Occasionally I find myself disappointed when a book comes highly recommended but, after reading the first ten pages, I know the characters and the outcome. I flip to the last chapter and it is exactly as anticipated. Every once in a while, though, a book surprises me, whether because of the well drawn characters or the surprise outcomes or the articulate author. Then again the verbosity (an excess of words) in lieu of laconism (plain English) can drive me to distraction. I recently finished reading just such a book. While the characters were indefinite and the plot thin, the author attempted to obfuscate the matters by turning the tap on a liquid version of the Oxford English Dictionary and sprinkling words such as amanuensis, chthonic, otiose, crepuscular, atavistic, palimpsest, louche and threnody, throughout the dreary saga to give the book gravitas (substance). Unfortunately, none of which helped the story along but instead served to stop me in my tracks, write the words on a separate page and look them up in the OED. It could be said that there was some merit to the book after all, otherwise how would I know the meaning of crepuscular, although I still think it would have been easier to say twilight. Did I leave out yashmak and jingoism; pardon. Please see how many of the words below can be sprinkled into your next conversation or missive in the next 24 hours.
amanuensis - personal secretary
chthonic - earthy
otiose - ineffective and futile
crepuscular - twilight
atavistic - evolutionary throw back
palimpsest - reused parchment paper
louche - disreputable in an appealing way
threnody - a dirge; a memorial song of mourning to a dead person
yashmak - Turkish veil used to cover a woman’s face
jingoism - extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy
Then again, speaking of surprises, I just finished reading Gone Girl. The words were small, ordinary and everyday (laconic), but the plot was intriguing, the characters multi-layered (louche and psychotic) and I couldn’t wait for the next plot twist. I read the entire book in two days.
