William Lane’s The Word published by Transit Lounge.
The Word is intended to be a satirical novel about the use of language. Its central character is Kenric, who works in advertising. Kenric’s talent is to find the words that help sell a product and he is extraordinarily good at doing this and not much good at doing anything else. In spite of his love of words he does not have the vocabulary to understand himself. His marriage is on the rocks. He leaves his advertising job at The Firm, having become disillusioned with using words to sell products, which he has been doing for many years. Casual acquaintances dub him a poet although his only poetic output is the advertising catchphrases at which he excels.
Kenric becomes increasingly friendly with Maria, who also used to work at The Firm. Maria’s former husband Lionel had come to believe ‘the external world was created by language, and thus an obligation existed to honour language’. He had founded a loose-knit community that called itself The Word but is now defunct. Kenric has the idea to restart such a community with like-minded people. The Word is about that community, which becomes a cult, and the various members who join it.
One of the members of The Word, Tess, tells her niece that The Word is ‘just so hard to explain to people’; ‘we are not an organisation – we are not even an institution, like a church, or a company, we’re not any kind of listed holding. We are a group of like-minded people, together sickened by the same thing – the flogging of words.’ She continues to decry ‘all the rhetorical strategies that have exhausted our language into a threadbare rag, all the innocent words that have been used to bad effect’.
There can be no doubt that words are often misused in advertising. We also misuse words when we say ‘absolutely’ when we mean ‘yes’, and when we use crutch words like ‘literally’ or ‘actually’ in conversations. But William Lane’s characters do not make a plausible case for their exaggerated beliefs in the misuse of words and some of their discussions about words borders on the childish, such as when they rubbish a dictionary for words being in alphabetical sequence.
This book is disappointing coming from an author who has published a number of successful novels. While the writing is fluid and most of the dialogue realistic, the plot often meanders from non-event to non-event and most of the characters, including Kenric, are not convincing. A book about language deserves better than this.
1 ½ stars ★☆
The Word
By William Lane
Format: ISBN: 978-1-925760-06-4
Trade Paperback 224pp
Rights: World Rights
Release / Publication Date: 01 /09 /2018
Transit Lounge
$29.99
