There’s nothing quite like The Lover’s Dictionary. Beautifully crafted by David Levithan, it is a novel of love but it reads like poetry in its witty wordplay and eloquently written dictionary entries – yes, just like a dictionary! Every page holds a word carefully selected from the love story, as though the writer were picking ripe fruit, to describe the state of the protagonists’ relationship.
Written in the form of a dictionary, the novel speaks of an unnamed couple who meet through an online dating website through the eyes of the male narrator. It’s a fun, effortless read and little focus on the traditional plot. Two people meet and fall in love after a few dates. Much like meeting or talking to someone online, the novel focuses on the emotional state of the characters, rather than the mundane details about their past or appearance.
The entries aren’t written in a chronological order, so the timeline tends to jump from one event to the other. Some seem like journal-entries whilst others are short notes. The reader is often left to ponder the details of the obligatory ups and downs of the relationship, and whether the protagonists have chosen to overlook them. I like to believe that’s left for the reader to decide, because it tackles the question of whether love dies or not. Indeed, that is one of the things I admire most about this novel; the whimsical way it leaves the reader to decide.
Here’s an excerpt from the book explaining why it was written in dictionary-form:
“ineffable, adj.
These words will ultimately end up being the barest of reflections, devoid of the sensations words cannot convey. Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.”
This novel is all about wordplay. You can pick any random page from the book and read it as though you were reading a dictionary. As a writer, I loved the wordplay and unique narrative structure.
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Book Recommendation:
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
A family gathering, a group of four ‘liars,’ love, and a secret: after losing her memory of what had happened, a damaged girl returns to her family’s private island in search of answers to a traumatizing incident that she encountered two summers earlier.
By Sana Ashraf
David’s Photo by Neil Kendal
