Critique de The Liar's Dictionary par Josh

The Liar's Dictionary is a book about logophiles (lovers of words). Folks with this particular fetish are rightly considered by the general public to be harmless weirdos. They are sometimes mistaken for being exceptionally intelligent.

Underlying logophilia there are some mildly interesting questions tied to the philosophy of language. The biggest of these is the question of linguistic relativity, a.k.a. the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which is (roughly) the notion that the structure of language influences how we think. There are a bunch of thorny related issues around how words come to mean stuff, who decides what they mean, what words ought to exist, etc.

The Liar's Dictionary doesn't directly address any of these things. However, if you read large chunks of the book while stoned your mind might well wander to these places from the jumping-off point of a story about some dictionary nerds.

I gave it 3 stars because I just didn't find the story or characters particularly interesting. They weren't bad but I just kept thinking "this is all made up, none of it really happened! Why should I care?" It reminded me why I don't read a ton of fiction.

At the same time it's hard to be sure how much my evaluation of books was determined by my mood and state of mind going into this story. As I was reading it was I thinking "I probably should be enjoying this more than I actually am... it seems like the sort of story that someone like me would like." Sadly, this appraisal didn't actually make it any more enjoyable to read.