Alena Graedon

I loved about 95% of this book. I say this so you understand why only 4 stars instead of 5, once I start to rave about all the good things. This book was going along great, it had me in its clutches, and then it just sort of slid quietly into what felt like a pat ending. Action, action, action... and we're done. Also, some of the mysteries could have been solved with a conversation. So that's my one star subtracted.

Now for all the amazing and wonderful things. While I was reading this book I show more happened to look up "jeremiad" to ensure I was remembering the definition correctly. (I was.) And not too long after that I got to the part in the book where more and more people were becoming dependent upon the Word Exchange, looking up more and more common words. I sat there for a while. Now, this book was obviously written by someone with a great vocabulary, and it also includes some of what I'd call obscure words. (If only Chaucer used it, it's obscure.) So curious readers are bound to be looking words up, and that just set us all up for the fall where we look around and realize the future is now and we're living in the dystopia.

Each chapter begins with a definition. At first I thought it was a conceit, nothing more but a cutesy way to do things. Then, as I read more and more of those definitions, and realized that while they were all true, none of them actually defined anything, I started to think about how easy it would be to enact the sort of changes Graedon is writing about. [What is a phone? It's a thing I use to connect to the internet. But what *is* it?]

I just really loved the idea of one corporation having control of all the definitions and charging money for people to access them. And changing them at their whim. Imagine the effect upon communication. When speaking to someone else, could we be sure we meant the same thing? And (though this was not touched on in the book) what of those who couldn't afford the definitions?

There was also quite a bit about dependence upon technology which I both love and hate as an idea. Of course we all love our tech and toys, and the easier things are made for us the happier we are. And, sure, we could become dependent upon that tech. (Graedon takes this to a high degree. She also provides a virus as a reason for at least some of the dependence.)

The book is written as a series of journal entries by the main character, Ana, interspersed with entries from her friend, the virus-ridden Bart. (Whose name is not Bart, nor is it Bartholomew, Bartleby, or even Horse, but Horace. I liked that all these different words mean the man Horace Tate, yet none of them completely define him. Ana, who was also Anana and Alice, was similarly loosely defined by her various names. Her father, who at times seems like the wizard pulling the strings, is simply Doug.) What's fascinating about the entries, especially those from Bart as he gets sicker, is how unaware people are that they have the word flu. They don't notice the nonsense words they use, but do notice when others have slips. As a reader, that's quite frightening, to imagine language slipping away from a character without their knowledge. But I wonder if it would have been more frightening had the characters been completely and fully aware? But, then, that was not the point of the virus, nor of the evil plot. The point was to keep people unaware, then profit off their deficiencies.

About sliding to a pat ending: it seemed nearly as soon as Ana found Doug that information about the viruses was given to her, to the world, and all of a sudden I was reading about after-effects. It was too fast for me.

All in all, this book was great. It made me think and that's my favorite thing a book can do.

(Provided by publisher) show less

A dystopian future in which we no longer need words—our smart devices, called “Memes,” have been implanted to do it all for us—provides the setting for this thriller with a linguistic twist from debut novelist Alena Graedon.

Anana Johnson works for her neo-Luddite father Doug at the North American Dictionary of the English Language, where respect for the word and what it can do is in direct opposition to the tech-fueled, no-language majority. But there are conspiracies afoot; an show more outbreak of “word flu” stirs trouble; her father disappears, and soon Anana and her friend, Bart, are attempting to unravel conspiracies in a linguistic and technological maelstrom.

The “word flu,” in and of itself, is a terrifying invention, given that language has always been our bulwark against the tides of barbarism. Graedon’s inventiveness would be enough to keep readers’ interest, but she also develops Ana and Bart’s characters into a believable and intriguing pairing.

An incredibly strong debut, The Word Exchange tackles our current fears of technology and threats from big corporations and government in literary speculative fiction.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: http://litrant.tumblr.com/post/87686299253/next-stop-no-words-the-word-exchange-... show less

“The end of words would mean the end of memory and thought. In other words, our past and future.”

In Alena Graedon’s alternate history literary thriller, The Word Exchange, the printed word has all but disappeared in less than four short years. Set in New York in 2016,Just weeks before the publication of the third and final printed North American Dictionary of the English Language(NADEL), its curator, Doug disappears leaving behind a cryptic message for his daughter, Anana. Concerned show more and confused, Anana, with the support of a colleague, Bart, begins to search for her father, and stumbles upon a shocking conspiracy that threatens to destroy the very foundation of civilisation – language.

The population in The Word Exchange depends on ‘super’smart personal devices, known as Memes, for almost every want and need and to perpetuate that reliance, the company, Synchronic, responsible for the devices has recognised and exploited the profitability in owning not only the means of communication, (ie the Memes) but also language itself through the Word Exchange. Synchronic does this by essentially forcing the development of a new language, but one without any rules or context, thus forcing users to consult (and pay) the Exchange in order to communicate. Only a handful of people, including Anana’s father, Doug, object, and predict disaster but it is too late when meme users begin to develop ‘Word Flu’, essentially aphasia (the loss and the comprehension and formulation of language) that leads to more serious individual and societal complications.

The Word Exchange is, in part, a cautionary tale about society’s increasing reliance on digital communication and information, and its possible impact on language when paired with corporate greed. If you are appalled when the Oxford Dictionary updates with words like ‘vacay’ and ‘phablet’ and insist on spelling every word in full when you send a text message, The Word Exchange will leave you feeling horrified, yet vindicated.

I think The Word Exchange is both an ambitious, complex, and clever novel and a frustrating, vexatious, and pretentious read. The concept, while not unique, is intriguing and creative but for me the execution was largely alienating. The pace is almost glacial til halfway through and littered with incomplete info dumps, Anana is a weak and annoying heroine who uses disruptive footnotes in her ‘journal’, and the prose is wildly overwritten, even allowing for intentional irony.
But for all that there are moments of brilliance in the narrative, like when, for example, we begin to understand and relate to Graedon’s premise as Bart’s aphasia progresses and made up words proliferate, stripping his journal writing of context and meaning.

I am, in all honesty, torn. The Word Exchange is simultaneously too much, and not enough, an intelligent story but somehow lacking in common sense. If you are curious, I do think it is worth the attempt, but I wouldn’t judge anyone who gives up on it. show less

Near-future apocalyptic fiction which will give users of electronic devices the willies.

A few years from now, tablets have morphed into Memes, devices which use neural pathways to provide information before the user even realizes it's needed. One consequence has been a growing dependence on the Word Exchange, a pay-as-you go dictionary which is replacing memories of word meanings. As the Meme manufacturer buys up rights to dictionaries and announces a major new hardware version of the show more wildly popular device, a handful of lexicographers begin to warn the public about the dangers of the Memes, which they fear is responsible for the new "word flu", which replaces random words with gibberish in its victims language and can lead to muteness or death. Multiple vectors seem to be at work: neurolinks, electronic transfer between devices, and even human speech. The story is told from the viewpoint of several people, especially the daughter of the editor of the last print dictionary expected to ever be published. The editor has vanished, and as his daughter searches for him, critics of the Meme come under violent attack.

This is a fascinating exploration of what we're willing to risk in our quest for instant information and communication, and how our memories and brains might change as we increasingly rely on devices to remember for us. There is an interesting analysis of what the loss of our language might mean for ourselves and for society - that is, if society could even survive without a means of reflecting on the past or remembering into the future. Because the main characters work in the stratosphere of language, the book is cleverly peppered with terms I needed to check on my Kindle, and each time I did so, I wondered whether I used to know these words. Certainly, technology is heading in the direction of Memes (iMemes anyone?), and I found it interesting and instructive to contemplate the long-term consequences of our growing reliance on devices other than our own brains.

A successful debut and a book to ponder later. show less