Sleuthing with Words: The Book List

I really like words. I really like digging into words and knowing their meanings, origins, and future directions. Probably in an pretty nice world, I’d be a lexicographer, researching and defining words in quiet camaraderie with my fellow lexicographers. I’d be assigned a portion of the dictionary, then research and define my way through said portion. In this way, I get to work with the things I like best while still working on my own for the most part. Forget being a team player: I’m the one who always has to pull the most weight, anyway, and I’m sick of interacting with people. Words will talk back, they’ll alternatively confuse and elucidate me, but I imagine it would be like having a very interesting conversation all day long. Instead of explaining to the entitled science academic why we couldn’t get wireless in the meeting room (deemed unnecessary by the hosts—but the entitled science academic will still stomp her foot and scream “Right now!” like a two-year-old instead of accepting the situation like the supposedly respected scientist she is).

But I digress.

My first book of the year is Emily Arsenault’s debut novel, The Broken Teaglass, a tale of two lexicographers and the murder mystery they find embedded within the citation files they work with on a day-to-day basis. The protagonists are Billy, a recent college grad who majored in philosophy, and Mona, an employee of Samuelson Company, who has one year of seniority on Billy. They’re brought together when Billy is asked to take on a correspondent who Mona’s been handling—the last letter contained references to dominatrix and editrix, prompting Billy and Mona’s supervisor, Dan, to turn to Billy to answer the letter. Billy consults first with Mona, and that’s when they stumble upon the first citation (cits, for shorthand) among editrix that will lead to a complete story and real-life murder mystery that begins to involve current and former employees of Samuelson Company. Mona takes the lead and Billy follows, indulgently at first, but he becomes immersed and involved in the story told by Dolores Beekmim, pen name for former employee of Samuelson Company.

Although Billy and Mona focus and fixate on the story of the murder that involves their colleagues, the book does not attempt to drive at the need for justice or a public revelation of the story they find. Rather, the discovery of the cits that are told under a story also titled The Broken Teaglass mirror Billy’s own coming-of-age; sure, he doesn’t murder anyone, but the ennui that can settle in soon after you get your first job is all too evident in Billy’s and the cit writer’s day-to-day life; both the cit writer and Billy harbor a secret that they apparently refuse to share with their closest confidantes. Even the situation that leads to the murder is reflected in Mona and Billy’s first interaction: the passing of correspondence.

In contrast to most book lists, I’m actually not going to spoil this one. Why? Because it’s a good, solid read. It does start off a bit slow, but the pace quickly picks up as Billy and Mona become more defined as characters. I would say that the biggest weakness are the murder cits themselves; not in that they’re badly written or irrelevant, but some are repeated several times—sure, it is helpful because you can pick up on clues more easily in the repetition, but I did find it a bit tedious to read the cit for softbound over and over again even if it was Billy’s favorite.

Arsenault, in her acknowledgments, apologizes to her fellow lexicographers, both for fudging the lexicographical process a bit, and for rendering a lexicography office as more of a stodgy, uptight environment. What’s funny is that I walked away from the book wanting to work for Samuelson Company (in a more ideal location, of course; trade Massachusetts for Colorado and I’m so there). Murders in the cit files aside, I wanted to bury my head in words all day and not come up until it was time to go home.

Oh, and I wouldn’t mind a teaglass. I imagine it to look this when not broken:

Onto the 2010 book list:

Finished:

1) The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault
2) The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
3) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peal Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Re-read:

Empty

Currently Reading:

1) Shakespeare’s Wife by Germaine Greer

Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Husband or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):

1) Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
2) The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton
3) Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser
4) Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
5) Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
6) Under the Dome by Stephen King