Reading the OED by Ammon Shea

Lectory (n.) A place for reading.

Although I am firmly of the opinion that a book can, and should, be brought along and read anywhere, there can be something almost infinitely pleasing about having a specific place that is designed solely for reading. If you agree with this sentiment you very likely have your own lectory somewhere. If you disagree with this sentiment, you are probably not reading this book.

-Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages

I have never read a dictionary - okay, a few years ago I attempted to read James Garner's Dictionary of Modern American Usage*, but I lost steam quite early into A. (I still have the page marked.) All the same, when I stumbled upon a review of Ammon Shea's Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, I knew I would love it. The review was sprinkled with a few of the words Shea collected in the course of reading the entirety of the Oxford English Dictionary in one year. Words like vicambulist (one who walks about in the street) won my heart.

I had a feeling I had found a literary kindred spirit, which is always a wonderful experience. I remember when I first read Sarah Vowell, and how delighted I was every time I discovered something we had in common: She majored in art history? She can't drive? She loves Lincoln? She knows a song about German prepositions?** There is something so marvelous about that sort of connection with an author, I think.

Reading the OED was similar in a lot of ways. Despite the fact that Shea and I are diametrically opposed on summer and television (I am staunchly pro, he is con), anyone who has such a keen love of words is someone with whom I feel a kinship. Plus, he wrote things like this:

Coffee has long since transcended its role as "the thing that wakes me up" and now has comfortably settled into the role of "the thing that brings me joy."

I was thinking the same thing recently, but with considerably less eloquence. Love coffee.

But I digress. It would be tempting to fill the remainder of this review with words that Shea included - the book is divided A-Z, with each section containing some thoughts on his experience as well as definitions of and commentaries on selected words. I am itching to use a word like all-overish (feeling an undefined sense of unwell that extends to the whole body), for example. But I'll spare you that, and instead try to get back to my NaNoWriMo work. Another brief review, I'm afraid, but I hope I've conveyed my love for this book.

Further reading:

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester: About the writing of the OED. And if that description doesn't sound totally intriguing, don't dismiss the titular madman. It's been a little while since I read it, but I remember liking it a lot.

The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs: One man sets out to read the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Said reading encourages Jacobs to do everything from attend a Mensa convention to audition for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Pretty much a must for the voraciously curious and otherwise nerdy. It's also a go-to book for me when I'm stressed.

Up next: Drood by Dan Simmons. I'm about 45 pages in and I'm totally engrossed. It weighs a ton, though. Reading the OED was scarcely over 200 pages; Drood is more than 3 times that long. It's still coming with me on the subway every day, though.



*Is reading a grammar dictionary nerdier than reading a regular dictionary? Discuss. Also, it was totally interesting, you guys! Maybe I should dig it back out.

**You can sing the dative prepositions to the tune of "The Blue Danube." Fun fact - and probably why I still know my dative prepositions five years after having taken German.

Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

This is how depressed people behave, she suddenly thought, taking a mental step back to scrutinize the cross-legged person in the center of her slovenly nest. But the thought of being depressed made her smile again. She had never thought of herself as a depressive person. Depressive people rent their garments and howled in grief and took to their beds...well, like this. But had she ever felt, actually, depressed? She was a contained person, that was all. Even-keeled. Perhaps a little judgmental, but who could fault her for that? She judged for a living, didn't she, and it was ingrained, and she was a responsible representative of whatever it was she represented.

-Admission

Another short review coming up, seeing as I should get to the NaNoWriMo halfway mark (25,000 words) today, but I have about 2,500 words to go to get there - I inevitably fall behind midweek and have to spend the weekend catching up. Still, I'm kind of amazed that I've gotten so far.

Anyway: Admission. The story centers on Portia Nathan, an employee in the Office of Admission at Princeton University. Portia's job requires her to travel all over New England and meet with up-and-coming potential Princetonians, then to hunker back down in New Jersey to read application after application. During this particular academic season, she also copes with the end of her sixteen-year relationship and tries to come to terms with an event from her past.

Does that sound rather boring? It's not, really, and it's well written, but I'm having trouble mustering up a lot of enthusiasm. To put it simply, I just didn't like Portia. I can't think of one thing I liked about her. She mopes her way through the story - it's understandable, considering her circumstances, but still rather tiring for the reader slogging through nearly 500 pages with her. When she gets energetic, she just gets strident.

Then there's that mystery from her past. To author Korelitz's credit, I didn't figure it out exactly. However, when the entire story was laid bare, I thought it strained credulity a bit.

I was also disappointed (if I may nitpick, and I think I may) with some sloppiness I noticed. On page 399, Portia is meeting with her colleagues to discuss candidates. It is mentioned that a minor character named Jordan is out of town due to a family emergency; a character specifically mentions something he will tell her "when she gets back tomorrow." Two paragraphs later, on page 400, the characters are still in the same meeting - yet one reads the line "Jordan shook his head and laughed." Buh? So either there are two tertiary characters named Jordan, which is not implausible, but certainly confusing, or someone made a fairly glaring error. Unfortunate, either way.

Up next: I'm enjoying the delightfully nerdy Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea. True story: Shea owns 7 different editions of the OED. I love it.

Can't Get Enough Hamlet?

Apparently I cannot tire of Hamlet. Thus, I was quite excited to see this new preview of David Tennant's production, airing in the UK on Christmas Day (those lucky Brits!) and here in the spring.

David Tennant in Hamlet (via Blogtor Who)

Thoughts:

a) I am quite unused to seeing Tennant without his trademark brainy specs and wild hair.

b) Brilliant!

I've realized already that it's going to be quite tricky to compare Law and Tennant. The nature of a television production allows the viewer to see so much detail; every flicker of emotion is going to be visible on an actor's face. This is nothing new, of course, but I hadn't fully considered it before. I was imagining the BBC production as a more bare-bones filming of the version performed on the West End, but clearly it's more ambitious than I'd anticipated. Exciting times for literature nerds, Doctor Who nerds, and Anglophiles! (I am pretty sure it goes without saying that I am all three.)

From McSweeney's: "Famous Authors Narrate the Funny Pages"

I am a total sucker for jokes that apply a well-known author's style to something wholly different from what he or she ever wrote.

Here's a recent example: "Famous Authors Narrate the Funny Pages"

I'm more familiar with the concept as it applies to the improv game "Authors," as seen on the British Whose Line Is It Anyway?, which I watched religiously as a senior in high school.* Here's an example of that (probably not safe for work), and there are plenty of clips on YouTube if you're so inclined. Tony Slattery was pretty much my favorite in any game, but I must admit that John Sessions is rather impressive in "Authors" (though he does come off as a bit of a showoff).

Still plugging away at NaNoWriMo. I've just reached the 10,000-word mark - which actually means I'm about 1600 words behind, but never mind that. Still longer than anything I've ever written before.

*The show used to come on every day at 3:00 on Comedy Central. Since I never got home form school earlier than 3:20ish, I used to set my VCR to record episodes whenever I had a blank videotape. I was pretty hardcore.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

As for those who hate me because they hate Charlie, hate me by extension, I am curious of this: At what point, in their opinion, should I have done something, and what should that something have been? Should I not have married him? Should I not have discouraged his drinking ("Jim Beam and me, have us both" - is that what I ought to have said?) When he told me he wanted to run for governor and I told him I'd prefer he didn't (though I foolishly thought at least it was better than congressman or senator, at least it would keep us in Wisconsin) - when he decided that in spite of my stated preference, he was indeed going to run, should I have left him? Should I have stayed with him but not campaigned for him? Should I have stated explicitly to the public when my views differed from his? Should I have left him when he decided, also against my wishes, to run for president? Anyone who has been married, and especially anyone married for several decades, knows the union is a series of compromises; to judge the compromises I have made is, I take it, easy to do from far away.

-American Wife

I'm going to try to keep this fairly brief, because NaNoWriMo has commenced, and I've already done a fair amount of writing today (haven't fallen behind yet, hurrah). This is perhaps unfair to Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife, which is an excellent novel deserving of more attention than I have time to offer it.

American Wife is a fictionalization of the life of Laura Bush. I've never regarded Mrs. Bush as a kindred spirit, but reading American Wife has made me, perhaps, a bit more understanding of her situation. Her fictional stand-in, Alice Blackwell, is very much like her in many publicly verifiable ways: both studied education in college and became librarians, both were involved in tragic car accidents, both married privileged men who, against all odds, became president. It's very easy to move from those similarities to think that Alice's interior life, which Sittenfeld creates with seeming ease, is representative of Laura's. Maybe that's not true - Sittenfeld's no psychic, after all, just a writer who did a fair amount of research and is skilled at creating a sympathetic, believable narrator. I quite liked Alice, though, so I rather hope that Sittenfeld is right. It certainly makes the world more interesting when people aren't exactly what you would expect.

I'm not a political buff by any means, but I found American Wife quite absorbing. It's a fairly long read - a bit over 500 pages - but as I kept going I found that I only read faster, which is certainly one of the hallmarks of a good book. One element I particularly liked was Sittenfeld's talent for giving the reader little nuggets of information that pay off much later in the story - for example, mentioning that Alice won't see a character again until 30 years have passed. It's a great device, because, even as other parts of the plot progress, there's a certain part of the reader's brain that is left waiting for that now-anticipated reunion and wondering what its circumstances will be. Quite enjoyable for the reader, I think.

Up next: I picked up Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz at the library earlier. I remember reading a good review awhile back; let's hope it holds true. I dig the ivy on the cover, if nothing else.