The Lover’s Dictionary: A Love Story in 185 Definitions

by David Levithan

How does one talk about love?

We are all beginners when it comes to love, from those tentative first dates to learning how to live with, or without, someone. But how does one describe love? How does one chart its delights and pleasures, its depths and desolations? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? David Levithan's The Lover's Dictionary starts where we all once started – with the alphabet.

Constructing the story of a relationship as a dictionary, Levithan explores the intimacies and workings of love through his nameless narrator, to paint a moving portrait of love through everyday words. Cleverly using the confines of language to provide an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being part of a couple, Levithan gives us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time.

• ISBN13: 9780007377992
• Publish Date: 2 February 2012 (first published 4 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Fourth Estate Ltd
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 244
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

The Lover's Dictionary is a story of a couple's relationship, from beginning to end. The story isn't told in chronological order of the events, but in alphabetical order of the words. With each word, there will be a memory or a feeling or an idea about their relationship sparked by the word, with each entry being from either one line to a page and a half. We know the nameless narrator is male, but we don't know the gender of the also nameless "you." The story works for "you" being of any gender.

I misunderstood the book, first of all. Half the time, it felt like the Dictionary was written after the break up. It felt like the narrator decided to flick through a dictionary, and write a memory/feeling/idea for each word that spoke to him. And with the memory/feeling/idea comes an emotion. The story isn't told chronologically, as I said, but each entry is written one after the other by the narrator - and the emotions jump depending on the word and what it sparks. So one moment is a happy remembrance, in another, there is such hurt and anger. This is how it feels. It's not so much a story, but as someone writing it all down, maybe as a way to deal with the break-up. At least that's how it felt.

Until the tense would break up, and became present. And for a moment, I get stuck. At first, I would think "Oooh, recent break up. Sometimes it's difficult to go to the past tense." But then you would get an entry written in present tense that is quite obviously in the middle of the relationship, and it would throw this whole idea out the water. The narrator isn't writing this after a break up. He is living his romance, it is a story, and each entry is a certain time within the relationship. It took a little getting used to, once I figured out there was no actual logical to the back and forth accept for the alphabetical dictionary entries. It made it easier to follow to think it was, as I said, written after the break up. But in the end, you have to just let it go, and accept it's not going to make any logical sense when it comes to time. It is all over the place, but once I accepted that, I really enjoyed it!

I have to admit that I had to read the book with a dictionary. I didn't know maybe half of the words, and without knowing the definition made the entry seem a little random. You need to understand the word to understand the relevance of the entry. But it's such a great book! Full of Levithan's usual style, with beautiful language and awesome insights! Loved it. One of my favourite entries:

'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.' (p120)

I can relate to this one so much, and not just about love, about any emotion! Oh my god, sometimes, words just don't work.

The Lover's Dictionary is a great book! A fantastic idea, a quick read, and quite a touching story. I loved it!

[jnkay01]

I had high hopes for this novel written as a series of dictionary entries, after seeing the entry for "lover" make its way around Tumblr ... but that was the best page, and I just loathed the characters.

[violetpeanut]

This is a love story. The love story itself is not extraordinary, it is not a story of "star-crossed lovers" or a perfect love with a happy ending. Rather, it is the story of a completely average couple and their progression from first date to exclusivity to living together and beyond. It is the story you or I could have with out significant others.

What really makes this book profound is that instead of telling the story chronoligically it tells it by showing us those bits and pieces of the relationship that mean the most; the simple things between a couple that make their story unique to them but evoke the emotions that we all can connect to within our own relationships.

This is really an intimate look at the relationship that is reminiscent of diary entries. There are some philosophical musings as well as more mundane definitions that serve to give a complete picture of a relationship.

encroach,v.
The first three nights we spent together, I couldn't sleep. I wasn't used to your breathing, your feet on my legs, your weight in the bed. In truth, I still sleep better when I'm alone. But now I allow that sleep isn't always the most important thing.

corrode, v.
I spent all this time building a relationship. Then one night I left the window open, and it started to rust.

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.

I really loved this book. I loved the concept, I thought the writing was beautiful and intimate and relatable. It's a love story that could be anyone's and that's a big part of what makes it so beautiful.