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The Word Exchange
A fiendishly clever dystopian novel for the digital age, The Word Exchange is a fresh, stylized and decidedly original debut about the dangers of technology and the power of the printed word.
In the not so distant future, the forecasted "death of print" has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers and magazines are a thing of the past, as we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication, but have become so intuitive as to hail us cabs before we leave our offices, order take out at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called The Word Exchange.
Anana Johnson works with her father Doug at the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL), where Doug is hard at work on the final edition that will ever be printed. Doug is a staunchly anti-Meme, anti-tech intellectual who fondly remembers the days when people used email (everything now is text or video-conference) to communicate--or even actually spoke to one another for that matter. One evening, Doug disappears from the NADEL offices leaving a single written clue: ALICE. It's a code word he and Anana devised to signal if one of them ever fell into harm's way. And thus begins Anana's journey down the proverbial rabbit hole. . .
Joined by Bart, her bookish NADEL colleague (who is secretly in love with her), Anana's search for Doug will take her into dark basement incinerator rooms, underground passages of the Mercantile Library, secret meetings of the anonymous "Diachronic Society," the boardrooms of the evil online retailing site Synchronic, and ultimately to the hallowed halls of the Oxford English Dictionary--the spiritual home of the written word. As Ana pieces together what is going on, and Bart gets sicker and sicker with the strange "Word flu" that has spread worldwide causing people to speak in gibberish, Alena Graedon crafts a fresh, cautionary tale that is at once a technological thriller, and a thoughtful meditation on the price of technology and the unforeseen, though very real, dangers of the digital age.
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First published April 8, 2014
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About the author
Alena Graedon
1 book105 followersAlena Graedon's first novel, The Word Exchange, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and Paperback Row pick, and selected as a best novel of 2014 by Kirkus. It has been translated into eight languages. Graedon’s nonfiction has been published in The New York Times Book Review, newyorker.com, The Believer magazine, and Guernica, among other places, and her short fiction has appeared in VICE magazine.
Graedon has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, The Corporation of Yaddo, The Ucross Foundation, The Jentel Artist Residency, VCCA, and The Vermont Studio Center. A native of North Carolina, Graedon is a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University's MFA program. She has taught at Columbia and Monmouth universities, and she lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Graedon has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, The Corporation of Yaddo, The Ucross Foundation, The Jentel Artist Residency, VCCA, and The Vermont Studio Center. A native of North Carolina, Graedon is a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University's MFA program. She has taught at Columbia and Monmouth universities, and she lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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March 18, 2014
When her father disappears just days before his life's work, the third edition of the North American Dictionary of the English Language, is set to debut, she has no idea of the rabbit hole she'll soon be going down. People are forgetting common words and coming down with what is called the word flu. Is there a connection between the word flu and her missing father?
I got this from Netgalley. My initial impression was that the book was overwritten by someone who was into literary fiction and "slumming it" by writing a sf book and a little too in love with its own cleverness. Did my impression change? Read on...
The Word Exchange is set in a very near future where everyone uses electronic devices called Memes for lots of everyday tasks, like the way people use Smartphones now, only kicked up a few notches. Meme use is so prevalent that people commonly pay a few cents to look up words online. That's fine, until everyone starts speaking gibberish.
First off, I found the worldbuilding a little lazy. Douglas Johnson's age and birthdate didn't gibe with the book's post 2016 time frame. Also, I found it a little too convenient that the only technological advancement was in the Memes. However, I was able to brush that aside. What really irked me early on was that the story was told by two POV characters in the form of journal entries. In and of itself, that's fine. The problem was that both narrators were ramblers so it took forever for anything to actually happen. And the footnotes! Footnotes should only be used in sf/fantasy if your last name starts with a "P" and ends with "ratchett."
Around the 40% mark, I stopped being such a curmudgeon and focused on the story, which had finally begun making some forward progress. The intrusion of nonsense words into Anana and Bart's journal entries was fairly well done and the word flu actually wound up being pretty good, though I liked the way Neal Stephenson did the language virus concept in Snow Crash better.
As people lose their ability to communicate and later access the Internet, society quickly slides downhill, illustrating how dependent everyone has become on electronic devices.
So here we are at the end and I'm not really sure how I felt about this book. I thought parts of it were good but I wouldn't precisely say I liked it. It felt about 100 pages too long. It was a mystery/conspiracy novel that featured sf concepts I thought were done better in other books. I'm giving it a 3 but I'm not really thrilled about it.
I got this from Netgalley. My initial impression was that the book was overwritten by someone who was into literary fiction and "slumming it" by writing a sf book and a little too in love with its own cleverness. Did my impression change? Read on...
The Word Exchange is set in a very near future where everyone uses electronic devices called Memes for lots of everyday tasks, like the way people use Smartphones now, only kicked up a few notches. Meme use is so prevalent that people commonly pay a few cents to look up words online. That's fine, until everyone starts speaking gibberish.
First off, I found the worldbuilding a little lazy. Douglas Johnson's age and birthdate didn't gibe with the book's post 2016 time frame. Also, I found it a little too convenient that the only technological advancement was in the Memes. However, I was able to brush that aside. What really irked me early on was that the story was told by two POV characters in the form of journal entries. In and of itself, that's fine. The problem was that both narrators were ramblers so it took forever for anything to actually happen. And the footnotes! Footnotes should only be used in sf/fantasy if your last name starts with a "P" and ends with "ratchett."
Around the 40% mark, I stopped being such a curmudgeon and focused on the story, which had finally begun making some forward progress. The intrusion of nonsense words into Anana and Bart's journal entries was fairly well done and the word flu actually wound up being pretty good, though I liked the way Neal Stephenson did the language virus concept in Snow Crash better.
As people lose their ability to communicate and later access the Internet, society quickly slides downhill, illustrating how dependent everyone has become on electronic devices.
So here we are at the end and I'm not really sure how I felt about this book. I thought parts of it were good but I wouldn't precisely say I liked it. It felt about 100 pages too long. It was a mystery/conspiracy novel that featured sf concepts I thought were done better in other books. I'm giving it a 3 but I'm not really thrilled about it.
July 18, 2014
Corporate conspiracies?
Word flu?
Budding romance between two star-crossed lovers?
Reading as a solution to impaired communication skills?
Occasionally astonishing writing?
Sounds tempting, right?
Unfortunately, it was implemented with portentous statements every other page(1), a heroine bordering on TSTL(2), thesaurus-based writing(3), footnotes(4), and frequently poor writing(5).
Synopsis
Ana is an employee at the New York office of North American Dictionary of the English Language (also called "the Dictionary"), along with her dad, Doug. Ana is supposed to meet him for dinner but he never shows. His absence is unusual enough that she returns to work in case he's still there. Ana stops into a nearby office to leave a note for Bart and discovers Bart sleeping beneath his desk.
The setting is far enough in the future that most people use a Meme, a device that is a great deal like a smart smartphone, not only instantly connecting users to the rest of the world, but able to respond somewhat to owner habits, preferences and moods. Ana's ex-boyfriend, Max, is part of a company on the fast track that's releasing new game software that allows users to create new words then share and upvote them. Meanwhile, Max's company and the Dictionary are being bought out by another company. Trouble erupts when nonsense words start making their way into conversations.
Review
I haven't had good luck with my NetGalley requests to date, and have been feeling somewhat guilty about it. When I received an email giving me pre-approval for The Word Exchange, I thought I'd give it a try; after all, it was billed as "A gorgeous genre mashup that offers readers the pleasures of noir, science fiction, romance and philosophy" (Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove), exactly the sort of read I should enjoy. Unfortunately, my dismal pre-read streak continues.
Great premise, contrived and awkward implementation. While there were flashes of writing beauty, they were surrounded by dark spots of awkwardness (5). I did love the concept of words building worlds.
I also liked the idea of transmission by virus.
Instances of writing I liked:
Lovely and apt phrasing: "Then I felt the delicious frisson of transgression creep over me."
Fun: "it was late on a Friday night, around ten, and I'd fallen asleep again on a scrap pile of neologisms."
Philosophical: "The mind acquires language because it anticipates sharing in communal expression. There'd be no point to learning private words only it can use."
Structure was appealing, following a section formatting of thesis, antithesis and synthesis and chapters initiated by alphabet letters. Although somewhat forced, I always enjoy an orderly approach and can appreciate the symbolism. Unfortunately, that failed to carry over into the first person narrative, largely from Ana's viewpoint but occasionally with contributions from Bart.
As each experienced the word-flu, words would occasionally be replaced with nonsense words--an intriguing concept, to be sure. Unfortunately, it would work better if the rest of the writing was less contrived and oddly structured (sentence fragments, oddly placed colons and semi-colons(6) so that the word-choice errors better represented the spread of disease. Believe me, if I'm noticing, it's bound to drive those who pay attention to such things nutty).
World-building attempted the immersion style, but was still studded with large info-dumps relating to Ana, her history, her parents' history, etc., which made Ana seem particularly self-centered and moony. The Meme, so central to the story, was not actually described until 66% into the book although it was frequently referred to in conversation. With the exception of the Memes, the pneumatic tube system, and the occasional driverless cab, it is a New York that will be instantly recognizable.
Overall, I'd hesitate to recommend it to any of my GR friends. Lovely germ of an idea that could benefit from improvements in execution.
*********************************************
Of course, all quotes are subject to change. They are from an Advanced Reader Copy courteously provided by NetGalley and may change in the final copy (Whatevs. Supposed to be published in 3 weeks).
(1) "I nodded absently, trying not to betray my vague trepidation. And then something else happened. Something that laid the track for a certain fate."
"Even now, more than two months later, I find it hard to believe I wasn't turned away immediately."
"Of course, we knew none of this at the time..."
(2)To Stupid To Live: despite being told repeatedly not to turn on her Meme (similar to a cell phone), she does. Frequently.
"Confused, not really thinking, I quickly logged on to Life for the first time in weeks."
"Twice I broke protocol and spoke to Vera..."
"That night I did something Phineas had forbidden under threat of eviction"
Then there's her general attitude:
"I also understood: he had a lot of health problems--allergies, maybe asthma; I didn't know what else--"
Yes, you are right. That is a lot of health problems, isn't it??
(3)
"If Ana calls, don't answer," Max yelled into the pink domicile of my ear."
" The walk from the Dictionary was short and gloomy, scattered with chicken bones and profane requests for cash."
"(I actually wobbled on the edge of a worry that I might lacrimate.)"
"Her glaring, strobelike sense of humor, which is borderline frightening"
(4) Footnotes don't work on a kindle. There is no link for a footnote in my version, and since pages aren't numbered, it's more than a little cumbersome to flip back and forth.
(5)
"Then he looked up and pierced me again with the hazel lasers of his eyes."
"A white puff of breath clouding his face like an omen..."
"Then he told a story that peeled me away from myself."
"my love for her actually to grow (if that's possible) like a Mylar balloon."
(6)
"That was among the things I had to face when he left: myself."
January 30, 2017
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
No spoilers! Definitely colorful language abound! I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I was not expecting this. The Word Exchange has challenged everything I know about what defines a good book, beaten the absolute shit out of my standards, and spit them back out at me. I stand before you a little befuddled and completely in awe of Graedon's ability to redefine something about myself I once thought of as unyielding. There are few books that I can confidently coin as an experience, as readers we are gifted these books when we least expect it, but are most in need. The writing style is arduous but it's so consistent and entwined with a bigger implication, a cautionary tale on our relationship with and ever growing disparity in our ability to communicate. Alena Graedon's debut novel is a vivid reflection in, with and for language, an interactive looking glass that will boldly reveal the truth if you have the courage to peer through it.
"I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven."
- Samuel Johnson, preface to A Dictionary of the English Language
Anana lives in a parallel New York set in the not-so-distant future, grappling with a broken heart and a despondency found in most mid-twenty-somethings wandering throughout life. She works with her father, Doug Johnson, the Chief Editor of the North American Dictionary of the English Language, and has come of age in a world filled with Memes. Tricky little machines, life saving, life altering, intuitive, intrusive, all encompassing devices that facilitate every aspect of daily life.
The word "meme," coined by British Richard Dawkins in 1976, means an idea, pattern of behavior, practice, or style that spreads quickly from person to person within a given cultural context.
The Word Exchange is comprised of four unique elements, the journals of Bartleby and Anana, both of whom are recanting the same story from their own perspective. The third are her footnotes which at first are frustrating on the Kindle but are very useful and offer an interesting dynamic. The fourth is an op-ed piece for the Times, which was the turning point for me. To be honest, this was extremely difficult to get through in the beginning. It is drenched with unusual vocabulary, mundane details, and so many jagged puzzle pieces there isn't much to grasp onto. I counted the words I had to look up in the first quarter of the book, my count is standing firm at 27 words which in itself is very polarizing.
I knew Graedon was hinting at a bigger picture, but how are you supposed to emotionally connect to a book if the words don't hold any meaning to you, personally?
Wait.
Hold on... I think...
Did I just get schooled by a dystopian novel?
That's some next level ish, son.
After that the vernacular becomes much more relatable while still maintaing it's integrity. The world around Anana and Bart starts to spiral into chaos, confronted with a corporate conspiracy and an underground resistance, the word flu pandemic explodes on the public while she investigates the disappearance of her father. He's left her a series of clues and Anana must continue her search for answers while the lives of everyone she knows hang in the balance.
I adore these dynamic and flawed characters. This bizarre parallel world where machines can communicate and anticipate our wants and needs frightened me more than I would have thought. I tip my hat to Alena Graedon for delivering this much needed lesson in such a haunting and poignant way.
No spoilers! Definitely colorful language abound! I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I was not expecting this. The Word Exchange has challenged everything I know about what defines a good book, beaten the absolute shit out of my standards, and spit them back out at me. I stand before you a little befuddled and completely in awe of Graedon's ability to redefine something about myself I once thought of as unyielding. There are few books that I can confidently coin as an experience, as readers we are gifted these books when we least expect it, but are most in need. The writing style is arduous but it's so consistent and entwined with a bigger implication, a cautionary tale on our relationship with and ever growing disparity in our ability to communicate. Alena Graedon's debut novel is a vivid reflection in, with and for language, an interactive looking glass that will boldly reveal the truth if you have the courage to peer through it.
"I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven."
- Samuel Johnson, preface to A Dictionary of the English Language
Anana lives in a parallel New York set in the not-so-distant future, grappling with a broken heart and a despondency found in most mid-twenty-somethings wandering throughout life. She works with her father, Doug Johnson, the Chief Editor of the North American Dictionary of the English Language, and has come of age in a world filled with Memes. Tricky little machines, life saving, life altering, intuitive, intrusive, all encompassing devices that facilitate every aspect of daily life.
The word "meme," coined by British Richard Dawkins in 1976, means an idea, pattern of behavior, practice, or style that spreads quickly from person to person within a given cultural context.
The Word Exchange is comprised of four unique elements, the journals of Bartleby and Anana, both of whom are recanting the same story from their own perspective. The third are her footnotes which at first are frustrating on the Kindle but are very useful and offer an interesting dynamic. The fourth is an op-ed piece for the Times, which was the turning point for me. To be honest, this was extremely difficult to get through in the beginning. It is drenched with unusual vocabulary, mundane details, and so many jagged puzzle pieces there isn't much to grasp onto. I counted the words I had to look up in the first quarter of the book, my count is standing firm at 27 words which in itself is very polarizing.
I knew Graedon was hinting at a bigger picture, but how are you supposed to emotionally connect to a book if the words don't hold any meaning to you, personally?
Wait.
Hold on... I think...
Did I just get schooled by a dystopian novel?
That's some next level ish, son.
After that the vernacular becomes much more relatable while still maintaing it's integrity. The world around Anana and Bart starts to spiral into chaos, confronted with a corporate conspiracy and an underground resistance, the word flu pandemic explodes on the public while she investigates the disappearance of her father. He's left her a series of clues and Anana must continue her search for answers while the lives of everyone she knows hang in the balance.
I adore these dynamic and flawed characters. This bizarre parallel world where machines can communicate and anticipate our wants and needs frightened me more than I would have thought. I tip my hat to Alena Graedon for delivering this much needed lesson in such a haunting and poignant way.
June 18, 2014
4.5 stars
As much as I enjoyed last year's Dave Eggers' cautionary tale The Circle, about a Google-like company smothering all of our personal freedoms, I couldn't help but think that Eggers could've went a little further in the future and turned it into a truly dystopian masterpiece instead of the gonzo-journalism-disguised-as-a-novel it turned out being.
Enter The Circle's evil, precocious younger sister, Alena Graedon's rather stunning debut The Word Exchange, a novel that isn't afraid to make that leap down the rabbit hole. Ms. Graedon's painstakingly-written effort imagines a world where words and language as we know them are effectively commoditized and ultimately destroyed, thanks to the efforts of an Apple- (Google-?) -like entity whose "Memes" (insanely smart smartphones that interact with an implanted chip in the brain) sweep the world up in their popularity, "the Word Exchange" (owned by the same company), a highly-successful pay-per-use dictionary that basically renders what few "analog" dictionaries that still exist obsolete, and a "word flu" that is spread by use of said "memes", rendering its users aphasic (losing the ability to speak coherently.)
Many of my fellow Goodreaders have been turned off by the novel's verbosity. Word-nerd that I am, I totally loved it. Contextually, it worked. (The narrators, Anana and Bart, are editors of one of the last extant dictionaries in existence; how else would you expect them to speak?). Few dystopian novels are perfect (The Handmaid's Tale being one of the few exceptions), but this totally worked for me. Creepy and thought-provoking. (Bonus creep-out points if you read this with an E-reader!)
(Fun synchronicity fact for Karen Russell fans: I was delighted to see that Ms. Graedon cited in the Acknowledgments section the support of Ms. Russell as one of her long-time friends and pre-readers of this book. Observant fans of Ms. Russell's Swamplandia! will note that both books feature palindromic principal protagonists (Ava and Anana) and both liberally pay tribute to Alice (of Wonderland fame.) Perhaps no coincidence at all that I loved both these two totally dissimilar (yet kinda joined at the hip) novels.)
Read
January 5, 2018It's only words, but where would we be without them? Words are disappearing. From language, from the pages of dictionaries, and from books in general. The shorthand text-speak so many use now, the ubiquitous acronyms - are they a harbinger of things to come?
Much as I dislike giving up on a book, I am opting out of this one and sending it back to the library, unfinished. Although the concept sounded like a slam dunk, it was fast turning into a job of work to read it. Not a big fan of footnotes, and they are rife here. Found myself on the slippery slope to skimming. As an aside, I am slightly ashamed that this title is going on a bookshelf that includes theword acronym "DNF". Aarrgh!
Much as I dislike giving up on a book, I am opting out of this one and sending it back to the library, unfinished. Although the concept sounded like a slam dunk, it was fast turning into a job of work to read it. Not a big fan of footnotes, and they are rife here. Found myself on the slippery slope to skimming. As an aside, I am slightly ashamed that this title is going on a bookshelf that includes the
April 13, 2014
2.5 STARS
I’m half tempted to recommend this to all my friends right now. Just to see how far they would get before calling it quits.
Word Exchange had a compelling story, one that keeps you going in the hopes that things will start to make sense. And it did… after a while. For a time I started to understand why Graedon chose to tell the story the way she did and it was pretty clever, though admittedly challenging to wade through. There’s an element of subtle commentary, and by extension relatability, within the speculative, peridystopic setting that makes you stop questioning this book’s ambition and wonder how close is the future this is selling? But somewhere past the halfway mark, it started to collapse in itself. Doubts resurfaced, sympathy for the characters slipped further and the themes this was trying to highlight became too obscure for me to keep track of.
The book is told from the alternating first person POVs of Anana and Bart/Horace, employees of the NADEL (i.e. the North American Dictionary of the English Language), the last known printed Dictionary. The books is basically both characters’ journal entries in recollecting the series of events that led them to an obscure present time where certain details of their whereabouts are withheld from the reader (and revealed only at the end). The only thing that is disclosed is that the world has been infected by a “word flu”, a virus that has led to the decay of the English language, through man’s absolute dependence on technology.
It all starts with Douglas Johnson, Ana’s father and the editor of the Dictionary, disappearing under suspicious circumstances, a few weeks before the release of the new edition of the NADEL. Entailing the help of the logophile haplessly in love with her, Ana follows a trail of clues in the search for Doug which led her to uncover a bigger technological conspiracy that can very well cost the not-so-innocent lives of thousands and the slow painful death of civilization.
This was a pretty smart book. The kind that would simultaneously impress and piss off anyone, mostly because it reads like a thesarus threw up all over the place, but also because it took a different spin to the whole man-enslaves-technology-enslaves-man discussion. The Word Exchange tugs at a different loose thread in our willingness to cede our freedom to think in exchange for convenience. I don't really think I'm contributing to a possible apocalyptic scenario when I use my iPhone to google the meaning of "ersatz" or when I wiki 2 Girls 1 Cup, but this book explores that scenario. A little too ambitious seeing as it tries to bridge hardware, software and, holy shit, people dying out of incoherent speech.
Wait, what?
That was a big impediment to my overall opinion of this book. I couldn't fully fathom the gravity of the situation. I appreciate the effort to make the idea of Word Flu plausible, the research was pretty impressive dabbling into virology and genetics. But I felt this fell short into illustrating the actual application of all that theory into something that is relatable enough to elicit any emotion. Initially, I imagined a Babel-like scale of chaos as I tried to wrap my mind around the abstract peril of a virus that destroys language. But all that business of people infected dying from not being able to speak was a perpetual head-scratcher for me. With symptoms as non-specific as vomiting, nausea, weakness, bouts of silence and egotism... HOW EXACTLY DO YOU DIE FROM BEING INCOHERENT? Outside someone getting pissed at you and shooting you outright to shut you up?
I mean for someone who spends a lot of time babbling nonsense (here and in real life) it was just a bit of stretch in my imagination. And leaving it as a mystery in the end was a big frustration for me. Because I'm not really THAT into language as a science so my curiosity about this story stems more from wanting to see HOW this will make me care about that Doomsday scenario. I mean, I suppose I am concerned the imminent extinction of print media in the digital age but I couldn't fully see the big horrible picture this book was intent on painting. The line from point A to point Z was blurred and wavering.
Or I might just be an irrevocably apathetic philistine.
The narrative... Oh God, how do I even begin? The chapters are recollective journal entries from Anana and Bart and I am forced to choose whose perspective I hate more between them. On one corner, there's the socially-awkward lovelorn Logophile whose thoughts went from
to
I guess it does give some verisimilitude in Bart's predicament but something about his transition from Bart at point A to Bart at point F speaks of rocks and hard places.
Rocks, hard places and Anana apparently, because on the other corner, there's this heroine who makes it her mission to do everything humanly possible to make me want to throttle her.
When does it end???
She's the kind of character that you don't even understand why she's in the middle of the shitstorm, making a big drama out of it when she's basically that girl who knows the guy everyone is after. She's only important and interesting by association and serves none of the story's progression. Ana could've died in the second act and I'd probably look at this book kinder.
I hate writing lengthy reviews because it all sounds like a long, nitpicking rant in my mind. But this just tested me in ways I didn't know I can be tested. It was a long and winding road of barely coherent techno-babble forcibly tied to philosophical musings that just went over my head. Perhaps I'm just too uncultured to appreciate what this had to offer or perhaps the very fact that I didn't understand the concept of The Word Exchange in my present incarnation says a lot about the feasibility of what this managed to imagine. After all, none of the characters anticipated these turns from happening either. And maybe that miscommunication is a different kind of success in itself. But as a work of speculative, dystopic fiction, read on a digital device for 10 hours, I think my limited imagination is going to stick with nuclear holocaust, thanks.
Review Copy provided by the publishers for an unbiased review. Quotes are taken from an uncorrected proof and may not appear in the final edition.
Also on BookLikes.
Words don’t always work. Sometimes they come up short. Conversations can lead to conflict. There are failures of diplomacy. Some differences, for all the talk in the world, remain irreconcilable. People make empty promises, go back on their word, say things they don’t believe. But connection, with ourselves and others, is the only way we can live.
I’m half tempted to recommend this to all my friends right now. Just to see how far they would get before calling it quits.
Word Exchange had a compelling story, one that keeps you going in the hopes that things will start to make sense. And it did… after a while. For a time I started to understand why Graedon chose to tell the story the way she did and it was pretty clever, though admittedly challenging to wade through. There’s an element of subtle commentary, and by extension relatability, within the speculative, peridystopic setting that makes you stop questioning this book’s ambition and wonder how close is the future this is selling? But somewhere past the halfway mark, it started to collapse in itself. Doubts resurfaced, sympathy for the characters slipped further and the themes this was trying to highlight became too obscure for me to keep track of.
The book is told from the alternating first person POVs of Anana and Bart/Horace, employees of the NADEL (i.e. the North American Dictionary of the English Language), the last known printed Dictionary. The books is basically both characters’ journal entries in recollecting the series of events that led them to an obscure present time where certain details of their whereabouts are withheld from the reader (and revealed only at the end). The only thing that is disclosed is that the world has been infected by a “word flu”, a virus that has led to the decay of the English language, through man’s absolute dependence on technology.
It all starts with Douglas Johnson, Ana’s father and the editor of the Dictionary, disappearing under suspicious circumstances, a few weeks before the release of the new edition of the NADEL. Entailing the help of the logophile haplessly in love with her, Ana follows a trail of clues in the search for Doug which led her to uncover a bigger technological conspiracy that can very well cost the not-so-innocent lives of thousands and the slow painful death of civilization.
This was a pretty smart book. The kind that would simultaneously impress and piss off anyone, mostly because it reads like a thesarus threw up all over the place, but also because it took a different spin to the whole man-enslaves-technology-enslaves-man discussion. The Word Exchange tugs at a different loose thread in our willingness to cede our freedom to think in exchange for convenience. I don't really think I'm contributing to a possible apocalyptic scenario when I use my iPhone to google the meaning of "ersatz" or when I wiki 2 Girls 1 Cup, but this book explores that scenario. A little too ambitious seeing as it tries to bridge hardware, software and, holy shit, people dying out of incoherent speech.
Wait, what?
That was a big impediment to my overall opinion of this book. I couldn't fully fathom the gravity of the situation. I appreciate the effort to make the idea of Word Flu plausible, the research was pretty impressive dabbling into virology and genetics. But I felt this fell short into illustrating the actual application of all that theory into something that is relatable enough to elicit any emotion. Initially, I imagined a Babel-like scale of chaos as I tried to wrap my mind around the abstract peril of a virus that destroys language. But all that business of people infected dying from not being able to speak was a perpetual head-scratcher for me. With symptoms as non-specific as vomiting, nausea, weakness, bouts of silence and egotism... HOW EXACTLY DO YOU DIE FROM BEING INCOHERENT? Outside someone getting pissed at you and shooting you outright to shut you up?
I mean for someone who spends a lot of time babbling nonsense (here and in real life) it was just a bit of stretch in my imagination. And leaving it as a mystery in the end was a big frustration for me. Because I'm not really THAT into language as a science so my curiosity about this story stems more from wanting to see HOW this will make me care about that Doomsday scenario. I mean, I suppose I am concerned the imminent extinction of print media in the digital age but I couldn't fully see the big horrible picture this book was intent on painting. The line from point A to point Z was blurred and wavering.
Or I might just be an irrevocably apathetic philistine.
The narrative... Oh God, how do I even begin? The chapters are recollective journal entries from Anana and Bart and I am forced to choose whose perspective I hate more between them. On one corner, there's the socially-awkward lovelorn Logophile whose thoughts went from
Ana qua Ana is, basically, flawlessness qua flawlessness, sui generis.
to
I guess it does give some verisimilitude in Bart's predicament but something about his transition from Bart at point A to Bart at point F speaks of rocks and hard places.
Rocks, hard places and Anana apparently, because on the other corner, there's this heroine who makes it her mission to do everything humanly possible to make me want to throttle her.
✔︎Someone tells her not to use the Meme (the evil handheld device)? she uses the meme.
✔︎ The instruction in the antiviral pill bottle says take one three times a day? She takes it twice.
✔︎ She sees an assembly line of incoherent, sickly workers in the subbasement of the building where her father disappeared from? She tries on the creepy implant all of them are wearing.
✔︎ Her ex-boyfriend who dumped her unceremoniously once he struck it rich, comes to her doorstep evidently sick with the mysterious virus? She lets him in.
When does it end???
She's the kind of character that you don't even understand why she's in the middle of the shitstorm, making a big drama out of it when she's basically that girl who knows the guy everyone is after. She's only important and interesting by association and serves none of the story's progression. Ana could've died in the second act and I'd probably look at this book kinder.
I hate writing lengthy reviews because it all sounds like a long, nitpicking rant in my mind. But this just tested me in ways I didn't know I can be tested. It was a long and winding road of barely coherent techno-babble forcibly tied to philosophical musings that just went over my head. Perhaps I'm just too uncultured to appreciate what this had to offer or perhaps the very fact that I didn't understand the concept of The Word Exchange in my present incarnation says a lot about the feasibility of what this managed to imagine. After all, none of the characters anticipated these turns from happening either. And maybe that miscommunication is a different kind of success in itself. But as a work of speculative, dystopic fiction, read on a digital device for 10 hours, I think my limited imagination is going to stick with nuclear holocaust, thanks.
Sometimes talking is an act of kindness. Sometimes silence is.
Review Copy provided by the publishers for an unbiased review. Quotes are taken from an uncorrected proof and may not appear in the final edition.
Also on BookLikes.
February 8, 2017
let's get the misconceptions out of the way: this is not an alt reality book, this is a dystopian book. it is narrated in alternating chapters by two characters, both in the first person. this does not make things confusing. it is not a difficult book and the vocabulary is rich but perfectly comprehensible. it is beautifully written (having listened to the audio version i can't vouch for the punctuation, but what i heard was beautiful: beautiful sentences, beautiful words). one of the characters has a bit of a hard on for hegel, the 19th century german philosopher you may or may not have heard of, and unless you know hegel you will probably glaze over those bits. they are few and far between. they are lovely in their own poetic-philosophical way. they are very short, like one sentence or two.
there are footnotes. the footnotes are part of the text, except they are at the bottom of the page and in smaller type. they require that your eyes move down and then up again, with the added chore of finding where you left off in the body of the text. it's really no biggie. Junot Díaz and David Foster Wallace do it too, but i haven't seen anyone go ballistic over their doing it -- to the contrary. alene graedon is a terrifically gifted writer and this novel is tremendously original. no, she's no [insert favorite fantasy/sci-fi possibly male author here]. the reason for that is that she is herself. and what a splendid self she is.
the book is on the long side. there is some repetition. it could be a trimmer book. is it the only book that could use some trimming in the eyes of this reviewer? most certainly not. there's a certain dickensian quality to the length, and if you go for the sort of thing (i don't) you won't complain; if you don't, you'll be mildly frustrated, on occasion. i punished graedon for this minor irritation by docking one star.
you can read about the story elsewhere, though i recommend you don't. there is brilliance to the way in which greadon builds a story around how digital technology is affecting our use of language (and our way of living, but she doesn't dwell on that much). i am not a luddite and i like my internets; when people rant about how the internet isolates us or makes us less smart or drastically reduces our attention span, i shrug. it's not like IT and digital communication are going away any time soon. so this is really the first time that i took a long hard look at my internet habits. since this is a dystopia as much as a fairy-tale, it is not preachy. i guess the lack of preachiness is what kept me from dismissing its critique of The Way We Live Today (all dystopias are critiques of TWWLT).
more than that, though, this is a lovely and totally spot-on reflection on language. what it does. how it gets lost. how it changes. language as a social phenomenon. language as a philosophical entity. how poor language leads to poor thought. how poor thought leads to poor feelings. how love requires that we have words and thoughts. how the impoverishment of language is an impoverishment of humanity.
i think i'm doing okay with language. i think everyone who reads this review is doing okay with language, because this is a site for readers. we all love language kind of desperately. most of us (all of us?) would give up just about anything before we gave up reading. language sustains and nourishes us. language consoles us. one can weather many a rough day with the simple knowledge that a good book is waiting when the lights dim, the noises quieten, and the tears dry up. language is our emergency raft and our permanent cruise ship. we live and float on language.
the only regret i have is that i'm pretty much losing the capacity to write with pen and paper. not only does my hand hurt after about two lines, but i keep making mistakes. how bizarre. my brain has unlearned how to write cursive. i remember the distinct delight of putting words on paper. it was as pleasurable as reading. i remember thinking very often that a lot of the text was in the interstices between words. i found that miraculous. i reveled in that. such wealth of meaning.
there are no interstices in typed text (included text typed on manual typewriters) and that's just the long and the short of it, at least for me. also, typing is so much faster. i truly mourn the slowness of writing with a pen. and of course i miss the ink, the friction of the
pen's tip on the paper, the noise this friction produced. i spent so much time in stationary stores. remember the smell? i had special pens for special needs. some pens were faster. some pens wrote prettier. and the paper. beautiful paper. so many textures. even the most ordinary paper (white newsprint paper) had its magic.
all of this i grieve daily (seriously) but i seem unable to go back (i've tried so many times). sometimes i fantasize about black-outs that would force me to write with pen and paper. but black-outs bring a lot of misery, too.
i occasionally worry about the loss of privacy. more than that, perhaps, i worry about what might be diminished ability to spend time with myself. but this doesn't hit me as hard. those times spent with myself weren't awesome, and i love chatting with you all. i'm happy, though, that i don't have a smart phone. i can still spend time alone when i'm not at home. that is valuable. i think i'll try to hold on to that, as long as civilization allows me.
there are footnotes. the footnotes are part of the text, except they are at the bottom of the page and in smaller type. they require that your eyes move down and then up again, with the added chore of finding where you left off in the body of the text. it's really no biggie. Junot Díaz and David Foster Wallace do it too, but i haven't seen anyone go ballistic over their doing it -- to the contrary. alene graedon is a terrifically gifted writer and this novel is tremendously original. no, she's no [insert favorite fantasy/sci-fi possibly male author here]. the reason for that is that she is herself. and what a splendid self she is.
the book is on the long side. there is some repetition. it could be a trimmer book. is it the only book that could use some trimming in the eyes of this reviewer? most certainly not. there's a certain dickensian quality to the length, and if you go for the sort of thing (i don't) you won't complain; if you don't, you'll be mildly frustrated, on occasion. i punished graedon for this minor irritation by docking one star.
you can read about the story elsewhere, though i recommend you don't. there is brilliance to the way in which greadon builds a story around how digital technology is affecting our use of language (and our way of living, but she doesn't dwell on that much). i am not a luddite and i like my internets; when people rant about how the internet isolates us or makes us less smart or drastically reduces our attention span, i shrug. it's not like IT and digital communication are going away any time soon. so this is really the first time that i took a long hard look at my internet habits. since this is a dystopia as much as a fairy-tale, it is not preachy. i guess the lack of preachiness is what kept me from dismissing its critique of The Way We Live Today (all dystopias are critiques of TWWLT).
more than that, though, this is a lovely and totally spot-on reflection on language. what it does. how it gets lost. how it changes. language as a social phenomenon. language as a philosophical entity. how poor language leads to poor thought. how poor thought leads to poor feelings. how love requires that we have words and thoughts. how the impoverishment of language is an impoverishment of humanity.
i think i'm doing okay with language. i think everyone who reads this review is doing okay with language, because this is a site for readers. we all love language kind of desperately. most of us (all of us?) would give up just about anything before we gave up reading. language sustains and nourishes us. language consoles us. one can weather many a rough day with the simple knowledge that a good book is waiting when the lights dim, the noises quieten, and the tears dry up. language is our emergency raft and our permanent cruise ship. we live and float on language.
the only regret i have is that i'm pretty much losing the capacity to write with pen and paper. not only does my hand hurt after about two lines, but i keep making mistakes. how bizarre. my brain has unlearned how to write cursive. i remember the distinct delight of putting words on paper. it was as pleasurable as reading. i remember thinking very often that a lot of the text was in the interstices between words. i found that miraculous. i reveled in that. such wealth of meaning.
there are no interstices in typed text (included text typed on manual typewriters) and that's just the long and the short of it, at least for me. also, typing is so much faster. i truly mourn the slowness of writing with a pen. and of course i miss the ink, the friction of the
pen's tip on the paper, the noise this friction produced. i spent so much time in stationary stores. remember the smell? i had special pens for special needs. some pens were faster. some pens wrote prettier. and the paper. beautiful paper. so many textures. even the most ordinary paper (white newsprint paper) had its magic.
all of this i grieve daily (seriously) but i seem unable to go back (i've tried so many times). sometimes i fantasize about black-outs that would force me to write with pen and paper. but black-outs bring a lot of misery, too.
i occasionally worry about the loss of privacy. more than that, perhaps, i worry about what might be diminished ability to spend time with myself. but this doesn't hit me as hard. those times spent with myself weren't awesome, and i love chatting with you all. i'm happy, though, that i don't have a smart phone. i can still spend time alone when i'm not at home. that is valuable. i think i'll try to hold on to that, as long as civilization allows me.
March 14, 2020
Ich mache es kurz. Die ist das grandioseste Buch, was ich seit langem gelesen habe. Wer "Der Circle" von Dave Eggers mochte
, wird hier soviel mehr finden. "Das letzte Wort" stellt ihn locker in den Schatten und das nicht nur rhetorisch.
Falls man glaubte, die Welt des Circles könnte einen in 10 Jahren einholen, der wird hier mit Schrecken feststellen, dass es die Technologie in diesem Buch bereits gibt. Es wird von einem Gerät geredet, das Mem heißt. Mich hat es erschreckend an diese ganzen Echo-Geräten erinnert; ich will jetzt keine Marken nennen. Dieses für mich gruselige Phänomen von einem Gerät ist mir schon auf ähnliche Weise in QualityLand von Marc-Uwe Kling begegnet. Solche Technologie schleichen sich langsam in unseren Alltag ein und wir merken darüber gar nicht, wie wir Schritt für Schritt immer weniger autark werden, unsere Unabhängigkeit mit einer schleichenden Beständigkeit technischen Gerätschaften opfern.
In Alena Graedons Roman ist die Achillesferse unsere Sprache, die einem Virus zum Opfer fällt, der zudem fiese Dinge in unserem DNA-Code wieder zum Leben erweckt:
• Mem, mache Kaffee!
• Mem, bestelle Brot!
• Mem, wie heiße ich?
, wird hier soviel mehr finden. "Das letzte Wort" stellt ihn locker in den Schatten und das nicht nur rhetorisch. Falls man glaubte, die Welt des Circles könnte einen in 10 Jahren einholen, der wird hier mit Schrecken feststellen, dass es die Technologie in diesem Buch bereits gibt. Es wird von einem Gerät geredet, das Mem heißt. Mich hat es erschreckend an diese ganzen Echo-Geräten erinnert; ich will jetzt keine Marken nennen. Dieses für mich gruselige Phänomen von einem Gerät ist mir schon auf ähnliche Weise in QualityLand von Marc-Uwe Kling begegnet. Solche Technologie schleichen sich langsam in unseren Alltag ein und wir merken darüber gar nicht, wie wir Schritt für Schritt immer weniger autark werden, unsere Unabhängigkeit mit einer schleichenden Beständigkeit technischen Gerätschaften opfern.
In Alena Graedons Roman ist die Achillesferse unsere Sprache, die einem Virus zum Opfer fällt, der zudem fiese Dinge in unserem DNA-Code wieder zum Leben erweckt:
• Mem, mache Kaffee!
• Mem, bestelle Brot!
• Mem, wie heiße ich?
December 3, 2023
A million stars. So much to say about this book.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Originally posted here: The Steadfast Reader - Fabulous Friday: The Word Exchange
Guys, GUYS! If you read one new frontlist book this spring let this be it.
Graedon does magical things with words. This book is both beautiful and terrifying all at once. I can hardly believe that this is a debut novel. For a very serious bibliophile and someone with a casual interest in linguistics I found this book to be nearly flawless. The writing is lyrical and the vocabulary used throughout was challenging. (Yes, I realize there was irony in me looking up unfamiliar words on my Kindle version of the OED ... though I feel like I navigated the word flu pretty well.)
"The end of words would mean the end of memory and thought. In other words, our past and future."
The premise is brilliant, but more importantly it's wonderfully executed. Graedon's world building is believable and complete. She unfolds the story with expert pacing the reader is held at arms length for just long enough to get acclimated into a world where technology can predict what you want almost before you know you want it. It's easy to envision Doug as your crazy tin-hat wearing neighbor who won't get on 'The Google' because they're afraid of technology. (Except Doug is right. It leads you to reconsider the neighbor.) My one minor complaint is that I couldn't completely buy into the physical transmission of the word flu.
For lovers of print books, journals, and all things analogue, this book is for you. You will feel vindicated. For people think that our technology is outpacing our morality and corporations are exploiting this, this book is for you. For those that feel our privacy has been sacrificed at the altar of convenience and that the world is a bit too connected these days, this book is for you.
When I got my first iPod I hated having to click through songs that I wasn't in the mood for, in my youth I used to dream about the days that technology would just know what I wanted. The Word Exchange turns that dream into a very frightening reality.
"It was only when I finally gave it up for good that I realized just how much I'd ceded to the Meme: of course people's names and Life information (numbers, embarrassing stories, social connections) but also instructions for virtually everything [...] Getting rid of it was like cutting off a hand or breaking up with myself. Only later did I feel truly horrified that for years I'd invited something to eavesdrop on me. And not just my gainful breathing apparatus but the careful, quiet thicket of my thoughts."
God. Does that sound like social media or what?
This book epitomizes why I hate (and the imminent danger of) expressions like "totes adorbs". Seriously folks, are the extra syllables really that taxing on you? Western society is increasingly lazy, allowing machines to think for us, and if we fail to inoculate ourselves against the rising tide of internet acronyms, 'easy speech', and emoticons - something close to the world laid out in The Word Exchange will inevitably fall upon us. (Super guilty here on excessive smiley faces in casual text and online conversation.)
"How could we miss words? We were drowning in a sea of text. A new one arrived, chiming, every minute."
Now it's no secret that I do like my tech gadgets - especially when it comes to reading (most days I'd rather read an eBook than a real one...) but I do still read books.
True story: My ability to spell has declined embarrassingly since I bought a MacBook that underlines every spelling mistake that I make - I just right click that misspelled word and have the computer correct it for me... if I've come close enough for the computer to even recognize it. While I don't have aphasia yet ... let's not even go there, it's too scary.
I want this on all the Best of 2014 lists. This might be the best book I've read in years. Go try it. Don't be afraid of footnotes, they're really not that copious. Don't be afraid of the vocabulary - that's part of the point. Just read it, then come back and tell me what you think.
Have you read The Word Exchange? I'm interested in other thoughts, even if you don't agree with me!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Originally posted here: The Steadfast Reader - Fabulous Friday: The Word Exchange
Guys, GUYS! If you read one new frontlist book this spring let this be it.
Graedon does magical things with words. This book is both beautiful and terrifying all at once. I can hardly believe that this is a debut novel. For a very serious bibliophile and someone with a casual interest in linguistics I found this book to be nearly flawless. The writing is lyrical and the vocabulary used throughout was challenging. (Yes, I realize there was irony in me looking up unfamiliar words on my Kindle version of the OED ... though I feel like I navigated the word flu pretty well.)
"The end of words would mean the end of memory and thought. In other words, our past and future."
The premise is brilliant, but more importantly it's wonderfully executed. Graedon's world building is believable and complete. She unfolds the story with expert pacing the reader is held at arms length for just long enough to get acclimated into a world where technology can predict what you want almost before you know you want it. It's easy to envision Doug as your crazy tin-hat wearing neighbor who won't get on 'The Google' because they're afraid of technology. (Except Doug is right. It leads you to reconsider the neighbor.) My one minor complaint is that I couldn't completely buy into the physical transmission of the word flu.
For lovers of print books, journals, and all things analogue, this book is for you. You will feel vindicated. For people think that our technology is outpacing our morality and corporations are exploiting this, this book is for you. For those that feel our privacy has been sacrificed at the altar of convenience and that the world is a bit too connected these days, this book is for you.
When I got my first iPod I hated having to click through songs that I wasn't in the mood for, in my youth I used to dream about the days that technology would just know what I wanted. The Word Exchange turns that dream into a very frightening reality.
"It was only when I finally gave it up for good that I realized just how much I'd ceded to the Meme: of course people's names and Life information (numbers, embarrassing stories, social connections) but also instructions for virtually everything [...] Getting rid of it was like cutting off a hand or breaking up with myself. Only later did I feel truly horrified that for years I'd invited something to eavesdrop on me. And not just my gainful breathing apparatus but the careful, quiet thicket of my thoughts."
God. Does that sound like social media or what?
This book epitomizes why I hate (and the imminent danger of) expressions like "totes adorbs". Seriously folks, are the extra syllables really that taxing on you? Western society is increasingly lazy, allowing machines to think for us, and if we fail to inoculate ourselves against the rising tide of internet acronyms, 'easy speech', and emoticons - something close to the world laid out in The Word Exchange will inevitably fall upon us. (Super guilty here on excessive smiley faces in casual text and online conversation.)
"How could we miss words? We were drowning in a sea of text. A new one arrived, chiming, every minute."
Now it's no secret that I do like my tech gadgets - especially when it comes to reading (most days I'd rather read an eBook than a real one...) but I do still read books.
True story: My ability to spell has declined embarrassingly since I bought a MacBook that underlines every spelling mistake that I make - I just right click that misspelled word and have the computer correct it for me... if I've come close enough for the computer to even recognize it. While I don't have aphasia yet ... let's not even go there, it's too scary.
I want this on all the Best of 2014 lists. This might be the best book I've read in years. Go try it. Don't be afraid of footnotes, they're really not that copious. Don't be afraid of the vocabulary - that's part of the point. Just read it, then come back and tell me what you think.
Have you read The Word Exchange? I'm interested in other thoughts, even if you don't agree with me!
January 30, 2016
Worthy But Flawed First Novel by a Young Writer
I liked this more than I thought I would.
At first I thought it was too, too trendy and clever. But, gradually, the story drew me in and I ended up enjoying the book.
The main character is Anana (variously nicknamed "Ana" and "Alice"). She is a young woman who lives in NY City in the near future and works for her father, Douglas Samuel Johnson, at the NADEL ("North American Dictionary of the English Language"). Everyone at NADEL (including Ana) calls him Doug. He's an affable, overweight guy who loves pineapple print ties and is a bit of a Luddite.
Doug is divorced from Ana's mom, glamorous ex-model Vera Doran. Vera's new boyfriend is Laird, a prominent TV anchor.
One day Doug goes missing. No one has any idea where he is.
Ana narrates much of the book; although narration switches between her and Bart, her colleague at NADEL and her father's right hand man.
Ana's live in boyfriend, Max, broke up with her and moved out of her tiny apartment about a month ago.
He's purchased a palatial place in Brooklyn. His IT gaming startup, Hermes, (Max's real name) has been acquired by huge global computer company Synchronic. They want the rights to Hermes' game called Meaning Master.
At around this time, a pandemic of a deadly "word flu" devastates NY City, and spreads globally. Its symptoms are aphasia and a deterioration of language skills.
Things accelerate.
I don't want to say more about the story to avoid spoilers.
I can say from personal experience that Graedon's point about computers destroying language and communication skills and our ability to connect with other people is neither futuristic nor a joke. I've worked in corporate IT for years and I can attest to the near illiteracy of many supposedly educated colleagues, as well as the lack of warmth and human connection among technology workers. Which came first--their personalities and poor language skills or their computer work? Hard to say, but still, there does seem to be a connection.
However, one problem with the book is that these kinds of points are made in a way that is heavy handed and often bombastic. That sort of pomposity happens often.
Another (more minor) problem is that sometimes the characters themselves strain credulity (especially Ana). How can a woman who freely quotes Hegel not know that C.L. Dodgson is Lewis Carroll?
I actually found Bart to be a far more compelling character than Ana. Everyone in the book seems to love Ana (well, not everyone, just the main characters) and I'm not entirely certain why. Except I've certainly learned that love is completely irrational, and people rarely love those who deserve it, and frequently love those who don't.
For me, the worst problem was a basic flaw in the science. However, it is true that anything is possible, and one of the jobs of science fiction is to predict things that currently don't seem believable. Besides, I was willing to suspend my disbelief about the science and just go with the story, and it was a good story.
Tavia Gilbert and Paul Michael Garcia did a pretty good job of reading the audio, although they did occasionally make distracting mistakes in pronunciation (as when they both read the made up "Creatorium" as "Crematorium").
I read the Kindle version of this along with the audiobook, which was a good thing, since the NY Public library's version of the audio chopped off the ending sentence of nearly every chapter. Besides, this is the kind of book for which is sometimes useful to see the words as well as hear them, so this experiment in mixed media was helpful to me.
I do think this is worth reading despite its faults and we can expect more good books from this writer.
I liked this more than I thought I would.
At first I thought it was too, too trendy and clever. But, gradually, the story drew me in and I ended up enjoying the book.
The main character is Anana (variously nicknamed "Ana" and "Alice"). She is a young woman who lives in NY City in the near future and works for her father, Douglas Samuel Johnson, at the NADEL ("North American Dictionary of the English Language"). Everyone at NADEL (including Ana) calls him Doug. He's an affable, overweight guy who loves pineapple print ties and is a bit of a Luddite.
Doug is divorced from Ana's mom, glamorous ex-model Vera Doran. Vera's new boyfriend is Laird, a prominent TV anchor.
One day Doug goes missing. No one has any idea where he is.
Ana narrates much of the book; although narration switches between her and Bart, her colleague at NADEL and her father's right hand man.
Ana's live in boyfriend, Max, broke up with her and moved out of her tiny apartment about a month ago.
He's purchased a palatial place in Brooklyn. His IT gaming startup, Hermes, (Max's real name) has been acquired by huge global computer company Synchronic. They want the rights to Hermes' game called Meaning Master.
At around this time, a pandemic of a deadly "word flu" devastates NY City, and spreads globally. Its symptoms are aphasia and a deterioration of language skills.
Things accelerate.
I don't want to say more about the story to avoid spoilers.
I can say from personal experience that Graedon's point about computers destroying language and communication skills and our ability to connect with other people is neither futuristic nor a joke. I've worked in corporate IT for years and I can attest to the near illiteracy of many supposedly educated colleagues, as well as the lack of warmth and human connection among technology workers. Which came first--their personalities and poor language skills or their computer work? Hard to say, but still, there does seem to be a connection.
However, one problem with the book is that these kinds of points are made in a way that is heavy handed and often bombastic. That sort of pomposity happens often.
Another (more minor) problem is that sometimes the characters themselves strain credulity (especially Ana). How can a woman who freely quotes Hegel not know that C.L. Dodgson is Lewis Carroll?
I actually found Bart to be a far more compelling character than Ana. Everyone in the book seems to love Ana (well, not everyone, just the main characters) and I'm not entirely certain why. Except I've certainly learned that love is completely irrational, and people rarely love those who deserve it, and frequently love those who don't.
For me, the worst problem was a basic flaw in the science. However, it is true that anything is possible, and one of the jobs of science fiction is to predict things that currently don't seem believable. Besides, I was willing to suspend my disbelief about the science and just go with the story, and it was a good story.
Tavia Gilbert and Paul Michael Garcia did a pretty good job of reading the audio, although they did occasionally make distracting mistakes in pronunciation (as when they both read the made up "Creatorium" as "Crematorium").
I read the Kindle version of this along with the audiobook, which was a good thing, since the NY Public library's version of the audio chopped off the ending sentence of nearly every chapter. Besides, this is the kind of book for which is sometimes useful to see the words as well as hear them, so this experiment in mixed media was helpful to me.
I do think this is worth reading despite its faults and we can expect more good books from this writer.
September 10, 2016
The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon is a book that I have very mixed feelings about.
Let us start by imagining a world where our cell phones anticipate what we need before we need it. We begin to wonder what our grandparent’s birthday is and it springs to life with the information we need. All it required was a thought. That word on the tip of our tongue appears on the screen just before we need it so you can complete your thought without missing a beat. If you can imagine that, then you can imagine the power and obvious desirability of the technology in this book.
The Word Exchange is an online marketplace where words are bought and sold. Did you forget the definition of a word? Have the definition instantly available for mere change. A quick micro-transaction and viola, the word you intended. But we get pretty familiar with the words we use, don’t we? What if we became so dependent on technology that our brains no longer stored memories as efficiently since we have these nifty devices reading our thoughts and providing the data we seek?
The Word Exchange pulls a very clever trick here. The characters in our book write definitions for the NADEL, a dictionary. Their vocabulary is spectacular. I had to use the ‘word lookup’ feature of my Kindle Paperwhite frequently, especially during the first quarter of the book. It provided an incredibly unsettling feeling that maybe this dependence on technology is already happening to us. Maybe we are already forgetting these words that were once a part of our language.
This trick, in my opinion, was only clever because I was able to very quickly grab a definition. If I was reading a paper copy, I don’t think I would have spent the time looking up words. Although perhaps it would have been sufficient to drive a different point home. That point being that if we’re not using this language, we lose it. If it isn’t saved somewhere, it could be gone forever.
On this premise the book succeeds.
Then comes the Word Flu. The Word Flu is an illness that strikes and presents much the way the flu does that we’re familiar with. High fever, nausea, vomiting, etc. However, the Word Flu also presents in such a way that words in your vocabulary are replaced with others. Often times nonsense.
Since a condition of my early readers copy is that I not share any text, I will prepare my own example.
“Why is everyone oxbowing at me,” she wondered. “I did remember to kaneek my pants, right?”
And this example also serves to make one of the points of The Word Exchange. Words are powerful. They are functional. Is everyone looking at her? Is everyone shoving her? Did she remember to wear her pants? Or zip her pants? Words disappearing is problematic for society.
It’s also problematic for the reader. At least for this reader. I read to disappear into a story. I was never able to comfortably settle into The Word Exchange. These breaks would snap me back to reality while I considered what was actually trying to be said.
This is one of those instances where I think the author was making a point but that it also worked against them. The mechanic is beautiful and works. Unfortunately it works to a fault. I found myself hating to read this book.
The books pacing seemed glacial until about the halfway point. From there it seemed to accelerate to a snail’s pace. I think the author or editor must have known that because they occasionally dropped hints that certain parts of the story would pay off later. An example might be something like, “And I’d learn soon that it wasn’t so cut and dry.” They had to keep dangling a carrot. I considered walking away repeatedly and only the obligation to the review kept me hanging around. But I was miserable finishing.
The characters were good enough, I guess. Our character lead Anana was likable enough but also capable enough that I never really feared for her all that much. I guess that makes sense though since much of the danger was presented toward people she cared about, and not necessarily directed at her. Also, despite her being in near constant motion it seems like she’s more a victim of circumstance rather than actually moving the story forward. Honestly it feels like most of the book is just happening to her, she’s not manipulating her circumstances at all.
As for the other characters, Anana seems to care about them but I never saw enough to share in her feelings. I really found myself even struggling to care about anyone beyond her. Even when they set the stage for a romance, I couldn’t care less.
So I guess that’s probably enough. The things that work in the book work tremendously. I get the idea that in the future the Word Flu could really disrupt us due to our growing dependence on technology. I get the idea that words are powerful and losing even some of them could be disastrous. The story itself though, the meat and potatoes of The Word Exchange were just meh.
This one was a hard one for me, folks. And it kills me to dislike a book that executes its premise so well. But here we are.
Good alnox, my friends. Gritbaugh.
Let us start by imagining a world where our cell phones anticipate what we need before we need it. We begin to wonder what our grandparent’s birthday is and it springs to life with the information we need. All it required was a thought. That word on the tip of our tongue appears on the screen just before we need it so you can complete your thought without missing a beat. If you can imagine that, then you can imagine the power and obvious desirability of the technology in this book.
The Word Exchange is an online marketplace where words are bought and sold. Did you forget the definition of a word? Have the definition instantly available for mere change. A quick micro-transaction and viola, the word you intended. But we get pretty familiar with the words we use, don’t we? What if we became so dependent on technology that our brains no longer stored memories as efficiently since we have these nifty devices reading our thoughts and providing the data we seek?
The Word Exchange pulls a very clever trick here. The characters in our book write definitions for the NADEL, a dictionary. Their vocabulary is spectacular. I had to use the ‘word lookup’ feature of my Kindle Paperwhite frequently, especially during the first quarter of the book. It provided an incredibly unsettling feeling that maybe this dependence on technology is already happening to us. Maybe we are already forgetting these words that were once a part of our language.
This trick, in my opinion, was only clever because I was able to very quickly grab a definition. If I was reading a paper copy, I don’t think I would have spent the time looking up words. Although perhaps it would have been sufficient to drive a different point home. That point being that if we’re not using this language, we lose it. If it isn’t saved somewhere, it could be gone forever.
On this premise the book succeeds.
Then comes the Word Flu. The Word Flu is an illness that strikes and presents much the way the flu does that we’re familiar with. High fever, nausea, vomiting, etc. However, the Word Flu also presents in such a way that words in your vocabulary are replaced with others. Often times nonsense.
Since a condition of my early readers copy is that I not share any text, I will prepare my own example.
“Why is everyone oxbowing at me,” she wondered. “I did remember to kaneek my pants, right?”
And this example also serves to make one of the points of The Word Exchange. Words are powerful. They are functional. Is everyone looking at her? Is everyone shoving her? Did she remember to wear her pants? Or zip her pants? Words disappearing is problematic for society.
It’s also problematic for the reader. At least for this reader. I read to disappear into a story. I was never able to comfortably settle into The Word Exchange. These breaks would snap me back to reality while I considered what was actually trying to be said.
This is one of those instances where I think the author was making a point but that it also worked against them. The mechanic is beautiful and works. Unfortunately it works to a fault. I found myself hating to read this book.
The books pacing seemed glacial until about the halfway point. From there it seemed to accelerate to a snail’s pace. I think the author or editor must have known that because they occasionally dropped hints that certain parts of the story would pay off later. An example might be something like, “And I’d learn soon that it wasn’t so cut and dry.” They had to keep dangling a carrot. I considered walking away repeatedly and only the obligation to the review kept me hanging around. But I was miserable finishing.
The characters were good enough, I guess. Our character lead Anana was likable enough but also capable enough that I never really feared for her all that much. I guess that makes sense though since much of the danger was presented toward people she cared about, and not necessarily directed at her. Also, despite her being in near constant motion it seems like she’s more a victim of circumstance rather than actually moving the story forward. Honestly it feels like most of the book is just happening to her, she’s not manipulating her circumstances at all.
As for the other characters, Anana seems to care about them but I never saw enough to share in her feelings. I really found myself even struggling to care about anyone beyond her. Even when they set the stage for a romance, I couldn’t care less.
So I guess that’s probably enough. The things that work in the book work tremendously. I get the idea that in the future the Word Flu could really disrupt us due to our growing dependence on technology. I get the idea that words are powerful and losing even some of them could be disastrous. The story itself though, the meat and potatoes of The Word Exchange were just meh.
This one was a hard one for me, folks. And it kills me to dislike a book that executes its premise so well. But here we are.
Good alnox, my friends. Gritbaugh.
September 10, 2016
*My copy was received from NetGalley as an ARC.*
I can only review the first 30% of the book. It became so mind-numbingly boring that I had to abandon it at that point. A description of the book says: "A gorgeous genre mashup that offers readers the pleasures of noir, science fiction, romance and philosophy. It's an unforgettable joyride across the thin ice of language."
-Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove.
Genre mashup, yes...gorgeous, no; the ice of this language became so thin that I broke through and was in danger of drowning in the sea of unrelated thoughts. The book tried to be so many things that it ended up being totally unreadable (in my viewpoint, of course). It combined concern over the dangers of a society becoming too dependent on technology with the joys of linguistics and lexicography (referencing principles such as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis and the philosophies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a person whom Charles Krathammer calls "a famously impenetrable philosopher whose writings mere mortals should steer clear of or face the danger of being sucked down an intellectual black hole, never to be seen again", or words to that effect. WHAT was he doing in this novel???). It brought in aspects of a conspiracy-based thriller, threw in the angst-ridden musings of some of the main characters over loves lost and loves pined for. One of these whiners/moaners was the heroine--an unlikable, immature, and somewhat dense young woman (somewhat dense is being kind in my description; head-bangingly annoying would be more accurate). In addition we were introduced to a crew of obviously ill worker drone types destroying printed material in a sub-basement, had some code names evocative of Alice in Wonderland slipped in, experienced the "joy" of having a few infantile (and completely superfluous) young men included as background characters, experienced the beginnings of the mysterious "virus" causing nonsensical spouting of gibberish, and that's just in the first 30%. The use of constant footnotes in a novel was extremely annoying as well. There *were* some small areas of astonishingly good writing, but they were too infrequent to save the book.
The author knows how to do research, I'll give her that. She also knows her way around dictionaries and the thesaurus--yes, I DID have to look up some of the words she used. However, the hodgepodge of ideas just didn't work effectively to make this a readable (and enjoyable) offering. Perhaps a non-fiction book dealing with just one subject would be better--either the dangers of too much reliance on technology to the exclusion of human communication and interaction, or a tome on lexicography and linguistics.
I can only review the first 30% of the book. It became so mind-numbingly boring that I had to abandon it at that point. A description of the book says: "A gorgeous genre mashup that offers readers the pleasures of noir, science fiction, romance and philosophy. It's an unforgettable joyride across the thin ice of language."
-Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove.
Genre mashup, yes...gorgeous, no; the ice of this language became so thin that I broke through and was in danger of drowning in the sea of unrelated thoughts. The book tried to be so many things that it ended up being totally unreadable (in my viewpoint, of course). It combined concern over the dangers of a society becoming too dependent on technology with the joys of linguistics and lexicography (referencing principles such as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis and the philosophies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a person whom Charles Krathammer calls "a famously impenetrable philosopher whose writings mere mortals should steer clear of or face the danger of being sucked down an intellectual black hole, never to be seen again", or words to that effect. WHAT was he doing in this novel???). It brought in aspects of a conspiracy-based thriller, threw in the angst-ridden musings of some of the main characters over loves lost and loves pined for. One of these whiners/moaners was the heroine--an unlikable, immature, and somewhat dense young woman (somewhat dense is being kind in my description; head-bangingly annoying would be more accurate). In addition we were introduced to a crew of obviously ill worker drone types destroying printed material in a sub-basement, had some code names evocative of Alice in Wonderland slipped in, experienced the "joy" of having a few infantile (and completely superfluous) young men included as background characters, experienced the beginnings of the mysterious "virus" causing nonsensical spouting of gibberish, and that's just in the first 30%. The use of constant footnotes in a novel was extremely annoying as well. There *were* some small areas of astonishingly good writing, but they were too infrequent to save the book.
The author knows how to do research, I'll give her that. She also knows her way around dictionaries and the thesaurus--yes, I DID have to look up some of the words she used. However, the hodgepodge of ideas just didn't work effectively to make this a readable (and enjoyable) offering. Perhaps a non-fiction book dealing with just one subject would be better--either the dangers of too much reliance on technology to the exclusion of human communication and interaction, or a tome on lexicography and linguistics.
March 25, 2017
On Twitter I described this book as a mashup between a David Mamet movie and the Dictionary. It's not a perfect description, but it gives you a glimpse of the weirdly wonderful world of THE WORD EXCHANGE.
First off, I have to applaud Graedon for inventing one of those near-future scenarios that actually feels real and terrifyingly possible. The evolution of smartphones to the "memes" of her book seems like something that could really happen (and it honestly wouldn't surprise me if it did).
Then there is the twisty-turny nature of the plot, where Anana searches for her father, the editor of the last bastian of the printed word, the dictionary. His sudden disappearance coupled with the strange symptoms that start going around signals some kind of foul play she wants desperately to understand. This is not a book you can just figure out, one where you can see the turns coming. For me, that's a big plus. I like to be surprised, I like a world to be ever-expanding.
Ultimately, this is a book for people who love books and words and believe in the power of writing. That is the big beating heart of this book, even as it whips you around turns and throws in a great romance subplot.
It's pretty amazing, it's a real ride, and I highly recommend it. A solid 4.5 stars for me, short of five only because it ended rather quickly.
First off, I have to applaud Graedon for inventing one of those near-future scenarios that actually feels real and terrifyingly possible. The evolution of smartphones to the "memes" of her book seems like something that could really happen (and it honestly wouldn't surprise me if it did).
Then there is the twisty-turny nature of the plot, where Anana searches for her father, the editor of the last bastian of the printed word, the dictionary. His sudden disappearance coupled with the strange symptoms that start going around signals some kind of foul play she wants desperately to understand. This is not a book you can just figure out, one where you can see the turns coming. For me, that's a big plus. I like to be surprised, I like a world to be ever-expanding.
Ultimately, this is a book for people who love books and words and believe in the power of writing. That is the big beating heart of this book, even as it whips you around turns and throws in a great romance subplot.
It's pretty amazing, it's a real ride, and I highly recommend it. A solid 4.5 stars for me, short of five only because it ended rather quickly.
January 23, 2016
ARC for review.
A thriller of lexicography that will appeal to language lovers this book follows Ana, a young woman in search of her father. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances just before the launch of the final edition of his world-renowned dictionary (a victim of our digital age which, in this book, is a few steps further along the interactive road). Plus, a potentially fatal "word flu" has appeared and maybe Ana's missing father holds the key?
At first I thought this would be an example of a book it was easier to admire than to truly enjoy, especially since, occasionally there were moments when the author seemed very pleased with her own braininess, but it really grew on me. There are some moments of incredibly vivid imagery that I just loved especially resonant today in "the changing world I'd come of age in-slowly bereft of books and love letters, photographs and maps, takeout menus, timetables, liner notes, and diaries" (105)
A few quibbles - the footnotes. Ugh. Some rationale was provided at the end, but the reasoning wasn't strong enough to make up for the pointlessness. There were also diary sections written by someone with aphasia, so those were tough. And several times there's some heavy-handed foreshadowing which I could have done without. However, most of the loose ends are knotted and though I didn't quite grasp some of what Graedon was selling (I never understood why people would be willing to pay for nonsense words and there seemed no entertainment factor to the game such that people would keep coming back) that was probably more me versus her.
To be fair, I might have enjoyed this more had I not just read Max Barry's Lexicon which is, like this, a thriller of sorts about language. Though I've read and liked Barry in the past I didn't feel Lexicon was successful. This was definitely a more enjoyable book, especially with the reflections on how language draws us all together and why we read, but it was probably a bit of an overload on a very specific genre. Incredibly ambitious - Graedon is one to watch.
A thriller of lexicography that will appeal to language lovers this book follows Ana, a young woman in search of her father. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances just before the launch of the final edition of his world-renowned dictionary (a victim of our digital age which, in this book, is a few steps further along the interactive road). Plus, a potentially fatal "word flu" has appeared and maybe Ana's missing father holds the key?
At first I thought this would be an example of a book it was easier to admire than to truly enjoy, especially since, occasionally there were moments when the author seemed very pleased with her own braininess, but it really grew on me. There are some moments of incredibly vivid imagery that I just loved especially resonant today in "the changing world I'd come of age in-slowly bereft of books and love letters, photographs and maps, takeout menus, timetables, liner notes, and diaries" (105)
A few quibbles - the footnotes. Ugh. Some rationale was provided at the end, but the reasoning wasn't strong enough to make up for the pointlessness. There were also diary sections written by someone with aphasia, so those were tough. And several times there's some heavy-handed foreshadowing which I could have done without. However, most of the loose ends are knotted and though I didn't quite grasp some of what Graedon was selling (I never understood why people would be willing to pay for nonsense words and there seemed no entertainment factor to the game such that people would keep coming back) that was probably more me versus her.
To be fair, I might have enjoyed this more had I not just read Max Barry's Lexicon which is, like this, a thriller of sorts about language. Though I've read and liked Barry in the past I didn't feel Lexicon was successful. This was definitely a more enjoyable book, especially with the reflections on how language draws us all together and why we read, but it was probably a bit of an overload on a very specific genre. Incredibly ambitious - Graedon is one to watch.
September 23, 2014
A very good, quirky story. A bit crazy at times, but that was the fun. And I still don't think I got all the "Alice" references - the rabbit hole, the looking glass, that type of thing.
This is a world that diverged from our own not that long ago. It diverged when this world created smartphones that can read your mind. They are called Memes. They will order you a cab if you're too drunk to drive. They will order you a drink when you're really explaining you want coffee (but really want a drink), they will help you decide if you really should send that break-up text when you've had too much to drink (by sending it).
I want a Meme!
I don't even own a smartphone. I'm lucky I have a cell phone. So, the Luddite in me really likes this book. There is a plot here - a nasty virus is unleashed in humanity and it's transferred, in part, by Memes. Scary. Scary because I can really see some of this actually happening and in not too distant a future!
Oh, yes, back to the plot. Anana (aka Alice) works at a Dictionary. So does her dad, Doug. So does her friend, Bart. And when the virus starts to decay everyone's language and speaking ability, all hell breaks loose. We must save the English language! We must save all language! It's not a commodity to be bought and sold, but where there's a buck to be made. . . .
*****
As an after note, I read some of the other reviews and personally, I liked the footnotes. Bring on the footnotes! (I didn't read this on my Kindle. How creepy to read this on an electronic device!) And, yes, the word flu premise was totally way out there, but I thought it was fun (well, that may not be the right word). I think I was most confused by the Alice references, believe it or not. Still, I thought it well worth the read.
This is a world that diverged from our own not that long ago. It diverged when this world created smartphones that can read your mind. They are called Memes. They will order you a cab if you're too drunk to drive. They will order you a drink when you're really explaining you want coffee (but really want a drink), they will help you decide if you really should send that break-up text when you've had too much to drink (by sending it).
I want a Meme!
I don't even own a smartphone. I'm lucky I have a cell phone. So, the Luddite in me really likes this book. There is a plot here - a nasty virus is unleashed in humanity and it's transferred, in part, by Memes. Scary. Scary because I can really see some of this actually happening and in not too distant a future!
Oh, yes, back to the plot. Anana (aka Alice) works at a Dictionary. So does her dad, Doug. So does her friend, Bart. And when the virus starts to decay everyone's language and speaking ability, all hell breaks loose. We must save the English language! We must save all language! It's not a commodity to be bought and sold, but where there's a buck to be made. . . .
*****
As an after note, I read some of the other reviews and personally, I liked the footnotes. Bring on the footnotes! (I didn't read this on my Kindle. How creepy to read this on an electronic device!) And, yes, the word flu premise was totally way out there, but I thought it was fun (well, that may not be the right word). I think I was most confused by the Alice references, believe it or not. Still, I thought it well worth the read.
August 14, 2015
Here's how this book goes:
Pages of Pretentious Blathering
Hegel...Hegel...Hegel...Hegel...Hegel...Hegel...Hegel
Pages of Hipster Angst
Teeniest Tiniest Hint of a Plot
More Pretentious Blathering
More Hipster Angst
Great Huge Chunks of Hegel
More Hegel
Imagined Angst
Unimportant Hipster Stuff (meals, music, whatever)
Hegel Again
Oh Wow! A plot point!
Hegel. Hegel. Hegel.
Hipster Musings.
Hipster Thoughts on Hegel.
Hegel's Thoughts on Hipstery Things.
Wait! Is this a plot point?? No. Never mind. It's just blob of Hipster Ennui.
At this point, I deleted the audiobook--deleted it without so much as a twinge of regret. What a shame, too. I was looking forward to this book so very much. From the description, I thought it would be like a cross between Wednesday Next and William Gibson.
It wasn't.
Pages of Pretentious Blathering
Hegel...Hegel...Hegel...Hegel...Hegel...Hegel...Hegel
Pages of Hipster Angst
Teeniest Tiniest Hint of a Plot
More Pretentious Blathering
More Hipster Angst
Great Huge Chunks of Hegel
More Hegel
Imagined Angst
Unimportant Hipster Stuff (meals, music, whatever)
Hegel Again
Oh Wow! A plot point!
Hegel. Hegel. Hegel.
Hipster Musings.
Hipster Thoughts on Hegel.
Hegel's Thoughts on Hipstery Things.
Wait! Is this a plot point?? No. Never mind. It's just blob of Hipster Ennui.
At this point, I deleted the audiobook--deleted it without so much as a twinge of regret. What a shame, too. I was looking forward to this book so very much. From the description, I thought it would be like a cross between Wednesday Next and William Gibson.
It wasn't.
November 23, 2015
I received a free copy of this book through the First Reads program at Good Reads. I also was given an eARC by NetGalley.
While I appreciate these freebies, I shouldn't have clicked those buttons to put myself in the running for them. I started this book tonight, and was quickly going, "eh..wtf?"
It's just...no...
Earlier this year I read a book called The Book. It was a dystopian near-future tale about electronic reading devices replacing real books and eventually controlling what we think, etc. I don't want to compare this to that (I'll get to that in a minute), but some of that basic plot is here again. Or so it would seem, if I could understand the plot.
I also don't want to compare them because this is well written. I mean, I can't understand it, with all the big words and gimmicky language, but I can at least see that this author knew what she was doing. She had genuine fun crafting a story of language with language through language. Or something. I don't get it, but I can see that it's done well.
The Book was just rubbish. I won't even mention the author, as I don't feel this is the place to criticize his work. Or rather, his piece of dystopian paranoid claptrap filled with spelling and grammar errors.
This book obviously had some hard work put into it. That's why I feel kinda bad not continuing with it. But since I don't get it, and can see that it's just going to annoy me and take a huge amount of time away from my reading schedule, I'm going to take a pass.
Thanks go out to the publisher for the freebies. I do appreciate them.
While I appreciate these freebies, I shouldn't have clicked those buttons to put myself in the running for them. I started this book tonight, and was quickly going, "eh..wtf?"
It's just...no...
Earlier this year I read a book called The Book. It was a dystopian near-future tale about electronic reading devices replacing real books and eventually controlling what we think, etc. I don't want to compare this to that (I'll get to that in a minute), but some of that basic plot is here again. Or so it would seem, if I could understand the plot.
I also don't want to compare them because this is well written. I mean, I can't understand it, with all the big words and gimmicky language, but I can at least see that this author knew what she was doing. She had genuine fun crafting a story of language with language through language. Or something. I don't get it, but I can see that it's done well.
The Book was just rubbish. I won't even mention the author, as I don't feel this is the place to criticize his work. Or rather, his piece of dystopian paranoid claptrap filled with spelling and grammar errors.
This book obviously had some hard work put into it. That's why I feel kinda bad not continuing with it. But since I don't get it, and can see that it's just going to annoy me and take a huge amount of time away from my reading schedule, I'm going to take a pass.
Thanks go out to the publisher for the freebies. I do appreciate them.
April 1, 2014
I found that it had a lot of great writing, but it was covered up with awkward writing. The world building lacked, but I liked were it was going, I just needed more from it. I couldn’t get pass the footnotes and I didn’t know a lot of the words so I had to keep looking them up, which takes a lot of time ( that I could have used to try and enjoy the novel). I also think that it was over all too long and I just could get into it.
April 8, 2014
The Word Exchange is about a future in which the printed media is practically obsolete. Everyone communicates by a device called a meme, which is not really explained until about a third of the way through the book. In this world, people was being affected by something called a "word flu" in which the inflicted loses the meaning of words, automatically substituting nonsense words. The incubation time needed for this flu to arrive seems be the duration of 50% of the book. Eventually this virus leads to death and threatens chaos. The one man who may know the answer has disappeared, leaving his daughter Anana aka Ana, aka Alice (beware of gratuitous Alice in Wonderland references) to seek him out and figure out what is really going on. In between we get some melodrama, some endless moping, a few lengthy discourses on Hegel, some suspenseful moments in linguistic philosophy in which I expected a cameo appearance by Wittgenstein but was sorely disappointed, and some unbelievable conspiracies eventually leading to a letdown of a climax. The end.
As you can surmise, I was not impressed. In fact, "Not impressed" may be a semantic understatement all of its own. I must admit the premise was promising. However, this is one of those science fiction novels where the speculative themes appear to be a gimmick for literary pretentiousness. While author Alena Graedon, in her debut novel, has an impressive talent for singular prose, she seems to be lacking in the plot structuring department. Loosely structured comes to mind as well as sloppy. There is more than one narrative as we struggle with the tale and they seem to trip over each other as the tale progresses. The narrative becomes tedious to follow to the point that I was starting to skim at the 70 percent mark of this overlong novel anxious to just finish it up...never a good sign. If any book needed an editor with a red pen and a pair of scissors, this is the book. There's a talented writer lurking in Ms. Graedon but she doesn't show up for this literary sci-fi muddle. Two very generous stars.
As you can surmise, I was not impressed. In fact, "Not impressed" may be a semantic understatement all of its own. I must admit the premise was promising. However, this is one of those science fiction novels where the speculative themes appear to be a gimmick for literary pretentiousness. While author Alena Graedon, in her debut novel, has an impressive talent for singular prose, she seems to be lacking in the plot structuring department. Loosely structured comes to mind as well as sloppy. There is more than one narrative as we struggle with the tale and they seem to trip over each other as the tale progresses. The narrative becomes tedious to follow to the point that I was starting to skim at the 70 percent mark of this overlong novel anxious to just finish it up...never a good sign. If any book needed an editor with a red pen and a pair of scissors, this is the book. There's a talented writer lurking in Ms. Graedon but she doesn't show up for this literary sci-fi muddle. Two very generous stars.
June 26, 2014
This is one of those novels where the author is just too clever for their own good. It's a mess of ideas, with a whiny heroine and a creepy alternating narrator.
I almost never give one stars, but dude. I have no idea how this book was even purchased by Doubleday and made it to print.
I almost never give one stars, but dude. I have no idea how this book was even purchased by Doubleday and made it to print.
May 14, 2014
I received a copy of The Word Exchange, the debut novel from author Alena Graedon, from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for my review. This book has been called "the dystopian novel for the digital age" and "inventive" and on some levels I agree with those descriptions. I loved the idea of The Word Exchange, which is set in the near future and deals with the constantly forewarned death of print media. Anana Johnson and her father Doug are working on the multi-volume third edition of the North American Dictionary of the English Language when Doug goes missing one night. As Anana searches for her father, entries in the dictionary start disappearing, and people begin to succumb to a disease that is dubbed "the word flu" and makes them talk in gibberish. Where is Doug Johnson? Who is behind "the word flu"?
There were so many things that I enjoyed about The Word Exchange. As I mentioned above, I loved the idea of the book. More than just a book about the death of print as a medium, this book actually goes farther to imagine the death of the English language as it is today. The allure of that premise drew me in immediately, and I felt that the basic story line held up to my expectations. All of the elements of a good dystopian story were there. Megacorporation Synchronic was plausible as the Big Brother figure, as was The Diachronic Society as the rebels fighting to preserve the current way of life, Anana as the plucky heroine, and Bart as her sidekick. Even the smallest of characters, like Vera and Victoria Marks were given interesting backgrounds that drew me to them. I think my favorites, though, were Phineas with all of his quirks and idiosyncrasies, and Max. My only detraction here was that I felt that the story went on a little bit too long. On story alone, though, I would give this book a 4 out of 5 stars.
Where I felt the book lost it was in the execution. The author uses a number of devices to illustrate the underlying philosophy of the story; that society is becoming immune to the finer points of the English language, but I felt that she tried to be too clever and that, on a whole, these devices ended up detracting from the story rather than enhancing it. The one that I felt worked the best was the way the chapters were organized by the letters of the alphabet. The inclusion of a word and definition at the beginning of each which gave an overview of the main points of that chapter was really good. In fact, that is the only device that I felt really worked. On the other hand, the author's use of obscure words unfamiliar to the average reader, while clever, was a huge detraction from the flow of the story. I consider myself to have a good vocabulary and I ended up having to look up upwards of 50 words, so many that I actually lost count. Eventually I began to think how lucky I was to be reading this on an e-Reader, with a dictionary definition just a touch away. While this may have been the author's attempt to point out how easily technology can suck you in, to me it just seemed like the author was actually touting that which she was supposed to be warning against. Another device that totally did not work for me was the actual printing the gibberish that people began to speak as "the word flu" spread. In the beginning it was interesting, illustrating how intrusive electronic devices have become in our society. As long as these gibberish words were kept to a minimum and it was easy to still figure out what the character actually meant to say, it was okay. After a while, though, it got old, and was so pervasive I ended up skipping whole pages, and toward the end, one whole chapter. While I understood that these devices were part of the plot of the book, I felt that the average reader would find them cumbersome and could find them enough of a distraction to actually give up on the book altogether.
Taking everything into consideration, I did enjoy this story on many levels. I can see a certain market for this book with just the right readers. I can't see a mass appeal for it, though, and for that reason I don't feel that I can recommend it to everyone. I will, however, recommend the book to certain of my reading friends, but that pool is unfortunately pretty small. I would like to see what this author could do with something a bit more mainstream.
There were so many things that I enjoyed about The Word Exchange. As I mentioned above, I loved the idea of the book. More than just a book about the death of print as a medium, this book actually goes farther to imagine the death of the English language as it is today. The allure of that premise drew me in immediately, and I felt that the basic story line held up to my expectations. All of the elements of a good dystopian story were there. Megacorporation Synchronic was plausible as the Big Brother figure, as was The Diachronic Society as the rebels fighting to preserve the current way of life, Anana as the plucky heroine, and Bart as her sidekick. Even the smallest of characters, like Vera and Victoria Marks were given interesting backgrounds that drew me to them. I think my favorites, though, were Phineas with all of his quirks and idiosyncrasies, and Max. My only detraction here was that I felt that the story went on a little bit too long. On story alone, though, I would give this book a 4 out of 5 stars.
Where I felt the book lost it was in the execution. The author uses a number of devices to illustrate the underlying philosophy of the story; that society is becoming immune to the finer points of the English language, but I felt that she tried to be too clever and that, on a whole, these devices ended up detracting from the story rather than enhancing it. The one that I felt worked the best was the way the chapters were organized by the letters of the alphabet. The inclusion of a word and definition at the beginning of each which gave an overview of the main points of that chapter was really good. In fact, that is the only device that I felt really worked. On the other hand, the author's use of obscure words unfamiliar to the average reader, while clever, was a huge detraction from the flow of the story. I consider myself to have a good vocabulary and I ended up having to look up upwards of 50 words, so many that I actually lost count. Eventually I began to think how lucky I was to be reading this on an e-Reader, with a dictionary definition just a touch away. While this may have been the author's attempt to point out how easily technology can suck you in, to me it just seemed like the author was actually touting that which she was supposed to be warning against. Another device that totally did not work for me was the actual printing the gibberish that people began to speak as "the word flu" spread. In the beginning it was interesting, illustrating how intrusive electronic devices have become in our society. As long as these gibberish words were kept to a minimum and it was easy to still figure out what the character actually meant to say, it was okay. After a while, though, it got old, and was so pervasive I ended up skipping whole pages, and toward the end, one whole chapter. While I understood that these devices were part of the plot of the book, I felt that the average reader would find them cumbersome and could find them enough of a distraction to actually give up on the book altogether.
Taking everything into consideration, I did enjoy this story on many levels. I can see a certain market for this book with just the right readers. I can't see a mass appeal for it, though, and for that reason I don't feel that I can recommend it to everyone. I will, however, recommend the book to certain of my reading friends, but that pool is unfortunately pretty small. I would like to see what this author could do with something a bit more mainstream.
April 9, 2014
I have to preface this review by saying that a) if I get a book to read before publication (through NetGalley, like this one, or anywhere) I want to give it a real chance, finish the whole thing, etc. and b) the idea behind this book is one I’m thrilled about. With this book, I found it tremendously difficult to even finish.
The Word Exchange has a fascinating premise. Ana lives in a world where helpful technology has infiltrated our lives, our psyches, and our choices so fully that it is starting to cripple us. Everyone has a Meme (which, as near I can tell, is like our smart phones only smart enough to take some direction from our brain waves). The Meme, for example, logs you into the Word Exchange (TM!) automatically if you need help remembering a word. As a result, humanity is losing their words. Interesting, right? If only.
I got into Chapter 4 (by way of skipping Chapter 2 entirely and skimming when I got frustrated with the text) before my husband suggested that maybe it was the writing ‘style’ I disliked. So I started over, reading every word carefully and really piecing things together. Sadly, now I’m just better able to articulate what about this book goes so horribly wrong—-run-on sentences, way too much backstory, information dumps, word vomit. I found the underlying story quite enjoyable—Ana is looking for her missing father! Where is he! Oh my! And then Chapter 1 is totally overtaken by flashbacks, emotional drama the reader has no context for, and confusing sentence structure and narration that totally confounds any forward motion of the story.
The same happens with Chapter 2 (or B: Bartleby). Instead of the reader meeting Bartleby and maybe learning more about the focal mystery, we’re treated to a veritable mess of words about how beautiful Ana is (pages and pages of this drivel) and afterwards we still don’t get an answer to our question. Instead we’re stuck inside Bartleby’s confusing head where he ruminates forever on Ana’s ex-boyfriend Max. At the end of Chapter 2, I was exhausted. An example of a sentence that made me want to tear my hair out: “And what happens next, or roughly at the same time, is that you sort of forget where you were napping, which was underneath your desk, and when you try to rise up quickly, you clock yourself so hard in your (admittedly large) forehead that while you’re still half asleep, you nearly concuss, and the screaming seems still to be going on and on, like a siren song, until it reaches an apotheosis, and it isn’t until you’ve managed in a bruised approximation of panic to crawl out from below your desk (maybe with the vestige of an erection) that you realize the person standing there in the dark is the star of your once pleasant, now departed dream.” That’s 11 commas, folks. My problem is that the first time I encountered this sentence, my brain rejected it and jumped over it. The second time I forced myself to read it, it just made me angry. All the writing in this chapter that was probably related to the overarching plot (Bartleby also expounds on the role of language influencing the content of communication) was lost on me because I felt like I was drowning in extraneous detail.
It wasn’t until Chapter 4 (or D: Dictionary), in an inserted article entitled: How the Meme is Replacing the I, that this book really started to make sense. Oh, how I wish this had prefaced the book and offered some clarity.
Nonetheless, I noticed that the reviews of this book are either 4/5 or 2, which leads me to believe this is the type of book you love or hate. I gather that some with a more artistic sensibility (who aren’t distracted by run-on sentences, but adore detailed descriptions) might enjoy this book in a way I can’t.
The Word Exchange has a fascinating premise. Ana lives in a world where helpful technology has infiltrated our lives, our psyches, and our choices so fully that it is starting to cripple us. Everyone has a Meme (which, as near I can tell, is like our smart phones only smart enough to take some direction from our brain waves). The Meme, for example, logs you into the Word Exchange (TM!) automatically if you need help remembering a word. As a result, humanity is losing their words. Interesting, right? If only.
I got into Chapter 4 (by way of skipping Chapter 2 entirely and skimming when I got frustrated with the text) before my husband suggested that maybe it was the writing ‘style’ I disliked. So I started over, reading every word carefully and really piecing things together. Sadly, now I’m just better able to articulate what about this book goes so horribly wrong—-run-on sentences, way too much backstory, information dumps, word vomit. I found the underlying story quite enjoyable—Ana is looking for her missing father! Where is he! Oh my! And then Chapter 1 is totally overtaken by flashbacks, emotional drama the reader has no context for, and confusing sentence structure and narration that totally confounds any forward motion of the story.
The same happens with Chapter 2 (or B: Bartleby). Instead of the reader meeting Bartleby and maybe learning more about the focal mystery, we’re treated to a veritable mess of words about how beautiful Ana is (pages and pages of this drivel) and afterwards we still don’t get an answer to our question. Instead we’re stuck inside Bartleby’s confusing head where he ruminates forever on Ana’s ex-boyfriend Max. At the end of Chapter 2, I was exhausted. An example of a sentence that made me want to tear my hair out: “And what happens next, or roughly at the same time, is that you sort of forget where you were napping, which was underneath your desk, and when you try to rise up quickly, you clock yourself so hard in your (admittedly large) forehead that while you’re still half asleep, you nearly concuss, and the screaming seems still to be going on and on, like a siren song, until it reaches an apotheosis, and it isn’t until you’ve managed in a bruised approximation of panic to crawl out from below your desk (maybe with the vestige of an erection) that you realize the person standing there in the dark is the star of your once pleasant, now departed dream.” That’s 11 commas, folks. My problem is that the first time I encountered this sentence, my brain rejected it and jumped over it. The second time I forced myself to read it, it just made me angry. All the writing in this chapter that was probably related to the overarching plot (Bartleby also expounds on the role of language influencing the content of communication) was lost on me because I felt like I was drowning in extraneous detail.
It wasn’t until Chapter 4 (or D: Dictionary), in an inserted article entitled: How the Meme is Replacing the I, that this book really started to make sense. Oh, how I wish this had prefaced the book and offered some clarity.
Nonetheless, I noticed that the reviews of this book are either 4/5 or 2, which leads me to believe this is the type of book you love or hate. I gather that some with a more artistic sensibility (who aren’t distracted by run-on sentences, but adore detailed descriptions) might enjoy this book in a way I can’t.
April 20, 2014
I loved this book so much, I’m not sure I can add anything new to the many rave reviews I’ve already read. Everything about it was fantastic. The plot was action packed and full of surprising twists and turns. The futuristic world the author imagined didn’t seem like a stretch, but was still completely mind-blowing. Despite the dangers of the technologies so readily adopted in this future world, some of the conveniences and entertainments sound like a dream. The author’s imaginings actually reminded me a lot of the non-fiction book Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku because it pushed me to think about the true wonders technology could achieve in the not too distant future. The science wasn’t explained in detail, but was described enough that I found it believable. It seemed the biology and technology had been very well researched, which is a sure way for an author to win me over. The narrators (Anana and one of her co-workers) were very endearing. I loved the way their relationship progressed, because it felt so natural. I also thought the author did an impressive job writing from the two perspectives in ways that were distinctly different and fit each character’s personality.
Of course, even with a rocking plot, an imaginative setting, and great characters, the real star of this book was always going to be the writing. The author’s love of words shines from every page. The unusual words the author sprinkles liberally throughout the text gave me ample opportunity to enjoy the irony of looking up words on my smartphone while reading a book about the dangers of relinquishing too much knowledge in favor of technology. I’m not sure if the author used these complex words simply because she loved them or if she was also pointing out that authors can write for the intelligent reader. Either way, I think that point was made. I wish words like those the author used would make it into our everyday parlance. I enjoyed that the author trusted me, the reader, to understand her beautiful and clever use of words. I also think it’s a great demonstration of the way an author’s assumptions about the reader’s linguistic abilities can actually shape the language readers know. The large words did make reading a bit of work, but it was very rewarding work.
I was also impressed with the way the book was designed. Each chapter began with a definition, one chapter for each letter in the alphabet. These definitions were sometimes those the words might have in the future and sometimes clearly just intended to make a point. They were often funny and always thought-provoking. I know this won’t be for everyone, but I also liked the use of footnotes. There are two criticisms I could see being leveled at this book. First, the digressions about words and philosophy do slow the plot a bit. And second, these digressions can get pretty pretentious, especially the bits on philosophy. However, this goes back to what I said about this book being worthwhile work. The author has constructed her book very cleverly and is making an passionate argument for the power of the written word, both through what she’s written and how she’s written it. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book constructed with more care and that attention to detail made this a joy to read.
This review first published on Doing Dewey.
Of course, even with a rocking plot, an imaginative setting, and great characters, the real star of this book was always going to be the writing. The author’s love of words shines from every page. The unusual words the author sprinkles liberally throughout the text gave me ample opportunity to enjoy the irony of looking up words on my smartphone while reading a book about the dangers of relinquishing too much knowledge in favor of technology. I’m not sure if the author used these complex words simply because she loved them or if she was also pointing out that authors can write for the intelligent reader. Either way, I think that point was made. I wish words like those the author used would make it into our everyday parlance. I enjoyed that the author trusted me, the reader, to understand her beautiful and clever use of words. I also think it’s a great demonstration of the way an author’s assumptions about the reader’s linguistic abilities can actually shape the language readers know. The large words did make reading a bit of work, but it was very rewarding work.
I was also impressed with the way the book was designed. Each chapter began with a definition, one chapter for each letter in the alphabet. These definitions were sometimes those the words might have in the future and sometimes clearly just intended to make a point. They were often funny and always thought-provoking. I know this won’t be for everyone, but I also liked the use of footnotes. There are two criticisms I could see being leveled at this book. First, the digressions about words and philosophy do slow the plot a bit. And second, these digressions can get pretty pretentious, especially the bits on philosophy. However, this goes back to what I said about this book being worthwhile work. The author has constructed her book very cleverly and is making an passionate argument for the power of the written word, both through what she’s written and how she’s written it. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book constructed with more care and that attention to detail made this a joy to read.
This review first published on Doing Dewey.
November 6, 2016
I'm very much into all sorts of dystopian scenarios. This was by far one of the more original ones. Apocalypse via technology, social media and disappearing words. I wasn't sure I was in the mood for it at first, but then I read some reviews, one particularly memorable mentioned that this book was too smart for its own good. That intrigued me. Is there really such a thing as too smart of a book? Is it merely because we live in the world where the word smart usually goes with the word phone (or some other item of high tech) that this is even a thing? Has anyone ever said that of their phone, a smart phone being too smart for its own good? This may seem like a tangent, but it really isn't, it's directly related to the subject matter of this story. This very smart book about an eerily real world where technological advances in personal/wearable tech has increased the dependence and reliance of humans on it to a terrible extent leading to devastating outcome. In this world a young woman is searching for her dictionary writer father, navigating a changing land of vanishing words. So it's something of a mystery too, but primarily it's such a genius commentary on the state of technology and monetizing that which ought to be free, particularly in this country so driven by $$$, particularly now with this alarming antiintellectualism trend, where things are constantly dumbed down and digitized, often at the same time, where intelligence is something to scorn or be suspicious of and social media pandering all too often to the lowest hanging fruit on the brain tree. This really is a terrific cautionary tale. It stands to mention that it read quite slowly, nonfiction speed or so, due to the novel being so dense, but it was absolutely worth the time. For a conversationally old fashioned, private, reserved, distrusting of the ersatz gifts of the ever changing/improving technology person, for a logophile, bibliophile, sesquipedalian, aspiring intellectual, someone who finds deliberate stupidity/obtuseness contemptible, reads dictionaries for fun and views most social media sites as wrecking balls of communication of any meaning and intent, for any proud smartass...this is the book. To enjoy, to fear (too many signs pointing to an eerie prescience), to be impressed by. Besides, being a smartass is always, always preferable to the alternative. Read this book. Learn some new words. Brain is a muscle, working it out should always be encouraged.
March 25, 2014
I was so excited about this book. I love words... and books... and technology.
"A dystopian novel for the digital age, The Word Exchange offers an inventive, suspenseful, and decidedly original vision of the dangers of technology and of the enduring power of the printed word. "
The premise is that printed words are obsolete. A virus finds it's way into the smart-phone like devices people are using in the future. It causes people to start using wrong words and then transforms into a sickness that actually kills people. Sounds like a cool book to me.
Here's why it wasn't:
1.There were lots of footnotes. Reading footnotes on a kindle is really annoying.
2. The main characters worked for a dictionary. One of them used too many words that I didn't know, so I had to look them up. I can't just read past a word I'm unfamiliar with. That's not terrible, but he got infected with the word flu, so for a while I kept trying to look up nonsense words.
3. The background description of memes (the main method of communication and word used A LOT) in the book didn't come until more than halfway through the book.
4. Just too long for me. I guess my attention span is too short this week. It got to the point where I just wanted it to hurry and end.
Thanks NetGalley.com and Doubleday books for the advance read!
"A dystopian novel for the digital age, The Word Exchange offers an inventive, suspenseful, and decidedly original vision of the dangers of technology and of the enduring power of the printed word. "
The premise is that printed words are obsolete. A virus finds it's way into the smart-phone like devices people are using in the future. It causes people to start using wrong words and then transforms into a sickness that actually kills people. Sounds like a cool book to me.
Here's why it wasn't:
1.There were lots of footnotes. Reading footnotes on a kindle is really annoying.
2. The main characters worked for a dictionary. One of them used too many words that I didn't know, so I had to look them up. I can't just read past a word I'm unfamiliar with. That's not terrible, but he got infected with the word flu, so for a while I kept trying to look up nonsense words.
3. The background description of memes (the main method of communication and word used A LOT) in the book didn't come until more than halfway through the book.
4. Just too long for me. I guess my attention span is too short this week. It got to the point where I just wanted it to hurry and end.
Thanks NetGalley.com and Doubleday books for the advance read!
January 26, 2016
This is a premise in search of a plot, but it's a good enough premise to warrant a read. The constant, explicit foreshadowing was extremely annoying (e.g. "'[...] things are likely to get worse before they get better–if they get better.' How prophetic those words have come to seem." p. 208), as were the aphasic passages by Bart. Yes, it made me feel how disconcerting it would be to talk with someone suffering from aphasia, but it also made me feel like one chapter of such gibberish would have conveyed that point sufficiently.
I think what I enjoyed the most was not so much the idea that offloading memory into machines has all these cultural and linguistic risks, but that the extension of our culture's propensity to view things as property to be monetized is even riskier, and how technology infringes upon the commons. No one should be able to own words and charge you to use them. I think the same is true of genes, but our courts apparently disagree, and maybe our society does too, or at least they don't care or understand enough to raise a stink about it.
I also enjoyed how the book approaches (but doesn't quite set foot in) a post-literate world, where people are physically unable to use language of any kind without permission from (and payment to) a central authority, and that that world kind of looks like our world. I don't think we're headed that way (I'm of the opinion that we live in a golden age of writing, even if we may be devolving into a stone age of thinking), but sometimes the most effective dystopian fiction makes you struggle to realize why it's dystopian instead of how struggling to understand how such a messed-up world relates to the present era.
The nerd in me (and in all honesty there's not much else in there) had some issues with the technology, though. I know, it's not really about the tech, but the feasibility of the tech is what could make this really scary. The mechanism of word flu is that The confusion about this kind of stuff got in the way of my reading.
Overall, good Minskyan "everything else" scifi surrounded by general fiction marketing. If you like characters and plot and such, though, look elsewhere.
WORDS
My misgivings aside, it was nice to read a book with a slew of new words, and also the fun of deciding which words are real words you don't know and which words are made-up word flu words.
dulcarnon (n, though used as adj): supposedly deriving from Arabic for "having two horns," often used to describe the Pythagorean Theorem, but in this case it means to be in a dilemma. (p. 35)
synchronic (adj): referring to a specific moment in time without consideration of the past, specifically in the case of linguistics. (p. 83)
diachronic (adj): referring to changes in a system, particularly a linguistic one. (p. 84)
shakshouka (n): a Tunisian dish of eggs poached in a tomato sauce (p. 125)
stive (v): to pack in tightly according to some online sources. (p. 208)
prodrome (n): an early symptom. (p. 235)
cimicine (adj): having the odor of insects in the order Hemiptera, according to some online sources, though it casts some doubt on the usage here (a "cimicine basement" seems... really specific). (p. 292)
gargarism (n): according to Wordnik apparently it's something to gargle with. (p. 316)
And now I think I'll re-read David Foster Wallace's "Authority and American Usage," which apparently inspired this book.
I think what I enjoyed the most was not so much the idea that offloading memory into machines has all these cultural and linguistic risks, but that the extension of our culture's propensity to view things as property to be monetized is even riskier, and how technology infringes upon the commons. No one should be able to own words and charge you to use them. I think the same is true of genes, but our courts apparently disagree, and maybe our society does too, or at least they don't care or understand enough to raise a stink about it.
I also enjoyed how the book approaches (but doesn't quite set foot in) a post-literate world, where people are physically unable to use language of any kind without permission from (and payment to) a central authority, and that that world kind of looks like our world. I don't think we're headed that way (I'm of the opinion that we live in a golden age of writing, even if we may be devolving into a stone age of thinking), but sometimes the most effective dystopian fiction makes you struggle to realize why it's dystopian instead of how struggling to understand how such a messed-up world relates to the present era.
The nerd in me (and in all honesty there's not much else in there) had some issues with the technology, though. I know, it's not really about the tech, but the feasibility of the tech is what could make this really scary. The mechanism of word flu is that The confusion about this kind of stuff got in the way of my reading.
Overall, good Minskyan "everything else" scifi surrounded by general fiction marketing. If you like characters and plot and such, though, look elsewhere.
WORDS
My misgivings aside, it was nice to read a book with a slew of new words, and also the fun of deciding which words are real words you don't know and which words are made-up word flu words.
dulcarnon (n, though used as adj): supposedly deriving from Arabic for "having two horns," often used to describe the Pythagorean Theorem, but in this case it means to be in a dilemma. (p. 35)
synchronic (adj): referring to a specific moment in time without consideration of the past, specifically in the case of linguistics. (p. 83)
diachronic (adj): referring to changes in a system, particularly a linguistic one. (p. 84)
shakshouka (n): a Tunisian dish of eggs poached in a tomato sauce (p. 125)
stive (v): to pack in tightly according to some online sources. (p. 208)
prodrome (n): an early symptom. (p. 235)
cimicine (adj): having the odor of insects in the order Hemiptera, according to some online sources, though it casts some doubt on the usage here (a "cimicine basement" seems... really specific). (p. 292)
gargarism (n): according to Wordnik apparently it's something to gargle with. (p. 316)
And now I think I'll re-read David Foster Wallace's "Authority and American Usage," which apparently inspired this book.
July 22, 2021
3 1/2 stars. This is a very difficult book to review. It's difficult to categorise, for starters. It seems to be far too immature to class as a sci-fi thriller for adults; and yet the characters aren't young enough for this to fall into the young adult genre. It's also difficult to explain the plot unless you've read. So, I'll give you the short version: in the near future we rely so heavily on electronic devices that once they are infected with a virus, it spreads to all corners of the globe with zombie-like consequences. Although believable, this isn't such an original idea and has been used in the sci-fi genre many times. The symptoms of the virus, however, were original. The virus takes away your ability to speak or write. Just random words initially, to the extreme when you find you're talking such gibberish that you go insane. The basic message is that without language, we will not exist. (I actually rather the 'without art' theme that is popular in sci-fi and many other genres at the moment.) There's a bit of a moral in the virus -- as in, if you're bilingual, rely less on technology, and/or are well-read, you've got a better chance of avoiding being affected by it. I found this a little simplistic and preachy. The book was alternate chapters written in the first pov by the main female and male character, and I must admit I found this confusing at first. The female's included foot notes, which I hated. I read the book on my ereader and it was just plain annoying scrolling forwards and backwards to and from the notes, and I think 90% of the time the notes would have worked fine if they'd been included in the text of the chapter. I did wonder if they might have worked better if I'd been reading in print form, and this did make me chuckle at the irony. The male character spent most of his time mooning over the heroine or being bullied by her ex-boyfriend (at times I was picturing George McFly in my mind -- this isn't a good thing) and I think I would have liked them to have had some scenes together. Overall I enjoyed the book but I'm not going to say this will be an instant sci-fi classic such as Never Let Me Go.
April 8, 2014
4.5 STARS!!!
Xet this meting book! I wot believe I emkl word flu!!
Wow! This book is one that will really leave you thinking!! Not to mention, it’ll make you wish you were holding a “real” book and not your kindle or nook. This book can be downright frightening because you can so easily visualize something like this happening! Got word flu???
This book was just so incredibly interesting! It’s not one of those books that just sucks you right in and never let’s go, but it’s more of a gradual thing. You don’t find yourself zooming through the pages but rather letting everything soak in as you go. For someone that’s looking for a simple read then this may not be for you. The author uses a larger vocabulary than your average read these days, but for someone will a large vocabulary, this will be an easy read.
The POV rotates between Anana and Bart. For the most part I liked Anana’s character. I enjoyed her drive, but sometimes her actions didn’t make sense to me. Bart, on the otherhand, seemed very much cowardly and weak at the start, but later begins to redeem himself. Bart is quite attached to Anana, but hasn’t accomplished proving it in the past. He’s wanting to change that. So, there is a romantic undercurrent, but it isn’t the focal point of the story.
Negatives: There were several times that I was downright confused. The majority of the time, this was the intention of the author. However, there were a few times that I was confused where I was meant to understand. In the end, everything makes sense. I would have liked a better explanation on how the Meme worked, though.
I read an ARC, so I can’t give you any quotes at this time, but I’ll have to say that this book is quotastic! I highly recommend it to those that have a love for dystopian/sci-fi and the written word! This being the author’s first work is simply amazing!!
Warnings: strong language, violence
*I received a copy via NetGalley and Doubleday Books in exchange for an honest review.*
Xet this meting book! I wot believe I emkl word flu!!
Wow! This book is one that will really leave you thinking!! Not to mention, it’ll make you wish you were holding a “real” book and not your kindle or nook. This book can be downright frightening because you can so easily visualize something like this happening! Got word flu???
This book was just so incredibly interesting! It’s not one of those books that just sucks you right in and never let’s go, but it’s more of a gradual thing. You don’t find yourself zooming through the pages but rather letting everything soak in as you go. For someone that’s looking for a simple read then this may not be for you. The author uses a larger vocabulary than your average read these days, but for someone will a large vocabulary, this will be an easy read.
The POV rotates between Anana and Bart. For the most part I liked Anana’s character. I enjoyed her drive, but sometimes her actions didn’t make sense to me. Bart, on the otherhand, seemed very much cowardly and weak at the start, but later begins to redeem himself. Bart is quite attached to Anana, but hasn’t accomplished proving it in the past. He’s wanting to change that. So, there is a romantic undercurrent, but it isn’t the focal point of the story.
Negatives: There were several times that I was downright confused. The majority of the time, this was the intention of the author. However, there were a few times that I was confused where I was meant to understand. In the end, everything makes sense. I would have liked a better explanation on how the Meme worked, though.
I read an ARC, so I can’t give you any quotes at this time, but I’ll have to say that this book is quotastic! I highly recommend it to those that have a love for dystopian/sci-fi and the written word! This being the author’s first work is simply amazing!!
Warnings: strong language, violence
*I received a copy via NetGalley and Doubleday Books in exchange for an honest review.*
July 25, 2014
I wanted to like this. I really did. For short bursts of time, it even engaged me. But then the idiotic heroine did something particularly idiotic that she had done before which proved its idiocy, but will she learn? It's kind of hard to get on board a really long, rather pointless adventure if this lady will behave like the dystopian equivalent of the horror movie dumb blonde who just couldn't leave whatever well enough alone.
Had she been, like her horror movie equivalent, killed right after her intro, it would've been a better book. There would be more of the plague, of the disruption of culture and the efforts to counter it, maybe from stupid's genius dad's point of view. Aside from the lack of stupidity, there would be no navel gazing, no purple prose about how she is the greatest ever to have been (from Bart's point of view,I mean, he exists as a mirror to Ana's greatness), no heavy handed portents of the future presented every two paragraphs. I cannot for the life of me see what was important about her, and why she was required to further the plot.
Whatever. It's a flu that's transferred via communication. Not air, but words. I don't know. I must have missed something crucial in the middle of all the waffling, because that didn't make much sense to me. The aphasia did, that was well explained, and in the realm of the probable. The rest of it, the nausea, headaches and did not. It was too vague, too little of the not inconsiderable page count was devoted to it, and too late. Ah no, we need to talk about Ana and will she, won't she, with her ex-boyfriend douchebag Max.
Structure wise, it was a good attempt, especially Bart's parts with the aphasia woven in. It's just too bad the content of his chapters don't match up. Nothing actually matched up - it was a good concept that was lost in the middle of too much stupidity. 2 stars.
I received a copy of this book for review, via NetGalley.
Had she been, like her horror movie equivalent, killed right after her intro, it would've been a better book. There would be more of the plague, of the disruption of culture and the efforts to counter it, maybe from stupid's genius dad's point of view. Aside from the lack of stupidity, there would be no navel gazing, no purple prose about how she is the greatest ever to have been (from Bart's point of view,I mean, he exists as a mirror to Ana's greatness), no heavy handed portents of the future presented every two paragraphs. I cannot for the life of me see what was important about her, and why she was required to further the plot.
Whatever. It's a flu that's transferred via communication. Not air, but words. I don't know. I must have missed something crucial in the middle of all the waffling, because that didn't make much sense to me. The aphasia did, that was well explained, and in the realm of the probable. The rest of it, the nausea, headaches and did not. It was too vague, too little of the not inconsiderable page count was devoted to it, and too late. Ah no, we need to talk about Ana and will she, won't she, with her ex-boyfriend douchebag Max.
Structure wise, it was a good attempt, especially Bart's parts with the aphasia woven in. It's just too bad the content of his chapters don't match up. Nothing actually matched up - it was a good concept that was lost in the middle of too much stupidity. 2 stars.
I received a copy of this book for review, via NetGalley.
May 16, 2014
This is about as good a debut novel as they come.
I would hate to be accused of hyperbole, but I think in a very short time this book could rank in importance alongside books such as Orwell's '1984', Huxley's 'A Brave New World'. The author, as all good authors, do uses the text discuss the bigger issues facing us right now. The differences between information and knowledge. How we obtain said knowledge. The purpose and use of language. The loss of the the skill of memorization through over reliance on technology. The ways we communicate and their effects on communication.
Clearly the author does have a manifesto, but doesn't ram it down the reader's throat and personally it is one that as I get older and learn more, I am increasingly starting to think she has right. As well being a great exploration of all these thing, it is a really good read, a page turner, but one I want to come back to at some point savour the small details and ponder more deeply the questions raised.
I would really recommend this book for anyone, if you enjoy science-fiction you might additionally enjoy it as it is set in a not too distant future. I look forward to seeing if she can repeat her success with future books.
I would hate to be accused of hyperbole, but I think in a very short time this book could rank in importance alongside books such as Orwell's '1984', Huxley's 'A Brave New World'. The author, as all good authors, do uses the text discuss the bigger issues facing us right now. The differences between information and knowledge. How we obtain said knowledge. The purpose and use of language. The loss of the the skill of memorization through over reliance on technology. The ways we communicate and their effects on communication.
Clearly the author does have a manifesto, but doesn't ram it down the reader's throat and personally it is one that as I get older and learn more, I am increasingly starting to think she has right. As well being a great exploration of all these thing, it is a really good read, a page turner, but one I want to come back to at some point savour the small details and ponder more deeply the questions raised.
I would really recommend this book for anyone, if you enjoy science-fiction you might additionally enjoy it as it is set in a not too distant future. I look forward to seeing if she can repeat her success with future books.
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