The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

Challenge #52 ~ “A book with a strange or unusual title.”

dictionaryoflostwords

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

My opinion in three sentences:

Everything came together in the end, but the journey to get there was not straightforward and I found my interest wandering throughout. It started out so well and you could feel Williams passion bleeding through the words – and since it’s a book about words and language, it was beautiful to read – but as time progressed and the protagonist aged, the historical context (and its associated themes) took a greater prominence and the linguistic love got overshadowed. I felt at times perhaps as if the book wasn’t quite certain what it wanted to be, and a stronger, singular focus would have made the novel stronger.

(Without spoiling anything) the best bit:

I was really taken in at the start and excited by the promise offered. Williams has clearly done much research on the topic and offers insight into such an unusual aspect of history. Plus, history of language, which is going to be of interest to many bookworms. To top it all off, it’s clearly something that’s of interest to Williams, too, and the pure love and intrigue seeps through every word (and what better can you ask for learning history than from such an impassioned teacher or narrator?)

A warning for the book:

Once the scene is set and the reader familiar with young Esme (our protagonist), the book takes a bit of a meander through relevant cultural issues of the time and you won’t be the first to question their relevance and importance to the story. Rest assured that at the end everything does come together and (more or less) explain itself, but even for someone with a fair interest in such history, it feels disjointed from the main tale and can require some effort to get through.

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