Stephanie Sun's Reviews > Lost for Words

This book didn't teach me how to write a great satire, which had been the hope that shot it to the top of my reading queue a few days ago.

It did, on the other hand, remind me why I love not just books but the people who make them.

Along with the too-breezy farce and missed opportunities for acid takedown of literary pomposity and pomp that disappointed many professional reviewers, Lost for Words offers up some of the most sincere and thought-provoking inquiry into the question—Why Literature?—that I have read in some time.

The academic, on Page 50:

"[T]he only book she wholeheartedly admired... had what she wanted to call an experience of literature built into it, an inherent density of reflection on the medium in which it took place: the black backing that makes the mirror shine."

The academic, on Page 106, after taking comfort in a bit of King Lear:

"...she found herself wondering why any book should win this fucking prize... 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."

And then there is this late speech from one of the long-listed authors, which starts off with a rhetorical question that has been ghost-written by a professional bullshitter:

"'What is literature?' she began, feeling that her voice was not her own. 'What is this privilege we grant to certain verbal combinations, although they employ the very same words we use to buy our bread and count our money?'"

The author cuts off the ghost-written portion of her speech and gives a kind of answer in her own words:

"The palaces have fallen into disrepair, or been turned into hotels—but I hoped that perhaps I could... preserve some of the splendour of that tradition by sharing it more widely."

And then the brief moments when Lost for Words does find its teeth are pretty glorious. Here are some of my favorites:

"'Despite his contempt for (view spoiler)[The Palace Cookbook (hide spoiler)], he couldn't help reproaching himself for a lack of cynicism: to have two books on the Short List, especially one that was so ludicrously unworthy, would have done his reputation for shrewdness and prescience no harm. 'Sometimes you have to read the judges rather than the books,' he could imagine himself saying in the long Vanity Fair profile that would one day inevitably be written about him.'"

"That was the wonderful thing about historical novels, one met so many famous people. It was like reading a very old copy of Hello! magazine."

"In England, art was much less likely to be mentioned in polite society than sexual perversions or methods of torture; the word 'elitist' could be spat out with the same confident contempt as 'coward' at a court martial... Perhaps in future generations a law would be passed allowing consenting adults to practise art openly; an Intellect Relations Board might be set up to encourage tolerance towards people who, through no fault of their own, were interested in ideas."

And the obligatory Andrew Wylie shark literary agent character is named John Elton! That's actually a great litmus test for this book. If you find that joke funny, you should pick this book up. If not, give it a pass.