Review ✍🏻
I sat down half a dozen times to work on this review before I finally finished it. It’s not my most elegant review, but I captured my experience of reading The Liar’s Dictionary, an unusual book for me.

Netgalley tempted me into browsing one day, resulting in me breaking my rule of only requesting books already on my TBR. The cover! The dictionary focus! A hint of queer narrative! And I do love reading words about words. Yet The Liar’s Dictionary read quite differently from what I expected, with its historical perspective, dual narratives, and extremely odd happenings.

A Curious Story, in Style…
Dictionaries are unsafe, heady things. Safer perhaps to treat your memory as an encylopaedia, and keep your dictionary mobile in your mouth. Words passing from mouth to mouth, as baby birds take their food from the mother. How many similes can you fit in a preface? How garbled can a preface be? The perfect book should grab the reader and the perfect dictionary should be easily grasped.

The Liar’s Dictionary, loc 94
I had certain expectations of The Liar’s Dictionary based on the jacket copy. Those expectations were wildly off base. The preface (excerpted above) – which could be the introduction to the titular dictionary, a reflection by one of the protagonists, or something else entirely – was quick to temper them. Later, the preface’s writer asks “How many similes can you fit in a preface?”. Which got a chuckle, because I was wondering the exact thing. This snippet gives a good impression of the prose, though it lightens up once the main story starts.

Overall, I found the prose to have a curious flow. At times it’s gentle and contemplative. At other times it’s silly and rowdy – clearly the same writer but in a different mood. And still also at other times, it becomes wholly compelling in an unexpected way, pulling you through the action.

…and Substance
The story’s less about the threatening calls and unauthorized entries, far more about protagonists Mallory and Winceworth themselves. At one point, I felt I was reading a whole lot of nothing happening, though I wasn’t exactly bored. The story is highly introspective. But it’s not without plot or only-in-fiction experiences. Weird stuff happens all the meanwhile. At times I wasn’t sure if I was reading satire or parody. I’d find myself absorbed in the characters small actions and experiences, and then – oh! Right! I’m reading a novel! Where strange things do happen, beyond the introspection! (The whole section with a choking pelican, omg.) Williams kept me on my toes.

This was the longest sustained conversation he had kept for months. He considered starting every day by drinking whisky or whiskey and maybe everything would always seem this cogent and easy.

The Liar’s Dictionary, loc 1118
A couple other notes: The connections between Winceworth’s experiences, his resulting falsified words, and Mallory reading them in the present day greatly amused me. The hint of queer narrative is in Mallory’s storyline – no historical queers in this book. Mallory’s romantic life and struggle with coming out (her girlfriend is out) plays a significant role, especially since the threats are around the dictionary updating its definition of marriage. One of the more poignant scenes is when Mallory describes how she tried to learn about her own identity by reading dictionary definitions.

Literary Fiction?
I considered The Liar’s Dictionary very ‘literary’, in that the story is all about the characters in a sort of obscured, obfuscated way. I mean, I have the sense there’s a lot more going on in this story with the characters than is immediately obvious from a surface read. This is what I think of when I think of ‘literary fiction’. *googles ‘what makes fiction literary‘* Interesting – some definitions include that it doesn’t fit a genre and that the plot happens beneath the surface, in the minds of the characters. That describes The Liar’s Dictionary to a tee. In the past I have fallen to the trap of thinking literary fiction = dull, but this book reminds me to break that line of thinking.

The Bottom Line 💭
The Liar’s Dictionary makes for a curious read unlike most books I’ve read, one that’s far more creative than first glance suggests. Certainly a novel for all dictionary lovers to try.

The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams @giantratsumatra
Published in 2021 by Knopf Canada @knopfca & Penguin Random House @penguinrandomhouse
I read the book through Net Galley @netgalley although this picture was taken at Shelf Life Books @shelflifebooks
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Many reference documents like dictionaries, maps, and encyclopedias will include fictitious entries as a copyright trap. But in Winceworth's case, an employee working for Swansby's dictionary in the Victorian era, adding fake entries - or mountweazels - is more about asserting some creative freedom. The novel follows Winceworth, as well as a modern-day counterpart named Mallory, who is working for the same publisher and has been tasked with finding all of the unauthorized mountweazels before the dictionary is digitized. This is a charming little novel - anyone who loves etymology and wordplay will be delighted!
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And apparently this novel has been chosen to be Buzzfeed's book club pick for February! @buzzfeedbooks
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#netgalley #knopfcanada #penguinrandomhouse #eleywilliams #theliarsdictionary #mountweazel #dictionary #wordplay #etymology #shelflifebooks #bookstore #bookpost #recommendedread #recommendedreads #februaryread #februaryreading #2021books #bookstagram #buzzfeedbookclub #bookclubbook #advancedreaderscopy #books #sundayreading

I found The Liar’s Dictionary to be a fun romp through time and language; examining how we assign meaning to words and meaning to life. Author Eley Williams is obviously in love with the English language, and although that made for some nice moments for a word-nerd like myself, Williams also seems in love with the sound of her own voice, and sometimes, the narrative drifted off into meaningless overindulgence for me. The plot here is pretty thin, the characters (and especially the background men) are even thinner, and if this is meant to be social commentary about the history of finding meaning in your work or acceptance of your sexuality, it’s certainly not deep. But it was fun — I had never heard of mountweazels before and I found Williams’ use of them as a narrative device to be fresh and interesting — and I’m happy to have read this.

The plot rotates between two POVs: In Victorian London, Peter Winceworth was a young lexicographer, tasked with assembling words and their definitions for an English dictionary (at a time when many such efforts were underway to be the first to publication), and as he felt invisible at work amongst his fellow scriveners, and as he felt invisible in life (until he met the intriguing Sophia Slivkovna), he amused himself by making up words for feelings and situations that he felt ought to have names. In an act of “private rebellion”, he began to slip these nonwords into the official files of the Swansby’s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary.

In the present day, Mallory is a young intern who has been hired by the Swansby heir — the erect and elderly David Swansby — to help him to digitise what there is of his family’s famous dictionary (a reference book famous for having never been finished). David eventually discovers that there are these made-up words in the dictionary, and as Mallory is further tasked with tracking them down, there’s a nice correspondence between the words she uncovers in the present and the situations that we see Winceworth go through in the past.

This novel is for readers who enjoy wordplay. I love words and etymology but the absence of an interesting plot and engaging characters makes this book tedious after a while.

There are two parallel stories. One is set in 1899; Peter Winceworth is a lexicographer working on the multi-volume Swansby’s Encyclopedic Dictionary. As a small act of rebellion, he begins to insert fictitious entries (known as mountweazels). In the present, Mallory, an intern for the same publisher, is tasked with uncovering these mountweazels before the dictionary is digitized. She also has to contend with threatening phone calls from an anonymous caller upset at the updated definition of “marriage.”
Both narratives also have a romance element. Winceworth falls in love with a woman already engaged to a colleague. Mallory is in love with Pip, and though they live together, Mallory has not told anyone that she is gay.

I connected with neither Winceworth nor Mallory. Though the former is a bit more developed, Mallory remains vague and insubstantial. Both are milquetoasts, afraid to speak up. Winceworth even “concocted, affected and perfected a fake speech impediment” because he was bored, thought it made him more endearing, and “made people respond to him with a greater gentleness.” Then he is upset when people make fun of his lisp!? Mallory seems to have no idea what she wants in life and claims she loves Pip but is afraid to speak out and acknowledge that love. After a while, I just got bored with them.

In terms of plot, not much really happens. What does happen seems contrived. Winceworth takes a train trip to Barking even though he knows he’s being set up and sent on a fool’s errand? Of course the trip is just a plot device so Winceworth can witness an explosion and have an epiphany. Just as an explosion serves as a catalyst for Mallory’s epiphany. Other parallels between the two stories (the convenient but uninvited presence of the love interests at Swansby’s) also seem strained.

The book begins very slowly. The preface which expounds on the perfect dictionary, the perfect dictionary reader, and the perfect preface goes on and on, and were it not for the fact that I’d accepted an eARC in return for a review, I would have stopped reading when/if I got to the end. Do we really need this list of words for “orange”: “amber, apricot, auburn, Aurelian, brass, cantaloupe, carrot, cinnabar, citric, coccinate, copper, coral, embered, flammid, fulvous, gilt, ginger, Glenlivit-dear-god, hennaed, hessonite, honeyed, laharacish, marigold, marmaladled, mimolette, ochraceous, orangutan, oriele, paprikash, pumpkin, rubedinous, ruddy, rufulous, russet, rusty, saffron, sandy, sanguine, spessartite, tangerine, tawny, tigrine, topazine, Titian, vermilion, Votyak, xanthosiderite – “? Do we need pages of discussion of hourglass iconography?

Then there are the lengthy sentences that lose all meaning: “The best benchside exoticisms January could offer were all on show – the starling, the dandelion, the blown seeds and the bird skeining against the grey clouds, hazing it and mazing it, a featherlight kaleidoscope noon-damp and knowing the sky was never truly grey, just filled with a thousand years of birds’ paths, and wishful seeds, a bird-seed sky as something meddled and ripe and wish-hot, the breeze bird-breath soft like a – what – heart stopped in a lobby above one’s lungs as well it might, as might it will – seeds take a shape too soft to be called a burr, like falling asleep on a bench with the sun on your face, seeds in a shape too soft to be called a globe, too breakable to be a constellation, too tough to not be worth wishing upon, the crowd of birds, a unheard murmuration (pl.n.) not led by one bird but a cloud-folly of seeds, blasted by one of countless breaths escaping from blasted wished-upon clock as a breath, providing a clockwork with no regard to time nor hands, flocking with no purpose other than the clotting and thrilling and thrumming, a flock as gathered ellipses rather than lines of wing and bone and beak, falling asleep grey-headed rather than young and dazzling – more puff than flower – collecting the ellipses of empty speech bubbles, the words never said or sayable, former pauses in speech as busy as leaderless birds, twisting, blown apart softly, to warm and colour even the widest of skies.” That’s one sentence!!

Being a logophile, I enjoyed adding to my vocabulary; for instance, I learned the meaning of bletted, jouissance, squib, ouroboros, cloacae, bleurgh, perfervid, smeuse, grawlix, zugzwang, cyprine, vuln, and netsuke. I’ve found new words for my next Scrabble game and I’m looking forward to getting my next cup of take-out coffee and asking for a zarf. And there is entertainment in reading about characters creating neologisms and trying to detect mountweazels. Unfortunately, after a while, the book just becomes an exercise in cleverness. It is linguistically extravagant but suffers from a paucity of strong narrative qualities.

Anyone interested in words and language will find much to enjoy, but anyone looking for a novel with compelling literary elements should look elsewhere. Apparently, the author’s PhD thesis focused on “meeting points between lexicographical probity and creativity.” This book certainly showcases her knowledge of lexicography but I’m less impressed with her creativity.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

"There really should be a specific work associated with the effects of drinking an excess of alcohol. The headaches, the seething sense of paranoia-language seemed the poorer for not having one" From, "The Liar's Dictionary"

Eley Williams' "The Liar's Dictionary" is told from two perspectives: Mallory in the present and (Peter) Winceworth living in the Victorian era. These two parallel narratives intertwine when Mallory, who is digitizing the entries of a dictionary, discovers Wincesorth's fake additions to it. Winceworth is a lexicographer who works for the publisher that Mallory interns for in present day. What ensues is two touching stories as both Mallory and Winceworth try to find meaning in their work and personal lives.

This novel is a fantastic choice for anyone who is a logophile and/or epeolatry. Linguists who have an interest in semantics may also enjoy this fictional tale of the ways in which language has been formed throughout time. The content in this story is playful in nature and-although it took me a little while to connect with the characters and storylines-I admit that once I'd spent some time in the Swansby office, I was hooked!

This is the first novel I've read by Eley Williams, but I loved how smart the language and writing are. But be warned! You may need to read this with a dictionary beside you as this novel is full of vocabulary that is, at times, uncommon and obsolete...Perhaps refer to the OED?

Note: There is a bit of romance, but it's not sickly sweet.

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Heinemann for kindly letting me review an ARC of "The Liar's Dictionary".

Liar's Dictionary is an unfocused dual POV story about the creation and continuation of a lesser known dictionary.
We alternate each chapter between Winceworth, a lexicographer in 1899 who is faking a lisp and is assigned to the letter "S" for the dictionary and Mallory, our modern day intern who is digitizing the dictionary and fending off threatening calls at the office.
These stories have barely any connective tissue, and while I enjoyed the vocabulary in the book (both real and mountweazels) the reading experience is plodding.
Thank you to the publisher, via Netgalley, for providing me with an arc for review.

Eley Williams' "The Liar's Dictionary" is really a rare fun delightful fiction about words. It reminds me of Vladmir Navokov's "Pale Fire." Both books are as playful and quirky as a postmodern novel can be. While “Pale Fire” is consisted of a poem and its footnotes, “The Liar’s Dictionary” has a third person narrative of a lexicographer who was involved with a creating a dictionary and a first person narrative of an intern who is digitizing the dictionary and finding false entries ("mountweazels") a century later. Two separate narratives are intersecting and interlacing, while expanding the stories of love of words and eventually of love itself.

Mallory is an intern for Swansby’s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary and starts to work on digitizing their dictionary while questioning her personal relationship with Pip. She deals with a bomb threat phone call and slowly discovers the secrets behind the dictionary and its publishing company.

Back in 1899, Winceworth, a lexicographer who is suffering from a self-created lisp and kind of workplace bullying, is a social outcast but finds another person who is in love with words. Both play a chess of word as courting.

Along these two storylines, strewn are words and more words. As it is a book of words, there are so many words that need to be checked with a dictionary which will be a bit challenging for some readers who are reading this book as a paper form. A Kindle comes handy though Google will help more.

“The Liar’s Dictionary” is thoroughly enjoyable for those who love ‘a little bait and switch of language.’ It provides the hue, shade, tint and colour of words along with warm love stories.

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

2.5* rounded up. 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.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the ARC of The Liar’s Dictionary.

2.5/5 A light-hearted ode to the love of words, definitions, dictionaries, and the magical world of linguistics and etymology. If you have ever gone through a period of pursuing dictionaries for strange words or loved picking up a thesaurus, you will probably enjoy this.

I did find it a bit heavy on text and lacking in emotion across characters. Unfortunately I didn’t connect with either Peter nor Mallory, and the plot didn’t resonate with me much either. The tone was monotonous at times. I found myself drowning in some of wordy paragraphs, lost on the path of character’s thoughts. I’m a bit sad as this appealed to many of my tastes, but just didn’t quite hit the mark. However, I did learn some new words and I can appreciate what the author was doing with the story as I can’t think of another quite like it! Perhaps I wasn’t in the right (or light!)-hearted mood to receive this with more open arms.