A fascinating account of a part of history we take for granted. Academic (in both good and bad ways) but overall enjoyable.
Summary:
James Murray sets out on a quest for the ages to catalogue and track the journey of every word in the English language. But he obviously needs some help, so he enlists volunteers from around the globe to collect words for his dictionary. One of his most ingenious and dedicated volunteer is the mysterious Dr. William Chester Minor. Little does the Oxford man know that Dr. Minor is an asylum inmate and famous murderer. Together this unlikely duo will make one of the greatest achievements of mankind and become fast friends. True story.
Verdict: 7/10
I never thought about how daunting yet vital the dictionary was and how much went into compiling EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. But Winchester clearly lays out how herculean and amazing this task was. He documents a part of literary history and world history that I never would have explored otherwise.
I loved the tale this story weaves and the full account of both men, their similarities and obvious differences. James Murray comes off as a type of Alexander Hamilton: a self-taught, self-made scholar with an unmatched thirst for knowledge and passion for words. Then there's Dr. Minor who seems more like Robert Downey Jr.'s version of Sherlock: a skilled doctor with an exotic background and extreme intelligence but his background with war, his guilt, and his lust for women make him wild.
The writing can be a little academic and wordy at times (just like the dictionary it’s describing) and the author goes off on tangents that aren’t always needed. For example, I don't think I really needed to know the debate surrounding the definition of protagonist or how Shakespeare didn’t know Elephant inns were named after animals. I'd rather stick to the main men at hand.
The story had a great premise but took a bit of a jog to get there. The chapters feel very long and are not necessarily what I’d call thrilling, even when they’re talking about war or murder. The academic tone lessens the action, yet Winchester still chronicles key points in an intriguing order and enough description to put the reader in the setting.
It’s slow paced until Minor starts working on the dictionary. Then you really come to appreciate the genius method that he used in collecting the words and waiting to give quotations until Murray said he needed them. The plot gains steam at the same rate of the dictionary's publication, whereas amassing the background knowledge took up the beginning time.
It was a little shocking to know that the volunteers didn’t write the definitions. If they did, they would all sound different. Instead the volunteers were in charge of finding the reference points for the editors to go off of. You really come to respect how much organization the dictionary took. It’s like an OCD's brand of heroine to sort through and arrange every word, listing and alphabetizing and mapping things out chronologically. It’s kind of a bibliophile's dream project!
While the story could have used more oomph or drama, I learned a lot and had fun doing it. It's worth a read and definitely gave me a new appreciation for a tool that we often take for granted.
Speaking of dramatizing, I did watch the movie. I wondered how they were going to make it exciting enough for Hollywood. And the answer was that they changed almost everything! They inserted a romance with the widow, made the asylum doctor a monster, created a villain by pitting the Oxford academics against Mr. Murray, and portrayed Dr. Minor as completely unhinged more than I ever considered in the book. It's one thing to change fiction, but this was real! You can't just switch facts to suit your own picture! It was totally scattered, non-cohesive, and uninspired. A star-studded cast will not salvage this disregard of history. I give the movie a 2 out of 10.
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