blog — elinor lower

16.01.2021 - Tasting Words, Anew

I recently finished reading Eley Williams’ novel ‘The Liar’s Dictionary’. A borrowed copy, thrust into my hands by a friend on their return to the living room.

“Read this. Underline the bits you like, I’ve done it too.”

And my crumbly HB chases her un-erasable red colouring pencil across quick turns of phrase, meandering etymological contemplations; draws chunky emphases under the jokes I like, pleasing clumps of assonant sounds.

Like

choreographed floppage

— _p.189

and

brain-crimping silence

_{— p. 147}

Every now and then, there is a cluster; four lines in a row enclosed by giant red parentheses. Or by a procession of underlines. This bit, it demands, what do you think of this bit? BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS BRILLIANT.

AAAH! I often agree in the margin.

Or !!

Or ♥

(The most ardently attended-to paragraphs are the ones about gay longing, romantic agony, about the feeling of pulling your guts out through your mouth to try and tell someone how you feel.

Like

She tapped a pen to a Styrofoam cup in her hand and I lost four years off my life.

— _{p. 118}

The definition of love (v.) drives us both, briefly, mad. But we’re in a pandemic, and haven’t touched another person in ten months, so. Shrug!)

I read

He never realised that he needed to believe a moth could shout in rage,

— _{p. 177}

and I love this book.

It cleanses the taste of stale nothing from my tongue. Wipes away a year of frustrated chalkdust, flittering iPhone notes that read play idea, something about power / adhd symptoms? / Espresso Black Americano Tea soya milk Cheesy pasty or something for Tom / to ask everyoneDEMAND: why is this important? / ça serait mieux, billet, il = y.

It fords the twisting maelstrom between ALL THE NONFICTION YOU’RE TRYING TO READ and ALL OF THE STORIES YOU’RE TRYING TO WRITE.

Look, the book says. Look how much joy there is to be found in holding words you like in the palm of your hand. Feeling their weight, turning them over. Look at how much fun you can have! There are lives in these pages that are built on games.

Herein is woven a Full On Love Story that feels so meaningful in its groundedness that two of you, sat on separate beds in separate houses (though really, only a fifteen minute walk apart) nearly snapped a lead in your determination to commit it to memory. Look at how the corner of your mouth lifts as you read. This book has scrawled words on the inside of your brain.

And in my room, I roll words around in my mouth. Whisper passages to myself in the sun-white glow of a SAD lamp.

I risk an anxious toppling into the Omnipresent Nihilism hunched in my subconscious and let my mind wander. Just for a moment. Shove up the paintmarked sash window and breathe in the smell of wet leaves and city-stink.

An empty crosscountry train thunders past.

Hmm, I think, staring into the middle distance. Trees are weird, aren’t they.

Arboreal. Naturally un-topiaric.

Ecosia, give me “words about trees”.

banyan maple ash sapling species hazel branch pine tree trees holly taiga inga casuarina puka dipterocarp lumber souari devilwood poon cockspur palm tree ribbonwood seedling

and yet yet yet yet yet yet

— _{p. 185}

(At some point in the reading she switches from red to orange. And I, having lost my mechanical pencil, begin using a terrible waxy purple.)

A photo of a page spread of The Liar's Dictionary. Many words and phrases are underlined, by two different readers.

A photo of a page spread of The Liar's Dictionary. Many words and phrases are underlined, by two different readers.

NB.

(what I’m reading, on walks round the park as if I think I’m a Quirky Lead in an indie movie:

a little life — hanya yanagihara
pride and prejudice — jane austen
underland — robert macfarlane
earthsea cycle — ursula le guin

and I’m on GoodReads, if it’s of interest)

elinor lower.

elinor lower.

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