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Lexicon: A Novel by Max Barry
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Lexicon: A Novel (original 2013; edition 2014)

by Max Barry

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2,1381407,417 (3.87)111
Fiction. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:

At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren't taught history, geography, or mathematics. Instead, they are taught to persuade. The very best will graduate as "poets": adept wielders of language who belong to a nameless organization that is as influential as it is secretive. Whip-smart orphan Emily Ruff becomes the school's most talented prodigy until she makes a catastrophic mistake: She falls in love. Meanwhile, a seemingly innocent man named Wil Jamieson is brutally ambushed by two strange men in an airport bathroom. In order to survive, Wil must journey to the toxically decimated town of Broken Hill, Australia, to discover who he is and why an entire town was blown off the map.

.… (more)
Member:Vaysh
Title:Lexicon: A Novel
Authors:Max Barry
Info:Penguin Books (2014), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 400 pages
Collections:Your library, Read but unowned, O
Rating:****
Tags:2014, 14-08-10

Work Information

Lexicon by Max Barry (2013)

  1. 30
    Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (Anonymous user)
    Anonymous user: Both books are non-traditional geeky mystery/thrillers.
  2. 30
    Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (kaipakartik)
    kaipakartik: Similar concepts about Language and all powerful words
  3. 20
    Embassytown by China Miéville (Longshanks)
    Longshanks: A gorgeously-written modern sci-fi tale that examines the power and foibles of our own language.
  4. 10
    The Rook by Daniel O'Malley (dmenon90)
    dmenon90: Resourceful heroine, mad circumstances, (sort of) unknown adversary, supernatural element, large mysterious multinational organization, heroine becomes outlier, fighting within organization
  5. 10
    The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins (TFleet)
    TFleet: Both novels feature a female protagonist, whose ability with language is crucial, in a life-and-death struggle with antagonists of greater power.
  6. 00
    The Incrementalists by Steven Brust (reconditereader)
    reconditereader: Both are twisty books about secret organizations, and both are page-turners full of action.
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» See also 111 mentions

English (138)  Dutch (1)  German (1)  All languages (140)
Showing 1-5 of 138 (next | show all)
Hard to rate this one. It was super interesting and different and a real page turner but much more like an action movie than a good book.

I just wanted more from it. More character development, more understanding of the control words, the sectors, the barewords, everything. What was The Organization really trying to do? Why did they have all the operatives, what was their main purpose? Why cultivate the talent if they had to live such miserable, repressed lives. So many unanswered questions.

I cared a bit about Emily and Harry and Elliot but not enough. Yates was kind of a generic super villain and I think we needed to know more about his plans earlier on in the tale.

I'm still not sure I really understand everything that went on towards the end of the book and I have no idea who has the word. ( )
  hmonkeyreads | Jan 25, 2024 |
Man, I really wanted to like this book more. The whole concept of words that kill was one I loved. The first 60 pages were dynamite and then it just lost steam for me. It took forever to get where it was going. The ending was bang up and redeemed it a little for me. All in all it was enjoyable but left me feeling like it could have been more. ( )
  cdaley | Nov 2, 2023 |
I mostly picked this book for the title and the idea that words are powerful. I liked it quite a bit. The plot, characters, and structure were very interesting. I'm still thinking about it. I think it will be one of those books that I like more over time. ( )
  Bebe_Ryalls | Oct 20, 2023 |
Like crack. Tough to put down. ( )
  Mcdede | Jul 19, 2023 |
abracadabra ( )
  farrhon | Jul 16, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 138 (next | show all)
Poets—yes, you read that right, poets—are specially-trained operatives who can change the minds of anyone, provided they use the right words in the right way. This two-tiered narrative gives us Emily, who has been recruited to join the mind-control group, and Wil, who is being tortured when the book opens and as his amnesia recedes, we see more and more of his link to the poets. ... As always, Barry is a social critic first and foremost. The power of his work comes from the absurdist take he has on already-absurd elements of our consumer-driven, advertising-fueled culture. Mark this one up as another winner in the Barry canon.
added by KelMunger | editLit/Rant, Kel Munger (Oct 10, 2013)
 
So there are several different genres and tones jostling for prominence within “Lexicon”: a conspiracy thriller, an almost abstract debate about what language can do, and an ironic questioning of some of the things it’s currently used for. The sheer noise of the thriller plot and its inevitable violence end up drowning out some of the other arguments Barry is making.
 
Modern-day sorcerers fight a war of words in this intensely analytical yet bombastic thriller.
added by melmore | editKirkus Reivews (Jun 18, 2013)
 

» Add other authors

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Max Barryprimary authorall editionscalculated
Achilles, GretchenDesignersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mader, FriedrichTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Staehle, WillCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Related movies
Epigraph
Every story writen is
marks upon a page
The same marks,
repeated, only
differently arranged
Dedication
For Jen, again
First words
"He's coming around."
Quotations
Now when Ra, the greatest of the gods, was created, his father had given him a secret name, so awful that no man dared to seek for it, and so pregnant with power that all the other gods desired to know and possess it too.
– F. H. Brooksbank, The Story of Ra and Isis
Odysseus, who had first avoided identifying himself, and then given a false, impossible appellation, now supplies his real name in full: he is Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca. Odysseus' mention of his true name acts as a flash of illumination for the blind giant, who now comprehends an earlier prediction concerning the loss of sight. The enlightened Cyclops does not respond with stones this time, but with the force of words. Polyphemus is able, at long last, to bend language to his needs, and he carefully repeats, word for word, Odysseus' name, epithet, patronym and country of origin, when he prays to his father Poseidon to punish him.
– Deborah Levine Gera, Ancient Greek Ideas on Speech, Language, and Civilization
And I, methinks, am gone astray
In trackless wastes and lone.
– Charlotte Brontë, "Apostasy"
I cannot live with You—
It would be Life—
And Life is over there—
Behind the Shelf
– Emily Dickinson
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Disambiguation notice
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Fiction. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:

At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren't taught history, geography, or mathematics. Instead, they are taught to persuade. The very best will graduate as "poets": adept wielders of language who belong to a nameless organization that is as influential as it is secretive. Whip-smart orphan Emily Ruff becomes the school's most talented prodigy until she makes a catastrophic mistake: She falls in love. Meanwhile, a seemingly innocent man named Wil Jamieson is brutally ambushed by two strange men in an airport bathroom. In order to survive, Wil must journey to the toxically decimated town of Broken Hill, Australia, to discover who he is and why an entire town was blown off the map.

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Book description
At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren't taught history, geography, or mathematics — at least not in the usual sense. They are taught to persuade, to use language to manipulate minds, to wield words as weapons. The very best graduate as "poets" and enter a nameless organization of unknown purpose.

Whip-smart runaway Emily Ruff is making a living from three-card monte on the streets of San Francisco when she attracts the attention of the organization's recruiters. Drawn into their strange world, which is populated by people with names like Brontë and Eliot, she learns their key rule: that every person can be classified by an extremely specific personality type, his mind segmented and ultimately controlled by the skillful application of words. For this reason she must never allow another person to truly know her, lest she herself be coerced. Adapting quickly, Emily becomes the school's most talented prodigy, until she makes a catastrophic mistake. She falls in love.

Meanwhile, a seemingly innocent man named Wil Parke is brutally ambushed by two men in an airport bathroom. They claim he is the key to a secret war he knows nothing about, that he is an "outlier," immune to segmentation. Attempting to stay one step ahead of the organization and the mind-bending poets, Wil and his captors seek salvation in the toxically decimated town of Broken Hill, Australia, which, if stories are true, sits above an ancient glyph of frightening power.

A brilliant thriller that connects very modern questions of privacy, identity, and the rising obsession of data collection to centuries old ideas about the power of language and coercion, Lexicon is Max Barry's most ambitious and spellbinding novel yet.

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