some events in the latter part of the novel made me want to cry, so the second half was obviously emotionally investing.