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Lost for Words by Edward St Aubyn review – a tale of literary revenge

E dward St Aubyn (right) thought he was changing the subject in a 2011 Guardian interview when he said that instead of reflecting on a prize he couldn't win, he was going to start writing a new novel. "The Booker 2011 is of no more interest to me than the world heavyweight championship, which I'm not going to win either. It's irrelevant." The interviewer wanted St Aubyn to admit that he had been as outraged as everybody else that At Last , the final volume in his increasingly celebrated Patrick Melrose series, hadn't even made the Booker longlist, and St Aubyn was rejecting the opportunity. But as things turned out, the new novel became an exercise not in progress but revenge – Lost for Words is the portrait of a slackly managed literary prize, complete with a cast of clay-footed judges and thin-skinned hopefuls. Satire on the vanity and philistinism of cultural life, stuffed with topical references and reeking of sour grapes, has become a visible strand of English fiction lately, and St Aubyn's stony-hearted and gruellingly unfunny novel follows recent books by Hanif Kureishi ( The Last Word ) and Howard Jacobson ( The Finkler Question , Zoo Time ) not just in airing these anxieties but in bringing out the worst in a considerable writer.

Lost for Words , though undoubtedly his weakest book, is not without precedent in St Aubyn's slender backlist. Readers familiar only with the Patrick Melrose series (the earlier volumes being the Some Hope trilogy and Mother's Milk ) may find themselves double-checking the book's title page and copyright details, but readers of his 1998 New Age comedy On the Edge will know the score. The target may be different but the approach is the same: the sly, chatty third-person narration and the constant onslaught of wordplay, bathos, farcical mishap and circular logic. Malcolm Craig, the MP selected to chair the prestigious Elysian prize, defines his role as "to inspire, to collate, and, above all, to delegate". The publisher Alan Oaks, when faced with a manuscript, always looks "at the last page number before reading the first word". The novelist Sam Black decides "it was out of the question not to win. And it was out of the question to have thought that it was out of the question not to win." The problem isn't that the book's evocation of cynicism – itself a kind of cynicism – is so unremitting, but that it is so lacklustre.

In St Aubyn's defence, the 2011 Booker prize is a fairly promising subject for a satire along these lines. It was the year when Dame Stella Rimington , reconfigured here as judge Penny Feathers, chaired a panel of judges who richly fulfilled initial fears that they weren't quite up to the job . Talk of books that "zip along" alternated with attacks on the "London literati" (or "the London literary world"). Unfortunately, the fantasia that St Aubyn has spun around these events, as well as indulging in all the lowest comic impulses, never sets down a confident diagnosis. Either the Elysian prize is a potential ally of literature undermined by a jury eager to be "diverse, multicultural, devolutionary", or it is little more than a publicity machine for its agribusiness sponsor, and so prize and jury deserve each other. Whatever the case, St Aubyn fails to make it resonate. Perhaps it is simply that the comic element of his satire overwhelms the polemical side. The writer eager for laughs is liable to a kind of nihilism; to care about something would be to cut off a potential source of humour.

Another possibility is that the Elysian prize, notwithstanding the corruptness of its sponsor, would deserve a better class of judges if only there were some knowing, sensible, solidly English comic novels for them to read. Instead, different members of the Elysian jury find much to admire – though for not always literary reasons – in Sam Black's pretentious bildungsroman, in a portrait of Scottish drug addicts called w ot u starin at (a joke, like so many here, that is decades out of date), and in a "ripping yarn" about the Enigma code. There is also a privately published Indian cookbook submitted in error and mistaken for a postmodern comedy.

As if the contenders weren't silly enough in prospect, St Aubyn offers the reader numerous italicised excerpts, so we know for certain just how foolish, say, Penny must be to give the Shakespeare novel All the World's a Stage "the thumbs up". But a novel as badly written as Lost for Words is hardly a suitable home for parody. St Aubyn has fun at the expense of the adjective "imperceptible", but what about his own use of words such as "imperturbable", "olfactory" and "eructations", or phrases such as "the miserable maze of leprous love"? Because the prize judges, no less than the competing novelists and their airheaded hangers- on, are all types, narrowly representative of a social category (sex kitten with daddy issues, motormouth dilettante, posh Indian) or mindset (Westminster, Whitehall, Oxbridge), we can never be sure whether St Aubyn is adopting the voice of the character he is writing about, rendering the book little more than a series of parodies, some italicised, some not, or has simply lost sight of his own mannerisms.

There is just one moment where we catch a glimpse of what might be at stake – and it is completely out of step with the rest of the novel, being sincerely engaged with both the personal and the literary, and reflecting its author's history of pain rather than his temporary fit of bitterness. It comes when Vanessa, the academic member of the jury, having suffered "a violent desire to tear the bird feeder off its branch" while reflecting on her daughter's anorexia, recalls King Lear after Cordelia's death, and finds herself "wondering why any book should win this fucking prize" unless it stood a chance of coming back to "a person when she wanted to cry but couldn't, or wanted to think but couldn't think clearly, or wanted to laugh but saw no reason to".

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Opinion Book review: “Lost for Words” by Edward St. Aubyn

This deliciously irreverent novel, Edward St. Aubyn's eighth, will delight his admirers on this side of the Atlantic, but such being the nature of literary justice it must be acknowledged that their numbers are small. St. Aubyn, now in his mid-50s, has been widely praised in his native England and has acquired something of a following there — indeed, just the other day "Lost for Words" was announced as the 2014 winner of the Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction — but in the United States his books have been available primarily in trade paperbacks (from the excellent Picador imprint) and do not seem to have sold especially well except among members of his ardently loyal cult.

I count myself among its members, but through no particular acuity or virtue of my own. About a year ago an old friend whose literary judgment I value asked if I had read St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels. When I admitted that not merely had I not read them, I had never heard of them, he urged me to correct matters at once. This I did, and to my everlasting joy. Patrick Melrose, the author’s very thinly disguised autobiographical self, is a willfully self-destructive yet somehow buoyant young man who progresses through these five novels from an unhappy childhood under the tutelage of a sublimely insensitive father through drug addiction, fragile recovery and the beginnings of a new life. The novels are at times quite hilarious — a cocktail party in “Some Hope,” Volume 3 of the set, is a minor classic — and at others sobering. At moments they recall Wodehouse, at others Waugh, but they are always entirely sui generis, elegantly written, witty and adult.

St. Aubyn apparently has put Patrick Melrose behind him — "At Last," the fifth volume, was published in this country two years ago — but his voice has lost none of its distinctiveness as he has ventured into new territory. "Lost for Words" is a withering satire of the vicious, back-stabbing process out of which literary prize winners emerge, most particularly the process by which Britain's Man Booker Prizes are chosen, a process about which St. Aubyn has personal knowledge as one of his novels, "Mother's Milk," was shortlisted for the Booker in 2006. In St. Aubyn's hands, the Booker becomes the Elysian Prize, sponsored by and named after "a highly innovative but controversial agricultural company" whose products include "some of the world's most radical herbicides and pesticides, and [it] was a leader in the field of genetically modified crops, crossing wheat with Arctic cod to make it frost resistant, or lemons with bullet ants to give them extra zest."

In serious need of an image makeover, Elysian wrapped itself in the cloak of literature, rather in the manner of the Man Group, the high-powered investment company that took over the Booker Prize a dozen years ago. Now it is time for the latest Elysian winner to be chosen, a task that falls to the jury’s new chairman, Malcolm Craig, who had briefly been undersecretary of state for Scotland until “a reckless speech about Scottish independence” cost him his job. Now he commands a jury that includes Jo Cross, “a well-known columnist and media personality”; Vanessa Shaw, the obligatory “Oxbridge academic”; Penny Feathers, formerly of the Foreign Office and now an author manqué; and Tobias Benedict, “an actor Malcolm had never heard of.”

Any author writing in English in one of the Commonwealth countries is eligible for the prize, which, unlike its counterpart in the United States, the National Book Award, actually amounts to something. The winning work of fiction may be nothing more than a beneficiary of literary politics at its smallest and meanest, but the prize ceremony is broadcast on television after a prolonged build-up, the cumulative effect of which is to make the winner well-to-do not merely because of the prize money but because of the increased sales that follow.

So it goes without saying that competition for the Elysian is cutthroat, and the more mediocre the novelist and his or her book, the more determined the throat-cutting. Among the books whose authors have dreams of Elysian glory are "wot u starin at," purportedly a work of "gritty social realism" set in Scotland (its author turns out to be "a well-paid lecturer in medieval love poetry at Edinburgh University"); "The Frozen Torrent," "a bildungsroman of impeccable anguish and undisguised autobiographical origin"; "The Mulberry Elephant," the work of "an Indian grandee who had stooped to conquer English letters"; and "All the World's a Stage," "written by a young New Zealander from the point of view of William Shakespeare." It had been expected that another competitor would be the latest novel by the entirely lovely and serially promiscuous Katherine Burns, but somehow her publisher instead delivered to the jury the manuscript of a cookbook — "cookery book," as the Brits have it — assembled by the elderly Indian aunt of the author of "The Mulberry Elephant."

As the jurors lumber and squabble their way first to the Long List of nominees, then to the Short List, then at last to the ultimate victor, St. Aubyn has a splendid time satirizing just about every kind of fiction being written in English these days, from the pseudo-streetwise “wot u starin at” to the fey “All the World’s a Stage.” In the latter the strumpet Mistress Lucretia asks Will Shakespeare, “Where is that sonnet you promised me?” to which he replies, “Why, ’tis in my codpiece, for a man is a fool who keeps not a poem in his codpiece, and a codpiece that hath no poem in it is indeed a foolish codpiece.” Confronted with this wealth of literary riches, the jury scarcely knows what to do, leaving poor Vanessa Shaw, the Oxbridge lady, at a loss. Malcolm listens to her with pity:

“He could hear Vanessa’s exasperation as she gradually realized that the majority of her so-called ‘literary’ novels were not going to make it on to the Short List. She kept trying to argue that the other novels lacked the qualities that characterized a work of literature: ‘depth, beauty, structural integrity, and an ability to revive our tired imaginations with the precision of its language.’ The poor woman didn’t seem to realize that what counted in the adult world was working out compromises between actual members of a committee that reflected the forces at work in the wider society, like Parliament in relation to the nation as a whole. Vanessa had taken on the role of a doomed backbencher, making speeches to an empty chamber about values that simply had no place in the modern world. Frankly, he felt rather sorry for her.”

That’s one of the two serious arguments that lie behind St. Aubyn’s satire. The other comes from an unlikely source, Liu Ping Wo, “Chairman of Shanghai Global Assets, the new owners of the Elysian Group.” Making conversation, one of the jurors asks him what direction the prize should take. He replies: “It’s a prize for literature. I hope it will go in the direction of literature. My wife takes a great interest in these things. Personally I think that competition should be encouraged in war and sport and business, but that it makes no sense in the arts. If an artist is good, nobody else can do what he or she does and therefore all comparisons are incoherent. Only the mediocre, pushing forward a commonplace view of life in a commonplace language, can really be compared, but my wife thinks that ‘least mediocre of the mediocre’ is a discouraging title for a prize.”

Wo permits himself a small laugh at that, but of course he is exactly right. Literary prizes can be stacked in any number of directions, but true excellence and originality are only infrequently among them.

LOST FOR WORDS

By Edward St. Aubyn

Farrar Straus Giroux. 261 pp. $26

The world at your fingertips

Book Review: Lost For Words

BY READERS DIGEST

1st Jan 2015 Book Reviews

Lost for Words, by Edward St Aubyn

  (Picador, £10.39; ebook, £8.99)

Edward St Aubyn has freely admitted that his five hugely acclaimed novels about Patrick Melrose  were rooted in his own life. Like Melrose, he’s of upper-class stock, was horrifically abused by his father and became a heroin addict. Yet the strange thing about these books is how funny they are, packed with a ferocious comedy that’s rightly earned comparisons with Evelyn Waugh.

Such comparisons are unlikely to die away now that St Aubyn has moved on to a full-blown satire of the books world, with the plot featuring a fictional—but clearly Booker-inspired—literary prize. While his concerns may be less introspective, his humour remains winningly dark and his one-liners elegantly brittle (“there was nothing like proving you were a team player to get your own way”). There are also some withering parodies—including of Irvine Welsh, with “Death Boy’s troosers were round his ankies”, one of the few printable sentences we get from a shortlisted novel called What U Starin At?

Not that the autobiographical element has entirely disappeared. After writing fiction “of impeccable anguish and undisguised autobiographical origin”, one character now wants to “win his freedom from the tyranny of pain-based art”. With Lost for Words, St Aubyn has surely done just that.

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Lost For Words by Edward St Aubyn, book review: This novel about the Man Booker Prize is close to the bone

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When Edward St Aubyn failed to win the Man Booker Prize in 2006, there was much surprise from his many literary supporters, although the writer said nothing before eventually claiming a sense of relief.

Perhaps that was true. But if so, his graceful acceptance has now percolated into a novel much less benign than might be expected of someone genuinely relieved at having escaped the winner's publicity machine.

Lost for Words is a witty, often excoriating, riposte to the phenomenon and workings of major book awards.It follows the members of the committee for the Elysian prize as they discuss – though largely fail to read – submissions from around 200 hopefuls including the serial heartbreaker Katherine Burns, arguably talented debutant Sam Black and wealthy Indian maharaja Sonny whose Auntie inadvertently usurps him to become a star of the circus.

The characters are big, almost cartoon-like, from Didier, the preposterous critical theorist, to Jo Cross, the columnist obsessed with "relevance". They are defined – and condemned – by their language and writing styles. Words are all.

Part of the delight is trying to identify models for St Aubyn's satirical targets. As a book world outsider-insider– I cover all the main prizes, I don't get invited to all the parties – there was pleasure and mild irritation in equal measure at the suspicion that, were I fully embedded, there would have been more side-swipes to spot.

But you don't have to be Sherlock to identify that the central argument is probably that sparked by 2011 Booker chair Dame Stella Rimington, former MI5 boss turned spy fiction writer, whose desire for "readability" and novels that "zip along" was met with despair by high-minded supporters of the literary principles of the prize.

Thus the Elysian committee includes Penny Feathers, who pens clichéd thrillers after early retirement from the Foreign Office. Ouch. But clever elision means that it is the Elysian prize chairman, MP Malcolm Craig, a former school debater from Aberdeen (hmm, as is the current Education Secretary), who wants to reclaim the literary scene from "vested interests" for the "ordinary readers" – in an alternative rendering of the Rimington aims.

Oxbridge academic Vanessa Shaw is the lone voice searching for a novel with "depth, beauty, structural integrity and an ability to revive our tired imaginations with the precision of its language". She laments of her fellow judges: "I'm talking to people who…have no idea how to read a book".

The novel is so broad in attack, it loses just some of the elegance of the semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels for which St Aubyn is acclaimed. But for all the occasional doubts that the polemic is too unsubtle, the author turns in sentence after sentence to savour. Anyone in love with an indiscriminate seducer should memorise and treasure Sam's observation on Katherine: "Her openness to fidelity filled him with an optimism that her choice of infidelity discouraged."

And, of course, this is more than simple comedic revenge. In case it should be forgotten, St Aubyn's failure to win the Booker was not at the hands of Dame Stella. It was the distinguished academic Hermione Lee who chaired the 2006 judges who chose Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss over Mother's Milk.

And handsome Cambridge-educated Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens, the possible model for the "good-looking" repertory theatre actor Tobias Benedict, helped 2012 chair Sir Peter Stothard reward Hilary Mantel, not Lee with Desai.

The possible parallels are fun but St Aubyn's targets are not necessarily obvious. It is a glorious twist – spoiler alert – that the prize's Chinese corporate sponsors agree with Vanessa in wanting it to be a prize for literature. Mr Wo and his wife are the most likeable figures in the entire tale in a surprise V-sign to all who condemn the commercial as inevitably culturally criminal.

Real award organisers will deny St Aubyn's suggestion of venality and actual corruption, but the question of how wisely judges make their choices is a valid one. Lost for Words has set prize committees an entertaining challenge for next year.

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By Michiko Kakutani

• May 19, 2014

In recounting the story of his semi-autobiographical hero, Patrick Melrose, in a series of interlinked novels (“Never Mind,” “Bad News,” “Some Hope,” “Mother’s Milk” and “At Last” ), Edward St. Aubyn established himself as a dazzling writer with an utterly distinctive voice. The harrowing story of Patrick’s life — from being raped at 5 by his monstrous father, to his years as a heroin addict, to his achievement of a measure of perspective and peace in middle age — was simultaneously heartbreaking and funny, devastatingly sad and cuttingly acerbic: painful experience transmuted into art through beautifully hammered, aphoristic prose.

His new novel, “Lost for Words,” is a very different sort of book: a satirical romp that showcases just one octave of Mr. St. Aubyn’s keyboard of gifts: his Waugh-like talent for comedy and his unsparing eye for people’s pretensions and self-delusions.

In the Melrose novels, the world that Mr. St. Aubyn so expertly skewered was the high-altitude one of British aristos — preening, narcissistic and obsessed with class. In “Lost for Words,” it’s the world of literary politics — preening, narcissistic and obsessed with status.

More specifically, the object of satire here is book awards: most notably, the well-known Man Booker Prize, depicted in barely disguised terms as the Elysian Prize. British newspaper writers have suggested that “Lost for Words” is actually a riposte or act of revenge on the part of Mr. St. Aubyn, noting that his critically acclaimed 2006 novel, “Mother’s Milk,” was a front-runner for the Man Booker Prize that year, only to be passed over for “The Inheritance of Loss,” by Kiran Desai, and that his similarly acclaimed “At Last” did not even make the Booker’s 2011 longlist. (In a twist the author might enjoy, “Lost for Words” has just been awarded the 2014 Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction.)

Both the judges on the panel for the Elysian Prize and the hopeful authors of submitted books are sent up here with a light, wicked hand reminiscent at once of Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark. The chairman of the prize committee is an obscure member of Parliament named Malcolm Craig, who accepts the post out of boredom with his day job and the hopes that it might secure him “a decent amount of public attention.”

“We want to take the marginalized, and the politically repressed voices from the periphery,” he says, “from what we might call the Outer Hebrides of the literary scenes, and bring them center stage.”

Another judge, Jo Cross, is a high-profile columnist who writes about her husband and children, and who values books with “relevance” to her own readers, above all else. Then there are Tobias Benedict, an actor who’s too busy touring the country playing Estragon in a hip-hop adaptation of “Waiting for Godot” to read most of the submissions; and Penny Feathers, a former member of the Foreign Office who now writes cheesy thrillers. The only judge with anything resembling legitimate literary credentials is an academic named Vanessa Shaw, regarded as an elitist and defender of the old guard for prizing old-fashioned good writing.

As for the novelists, they’re an equally self-deluding lot. Sam Black, the author of “The Frozen Torrent” — “a bildungsroman of impeccable anguish and undisguised autobiographical origin” — is obsessively in love with the beauteous and seemingly unattainable Katherine Burns, another writer, who is enraged with her editor and lover, Alan, who through some terrible mix-up failed to submit her novel (“Consequences”) to the prize committee and instead sent in an Indian cookbook (“The Palace Cookbook”), written by the regal aunt of another Elysian Prize aspirant, a wealthy panjandrum named Sonny from India, who believes that his magnum opus, “The Mulberry Elephant,” is destined to win world recognition.

Among the novels singled out by the judges as top contenders for the prize are: “a harsh but ultimately uplifting account of life on a Glasgow housing estate,” titled “wot u starin at” (which sounds like a bad parody of an Irvine Welsh novel); Tobias’s favorite, “All the World’s a Stage,” a novel by a young New Zealander, writing from the point of view of William Shakespeare; “The Enigma Conundrum,” a page turner about the Enigma code-breaking operation during World War II, which gets a definite thumbs-up from Penny; and “The Palace Cookbook,” which is championed by several of the judges as an ingenious, postmodern confection — not the cookbook it so obviously is.

Mr. St. Aubyn has a lot of fun giving us samples from these novels that underscore his gift for mimicry and parody, while at the same time charting the political alliances and alliances of convenience that develop among the judges as they jockey for position and influence, extracting — and trading — promises of support as if they were Iowa caucus voters, not judges of literary merit.

American readers might not get all the inside dishing and digs — for instance, that Penny Feathers appears to have been modeled on Dame Stella Rimington , a former director-general of MI5 turned thriller writer, who was the chairwoman of the 2011 Man Booker prize committee. But Mr. St. Aubyn writes with such twinkling comic verve here that the reader couldn’t care less about possible real-life antecedents.

And while “Lost for Words” doesn’t have the depth or resonance of Mr. St. Aubyn’s Melrose novels, it’s not meant to. It’s simply an entertaining cartwheel of a book with a glittering razor’s edge.

LOST FOR WORDS

By Edward St. Aubyn

261 pages. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $26.

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Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary (Book Review)

Reviewed by Katherine Bailey By Lynda Mugglestone Yale University Press, New Haven, 221 pages

In Lost for Words , her third book on English-language subjects, Lynda Mugglestone portrays the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ). In 1879 Oxford’s Philological Society commissioned a London schoolmaster of Scottish descent named James Murray to edit a complete dictionary of the English language, one that would offer word histories as well as determine correct usage. Reputedly a man of incomparable intellectual rigor, Murray was well suited to his task. As a young man, he had taught himself Latin, Greek and French, and as he matured he added archaeology, entomology, biology and natural science to his list of serious pursuits.

Mugglestone describes the chance discovery that motivated her to write Lost for Words : “Lying in the basements of Oxford University Press, and in Murray’s own papers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, innumerable proof sheets together with an abundance of letters and other archival resources, record the often forgotten details by which the dictionary first came into being. The proofs in particular—hitherto almost entirely unexamined—provide an unparalleled scholarly resource, offering a hidden history of the [ OED ].”

It is that history that Mugglestone skillfully and meticulously conveys. Even though most Britons consider the OED to be as reliable as the sunrise, the dictionary’s creation was a fully human endeavor replete with fallibility. Arguments over definitions and pronunciations, and controversies over which words to include, in fact, shadowed the entire writing process.

Mugglestone imparts particularly well the endless controversy over the dictionary’s scope versus time constraints. “The original contract with Oxford University Press,” explains Mugglestone, “had been signed in 1879, stipulating an allotted time span of 10 years, in an allotted space of four volumes.…Yet by 1889 publication of the dictionary was merely midway through ‘C,’ and in the second of what would turn out to be 10 volumes.…The final part of the dictionary appeared in 1928, 49 years after the optimistic projections of the contract that Murray had initially signed.”

Murray had to answer, as Mugglestone notes, to the Philological Society, perhaps one of the most frustrating parts of his job. The society, on the one hand, demanded impeccable scholarship, extraordinary detail and etymological rigor, while on the other hand it pressured Murray to complete the volumes faster. When the writing process began, the society determined that Murray could write six pages of text for every one page of Webster’s Dictionary . When this ratio proved inadequate because of OED ’s thoroughness and historical character relative to Webster’s Dictionary, it was relaxed to eight pages to one.

For a time, while Murray was informing the Philological Society that the work would take 16 or 17 years rather than the contractual 10 years, it was agreed that Murray should cover 33 words a day. Mugglestone writes: “Drafting the single entry for ‘approve’ had, however, taken almost a whole day. The word ‘black’ and its derivatives would take over three months. When other elements of writing the dictionary were factored in—such as the reading and correction of the proofs and revisions—it became evident that even 17 years was a serious underestimate of the time which would be needed to complete the dictionary.”

Another facet of the dictionary’s creation that Mugglestone compellingly explores is the use of volunteers in the work effort. It was Murray’s fresh “Appeal to the English-Speaking and English-Reading Public to Read Books and Make Extracts for the Philological Society’s New Dictionary” that he issued upon assuming the editorship that was the effective source of most of the dictionary’s entries.

The “Appeal,” along with lists of books for which it hoped to attract volunteer readers, was widely circulated. Even the popular press commented on it. As a result, hundreds of volunteers sent submission slips to Murray’s Scriptorium, a corrugated iron shed situated in the garden of his house at the Mill-Hill School near London where he still retained some of his teaching duties. Here, with the help of three assistants “of fair education,” Murray sorted the slips into the thousand pigeonholes that line the Scriptorium’s walls.

Mugglestone alludes to the formidable Samuel Johnson, editor of the 1755 Dictionary of the English Language . Apparently many in the Philological Society faulted Johnson for allowing his own personality to invade the pages of the dictionary. Nonetheless, until the OED ’s publication, Johnson’s work remained an unrivaled repository of the English language.

Yet Murray’s endeavor, completed in 1928, conclusively surpasses Johnson’s work. As Mugglestone states: “It is now common knowledge among scholars that no discussion as to the origin or meaning of a word can be [legitimate] until one has considered what the OED says….The name Oxford Dictionary is increasingly synonymous with the authoritative investigation of the past and present of the national tongue.”

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Books | Review: ‘Lost for Words’ by Edward St. Aubyn

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The novels of Edward St. Aubyn would translate well to the stage. The vicious repartee of his characters — all awful or at least oblivious members of the British upper classes — drives the action. Most of St. Aubyn’s last five books, the astonishing Patrick Melrose series, took place in a limited number of venues, over short periods of time — a weekend or a dinner party. They told the story of Melrose’s life from a childhood of sexual and emotional trauma to an adulthood of rank substance abuse to, finally, a middle age of — well, something approaching redemption. The second installment, “Bad News,” so capably evoked the gross depths of a Manhattan heroin binge that an NPR commentator recommended it for reading following the death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

This piece first ran in Printers Row Journal, delivered to Printers Row members with the Sunday Chicago Tribune and by digital edition via email. Click here to learn about joining Printers Row.

St. Aubyn’s newest, by comparison, is more like a sitcom. “Lost for Words,” a series of madcap set pieces, concerns a major British literary award, the Elysian, whose zone of eligibility is “confined to the Imperial ash heap of the Commonwealth,” as one character puts it. Any likeness to the Man Booker Prize (St. Aubyn was short-listed for the Melrose book “Mother’s Milk”) is in no way coincidental. An adept observer of the elite with a devastating talent for dialogue, St. Aubyn bears some resemblance to his contemporary Alan Hollinghurst, himself a Booker winner for his 2004 novel “The Line of Beauty.” Hollinghurst, though, is much more sympathetic to his characters; St. Aubyn gives them no quarter.

In “Lost for Words,” a coterie of fools attempts to choose an Elysian winner from books of varying levels of quality, each recalling a familiar type: the social-realist dispatch from the Glasgow housing projects that one judge derides as “sub-Irvine Welsh” or the novel about a hedge-fund manager who gives it all up for a cabin in British Columbia. “Lost for Words” samples the texts it skewers, but too heavily; sub-Irvine Welsh isn’t the only author here who could have benefited from an editor’s good advice.

St. Aubyn relies on broad, familiar forms for the characters he satirizes, too. Penny, a civil servant turned thriller writer, is such an intellectual lightweight she’s practically effervescent, her prose clotted with cliches and brand names. Unfortunately she’s also one of the judges. Didier is a horny French theorist and literary hanger-on in a “perpetual semiotic frenzy”; Sonny is an “Indian grandee” with every confidence in the brilliance of his opus, “The Mulberry Elephant.”

Poor Sonny doesn’t make the Elysian cut — not even the long list! — but in the book’s best running joke, his aunt does. Accidentally. She had her secretary transcribe heirloom recipes from the family cook and asked an acquaintance to deliver the collection to an English publishing house. It lands somehow with the Elysian judges, one of whom heralds it as a “ludic, postmodern, multi-media masterpiece.” A literary agent enthuses, “She appears to get her secretary to ‘write’ a ‘cookbook’ in order to challenge our expectations about the nature of authorship.”

These idiots’ misadventures so dominate the first 100 pages of “Lost for Words” that a tender passage that appears around that point shocked me. It subverted the creeping nihilism one feels as a reader confronted with a cast of shallow dweebs like Penny, who’s nothing more than a ninny. The only thoughtful judge is Vanessa, a professor of literature. Thinking about her daughter, Poppy, who has been hospitalized with anorexia, Vanessa watches birds out the window:

She felt a violent desire to tear the bird feeder off its branch, and then she realized she was thinking of King Lear after Cordelia’s death. Why should a bird have life when Poppy …

And then she found herself wondering why any book should win this f—ing prize she had become involved with unless it had a chance of doing what had just happened: coming back to a person when she wanted to cry but couldn’t, or wanted to think but couldn’t think clearly, or wanted to laugh but saw no reason to.

What a startlingly sincere interruption. Sweet passages like this crop up here and there throughout the rest of the book, reminding us that for all his savage wit, St. Aubyn also wants to explore the redemptive qualities of whatever lies beyond it — and beyond social status, beyond wordplay, beyond awards. I won’t reveal the last sentence of “Lost for Words,” but will say that it’s beautiful and something like what Patrick Melrose, whose intellect was his chief defense mechanism, discovered eventually, in “At Last”:

Forget heroin. Just try giving up irony, that deep-down need to mean two things at once, to be in two places at once, not to be there for the catastrophe of a fixed meaning.

That series was a dark, drug-addled night of the soul. This book is like the first glass of water you drink on a hungover morning: light fare but, given what’s come before it, entirely refreshing.

Sam Worley is a freelance writer and editor based in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

“Lost for Words”

By Edward St. Aubyn, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 261 pages, $26

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Book Jotter

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Home › BOOK REVIEW: Lost For Words

BOOK REVIEW: Lost For Words

By Paula Bardell-Hedley on 17/03/2018 • ( 17 )

by Stephanie Butland

“I don’t like people much. Well, some are okay. But not enough to make it a given.”

I wasn’t at all sure that Lost For Words by Stephanie Butland was going to be my sort of book. The promotional write-up was tempting, describing it as having the “emotional intensity of The Shock of the Fall and all the charm of The Little Paris Bookshop and 84, Charing Cross Road ” – the latter being a great favourite of mine – but it was categorized as chick-lit and romance on Goodreads , which are probably my two least liked genres (i.e. I wouldn’t normally bother to read the blurb after making such a discovery). Nevertheless, something compelled me to give it a shot, and it was worth the effort.

The author lives by the sea in Northumberland, where she writes in a studio at the bottom of her garden. She once worked as a bookseller, but now trains people to think creatively, and is an occasional performance poet – a topic that plays a major role in this novel.

Lost For Words is a fictional book emporium in the historic city of York, owned by Archie, an endearing, loquacious, well-upholstered rascal who keeps a paternal but discreet watch over Loveday, his reticent but dedicated assistant. She has worked for him since being in her teens (she’s in her mid to late twenties when the story begins) and is perfectly content to continue doing so indefinitely.

Loveday may show every outward sign of being a sulky, uncommunicative emo, but she’s actually quite a compassionate character, it’s simply that she prefers books to people. This is unsurprising once you learn that her life has been difficult, and she has a past she would rather forget. I felt an instant warmth for her because (like me) one of her special books is A.S. Byatt’s Possession , which is partly set in her home town of Whitby . Byatt’s famous work is of course a romantic novel, but I somewhat ridiculously prefer to think of it as pure literary fiction.

Butland’s book isn’t the sentimental mush I half expected it to be – nor is it a particularly cosy read – it’s more a warm at heart mystery novel which sneaks domestic violence, stalking, trauma and mental health issues in through the back of the bookstore.

While there’s plenty here to keep us book fetishists happy (lots of literary name-dropping, for instance), there is also a romance of sorts, as well as humour, remorse, love and shelves full of second-hand volumes.

The principal characters’ poetry is heartfelt but not terribly good, although I don’t think it was meant to be. Butland’s novel is, however, an ideal read for the tome-weary bibliophile looking for something undemanding but intelligent to fill a relaxing evening.

Many thanks to Bonnier Zaffre for providing an advance review copy of this title.

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Categories: Uncategorised

Tags: 21st Century Literature , A.S. Byatt , Bonnier Zaffre , Book Review , Book Reviews , Book Shop , Books , Bookstore , British Fiction , British Literature , England , Mystery , Romance , Stephanie Butland , Whitby , York

This sounds tempting, and it’s about a bookshop and books, what’s not to like? 🙂

That’s exactly what tempted me! 🤓

You’ve sold me on this one Paula. I too would have bypassed it for the very same reasons you gave. 😎

I didn’t always love the poetry in Possession either, even though it’s one of my favourite books of all time!

I’m reading The Little Paris Bookshop at the moment, and like you, I love 84 Charing Cross Road. So I really must add this one to the list!

I haven’t read The Little Paris Bookshop (yet), so will be interested to know what you think.

It’s quirky. Makes me think of Rachel Joyce’s ‘Harold Fry’. I’m about halfway through and can’t help feeling it could have been better. Which is not to say that I’m not enjoying it – I am – but there seem to be opportunities missed. Plenty could change in the second half!

I’m so glad you enjoyed this book as it was a favorite of mine.

Thanks, Lynne. I must look for your review.

Ah – that’s why the title was familiar!

Great review!

Thank you, Inge! 😊

For me, chick-lit and romance are also genres I stay away from. But, I do enjoy tales about book stores and your nicely done review makes this one tempting.

Thanks for responding, Martie. Completely agree – a great book is a great book, regardless of genre. Me too when it comes to books about bookstores. They’re highly addictive!

Okay, you’ve officially tempted me! I am from somewhere between Whitby and Northumberland and love books that evoke the nostalgia of my home. Plus, I like the sound of it too!

I’m so pleased, Kathy. Just hope you enjoy it now (I feel rather responsible)!

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Reviews of The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

The Lost for Words Bookshop

by Stephanie Butland

Critics' Opinion:

Readers' Opinion:

• Literary Fiction
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• Contemporary
• Strong Women
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About this Book

• Reading Guide

Book Summary

The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland is a compelling, irresistible, and heart-rending novel, perfect for all book lovers.

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look carefully, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are some things Loveday will never, ever show you. Into her hiding place - the bookstore where she works - come a poet, a lover, and three suspicious deliveries. Someone has found out about her mysterious past. Will Loveday survive her own heartbreaking secrets?

POETRY 2016 Unlooked-for

A book is a match in the smoking second between strike and flame. Archie says books are our best lovers and our most provoking friends. He's right, but I'm right, too. Books can really hurt you. I thought I knew that, the day I picked up the Brian Patten. It turned out that I still had a lot to learn. I usually get off my bike and wheel it on the last bit of my ride to work. Once you pass the bus stop, the cobbled road narrows and so does the pavement in this part of York, so it's a lot less hassle that way. That February morning, I was navigating around some it's-my-buggy-and-I'll-stop-if-I-want-to woman with her front wheels on the road and her back wheels on the pavement, when I saw the book. It was lying on the ground next to a bin, as though someone had tried to throw it away, but didn't even care enough to pause to take proper aim. Anyway, I stopped. Of course. Who wouldn't rescue a book? The buggy-woman tutted, ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• How important are books to Loveday? Does she have to work in a bookshop, or would another kind of shop serve her just as well?
• If you were going to have a line from a book tattooed on your skin, which line would you choose?
• Why does Loveday choose poetry to get her message across?
• Do you have any sympathy for Rob?
• What does this book tell us about mothers and daughters?
• Loveday is not a fan of people in general, and men in particular. Is she justified in this?
• How important are the settings of this novel?
• Loveday collects things—books, shells, tattoos. Why does she do this? How can collections help us to make sense of our lives?
• Can you pinpoint the moment that Loveday's life goes wrong?
• Who would play Archie in a ...
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Media Reviews

Reader reviews, bookbrowse review.

This is one of those novels that ticks a whole lot of boxes for me, especially the fact that it takes place in a bookshop. Seriously, what book reviewer worth their salt can resist a novel with that word in the title? Another one of those ticked boxes is the mystery behind who is sending Loveday all those books. I love a good mystery, especially if it's one that doesn't involve too much violence. Admittedly, author Stephanie Butland does include some of that here, particularly the way Loveday's father dies, but there's nothing overly visceral or graphic. Another box? That the action takes place in York, an historic walled city in northern England that I've been to several times and totally adore... continued

Full Review (580 words) This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today .

(Reviewed by Davida Chazan ).

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Beyond the Book

Performance poetry and slams.

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THE LOST FOR WORDS BOOKSHOP

by Stephanie Butland ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 19, 2018

A tale full of romance and violence demanding readers not judge a book by its cover.

A jaded bibliophile comes to terms with her dark past and learns to live in the present.

Set in a used bookshop, Butland’s ( The Other Half of My Heart , 2015, etc.) latest novel tackles love, grief, violence, and friendship. Loveday Cardew—an anti-social, tattooed 25-year-old—works at Lost for Words, a secondhand bookstore in York. Despite her name, Loveday doesn’t much care for anyone or anything except for books. She’s reserved and painfully sarcastic, and the surrounding characters either exacerbate or quell this: Archie, the caring, larger-than-life bookstore owner; Nathan, the handsome, cravat-wearing poet; and Rob, the sullen, dangerous ex. Switching between the past and present, the chapters are organized by genre—Poetry, History, Crime, Travel, and Memoir—and correspond to the plot (i.e., Poetry chapters center around Nathan). Told from Loveday’s perspective, the casual first-person narration provides an entry point into an otherwise closed-off character, which works well save for a few startling fourth-wall breaks. Loveday’s descriptions of her childhood are among the strongest in the book: “His boots, which smelled of salt and oil, rubber and leather, lived outside,” and “the sea was part of their story.” As her charmed life descends into darkness, one life-altering moment shatters her world—and sense of self—forever. The buildup to and aftermath of this moment feel earned and purposeful. However, other things do not. Unfortunately, the book sometimes veers into unnecessary stereotypes about mental illness by equating (perhaps unintentionally) being mentally ill with violent behavior. If the novel feels particularly harrowing at times, the well-drawn romance helps temper and elevate the story. The hopeful ending is unexpected but not unwelcome—it’s exactly what Loveday deserves because she’s been through far too much.

Pub Date: June 19, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-250-12453-1

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

Review Posted Online: April 2, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018

ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE | GENERAL ROMANCE

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Awards & Accolades

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New York Times Bestseller

IndieBound Bestseller

IT ENDS WITH US

by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 2, 2016

Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...

Hoover’s ( November 9 , 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.

At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.

Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016

GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

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BOOK REVIEW

by Colleen Hoover

More About This Book

SEEN & HEARD

THE IDEA OF YOU

by Robinne Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 2017

A fascinating, thought-provoking, genre-bending romantic read.

When Solène Marchand takes her 12-year-old daughter to a concert by the hottest boy band on the planet, she doesn't expect to fall in love with one of the singers.

Middle-aged art gallery owner Solène hasn’t dated since her divorce, but when her ex-husband buys their daughter and a group of her friends tickets to Vegas and a backstage concert experience, then backs out at the last minute, she steps in as escort. The five guys in the wildly popular English boy band August Moon appeal to women of all ages, but Hayes, the brains behind the group’s success, flirts with Solène at the concert meet and greet, invites them to a party after the show, then pursues her once she gets back to Los Angeles. He’s only 20 and he’s incredibly famous; his attention is flattering and heady. The two fall into an affair that’s supposed to be light and easy, but before long they can’t ignore their intense emotional attachment. Solène is hesitant to tell her daughter, but when she procrastinates, Isabelle learns about it through an online tabloid, which damages their relationship and leaves Solène open to censure from her ex. Then, once the affair goes viral, she experiences the darker side of Hayes’ fan base. What started out as a jaunty adventure turns into an emotionally fraught journey, and Solène must decide what she’s willing to risk for her happiness and what she won’t risk for her daughter’s. Actress Lee, who appeared in Fifty Shades Darker , debuts with a beautifully written novel that explores sex, love, romance, and fantasy in moving, insightful ways while also examining a woman’s struggle with aging and sexism, with a nod at the tension between celebrity and privacy.

Pub Date: June 13, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-250-12590-3

Page Count: 384

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017

ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

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Reading Ladies

The lost for words bookshop: a review.

June 12, 2019

The Lost For Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland

Genre/Categories: Contemporary Fiction, Booksellers and Bookshops, Books About Books, England

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Young Loveday Cardew works in a bookshop and prefers books to people. Her discrete tattoos feature a few of her favorite first lines. Even though the bookshop is her sanctuary and a place where she can hide from her secrets, some mysterious packages with links to her past arrive and shatter her sense of safety. With support from a caring boss and the kindness of a young poet, can she find the courage to face her past and find hope for a bright future?

Amazon Rating:  4.2 Stars

My Thoughts:

The Lost For Words Bookshop had me at the title and the cover! When there’s a bookshop on the cover and the reviews mention the importance of this bookshop as a place of safety for a young girl traumatized by her past, it becomes a must read for me!

Trust me, if you love bookstores, literary references, and appreciate against-the-odds stories, you will find Loveday Cardew compelling.

From my reviews, you know that I love quirky characters, their stories, and their bravery and courage to live their best life. Loveday is rough around the edges but I grew to love and admire her spunk, resilience, and independent spirit. She is a survivor.

“Small memories come from the kind of tiny reminders that you simply can’t predict, and so can’t protect yourself from, and they catch you, paper cuts across the heart.” “A bookshop is not magic, but it can slowly heal your heart.”

Throughout The Lost For Words Bookshop , we get flashbacks of Lovejoy’s childhood and the trauma she suffered. One of her survival strategies includes keeping her words to herself. It’s ironic that she ended up feeling safe in a bookshop when she was “lost for words.”

This engaging, thoughtful, and poignant story also includes themes of healing, friendship, learning to trust, and generously caring for the hurting/vulnerable/innocents that cross our path in life.

Recommended: I’m definitely recommending The Lost For Words Bookshop for bibliophiles and used bookstore patrons, for fans of characters who fight bravely to live their best life, for readers who adore books about books, and for book clubs. This was published a year ago and I don’t see it promoted frequently, so I am eager to provide a review for this endearing story.

***trigger warnings for memories of and references to domestic abuse

My Rating:  5 Stars

Lost For Words Bookshop Information

Meet the Author, Stephanie Butland

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30 comments.

Lovely review! I loved the audiobook but never reviewed it because I eas ‘lost for words’ 😀

Good one Nicki 😂😀😂😂😂

You seem to have liked this more than I did, but I think we agree that it is a lovely book!

Books about books and quirky characters are my weakness Davida! I fall hard every time!

I know… I can’t resist them either.

Sounds super cute! I’m definitely adding this one to my TBR list. Thanks for the heads-up!

Susan http://www.blogginboutbooks.com

I have a weak spot for these types of characters! I hope you enjoy! 👍😍

I want to read this one too!!!!

These types of books/characters are my weak spot! 👍😍

This sounds like a very good book to read, very intriguing. Thanks for the warning about domestic abuse.

Thanks for visiting and commenting Deb! 👍😍

Sounds like a very interesting read, as someone who cares for another who has suffered similar things to the main character, I’ll check it out. Thanks for the review. #abitofeverything.

I hope you enjoy the read! Thanks for commenting!

[…] The Mother’s Mistake & After The End Umut Reviews – Foe Reading Ladies – The Lost For Words Bookshop The Quiet Knitter – Code Name: Lise RatherTooFondofBooks – The Van Apfel Girls A […]

Thank you Nicki! 👍😍🙌😘

This sounds like a very interesting read, I will have to search it out. #abitofeverything

Lots of fascinating history here! 👍

[…] first choice this week is from Reading Ladies Book Club. The Lost For Words Bookshop looks like a fabulous book and one I shall be adding to my reading […]

Thank you for including the link to my review! 👍😍

[…] Review here […]

[…] 5 Stars. My Review. […]

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[…] I’m pleased to share a passage from The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae by Stephanie Butland. This is an ARC and will be available for purchase on October 29, 2019. Have you read this author’s previous book, The Lost For Words Bookshop? (find my review of that here) […]

[…] Eleanor (Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine), Lovejoy ( The Lost For Words Bookshop), Harold (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry) (find my post about quirky characters living their […]

[…] My review here […]

[…] Character: If you’ve read The Lost for Words Bookshop by the same author, you know that Stephanie Butland has a talent for creating realistic characters. […]

[…] The Lost For Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland (quirky, memorable character) My review. […]

[…] Recommended: As you might predict, The Printed Letter Bookshop is a 5 star read for me (4.5 rounded up) due mainly to the enjoyment factor and poignant themes. It’s a great choice for a lighter but thoughtful read and for fans of books about books! It would make a lovely gift for a friend or an excellent vacation or relaxing weekend read. For fans of How to Find Love in a Bookshop and The Lost For Words Bookshop. […]

[…] Full Review Here […]

[…] The Lost For Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland […]

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