autonomy, n.
"I want my books to have their own shelves," you said, and that's how I knew it would be okay to live together.
There’s no mystery to solve or appropriate plot or character to write home about, but the writer David Levithan is genius, to make it so. Yes, so you know now what book I’m going to talk about: The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan. It is the gem for its unusual writing structure. I mean the book is not written in kind of a novel book structure or an essay book structure or a collection of poem book structure. Just like its name a “dictionary”, the book also written in a dictionary structure. Every story or sometime is not even a story at all just an acronym or just a sentence, is written to explain a word chose by the author. For the rest of the book, the words are sorted alphabetically.
Title: The Lover's Dictionary
Edition: Paperback 211 pages
Published: January 17th 2012 by Picador
Author: David Levithan
ISBN:1250002354 (ISBN13: 9781250002358)
Edition language: English
I, n.
Me without anyone else.
x, n.
Doesn't it strike you as strange that we have a letter in the alphabet that nobody uses? It represent one-twenty-sixth of the possibility of our language, and we let it languish. If you and I really, truly wanted to change the world, we'd invent more words that stared with x.
You know there’s a book that we like because the story reflects our life, so easily we connected with the story. Or the book is just so cleverly written put you in awe, it usually happens to nonfiction book or fiction book with mystery or thriller genre. If the book is art book, you love it because the picture or the drawing style of the author suits your taste. For me there’s a book called comfort book because the story is telling about the life that I dream of or wish it happen to me. Though for me in general every book offers a comfort as a door to escape to another world, just sit, read, follow every word and every line like your life is depend on it, and enter the author’s mind, you is the author and the author is you, and you feel the door to the real world slowly disappear, left you with some peace of mind.
halcyon, adj.
A snow day. The subway has shut down, your office has shut down, my office has shut down. We pile back into bed, under the coves --- chilly air, warm bodies. Nestling and tracing the whole morning, then bundling up to walk through the empty snowdrift street, experiencing a new kind of city quiet, then breaking it with a snow ball fight. A group of teenagers joins in. We come home frozen and sweaty, botching the hot chocolate on first try, then jump back into bed for the est of the day, emerging only to wheel over the TV and order Chinese food and check to see if the snow is still failing and failing and failing, which it is.
So The Lover’s Dictionary is the comfort book. The story talks about the everyday life of people in term of romantic relationship. I probably the last person on earth, you want to ask for an advice about love and everything related with romantic relationship because my lack of experience :P or the kind of person I am who think everything that as irrational as love or emotion is beyond my comprehension and ridiculous that I don’t want to waste any energy and time pondering. But I watch so many K dramas and novels brag, brag, and brag about how wonderful and beautiful thing called love is. And I cried, laughed, was angry along with these dramas and novels, so sometime I wonder if I experience that kind of life or relationship maybe I can be as happy (said the always moderate to slightly depressed me) or I think I have morphed into some kind of love guru after watching and reading this kind of dramas and novel like love is something you can study and learn with reading tons of book without actually experience it (said the always curious, smart pants, and intellectual snob me). Ha ha, ha…
hubris, n.
Every time I call you mine, I feel like I'm forcing it, as if saying it can make it so. As if I'm reminding you, and reminding the universe: mine. As if that one word from me could have that kind of power.
The story in The Lover’s Dictionary is not all about the beautiful side of romantic relationship, the happiness of the first meet and know the person is the one, the comfortable state with person whom you can do everything and the person still love you, the safety net for knowing that there’s always one who be there for you and think you first as priority, but also the bad one, all the cheating, the jealousy, doubt in first stage relationship, the agitation in the first meet with the spouse’s parent, the suppose-to-let-go-because-it-is-toxic-relationship-but-you-hang-in-there act, the heartbreak, and the painful of letting go. See it’s the pretentious love guru of me who preaching. ;D Have I ever fallen in love? I have, so I kind of slightly imagine the spur of happiness of it. Have I ever experienced heartbreak? I have, so I have learned to not break other people’s heart. Have I been in the serious relationship? I have not. So the excitement of reading the book is the mix between the short experience as baseline and the naïve idea about love and betrayal from my imagination. If I may guess, will it be different for people who already actually has experienced it? Hmmm.
fluke, n.
The date before the one with you had gone so badly --- egoist, smoker, bad breath --- that I'd vowed to delete my profile the next morning. Except when I went to do it, I realized I only had eight days left in the billing cycle. So I gave it eight days. You emailed me on the sixth.
solipsistic, adj.
Go ahead, I thought. Go ahead. Go ahead. I got stuck there. Go ahead. Go ahead. Because I genuinely couldn't see any thing after that.
And there’re giggles. You may be the girl who give Like, Re tweet, Shared, Add Plus One on article like How The Strong Woman Who’s Used To Being On Her Own, Things You Will Learn From Dating an Independent Woman, Things Independent Woman Should Keep In Mind Before Starting Relationship, A Strong woman should bla, bla, bla…. An Independent woman should bla, bla, bla, not because that exactly who you are, though perhaps almost who you are, the woman who you inspire to be, so that you can get up every morning and facing your own battle all over again with face high up. But in your darkest hours when you are tired of being strong and independent, doing everything alone, you start to quoting all the cheesy love quote have ever found on earth or watch rom-com dramas like there’s no tomorrow or you will stop believing Love word for once and all, you may share the giggle with me.
love, n.
I'm not going even try.
Welcome to the club of deadly romantic woman but head strong, ration first, emotion second, priority intact. The romantic relationship world may kind of harsh to us, but there’s a small moment like reading a book like The Lover’s Dictionary that world seems full of giggles and comedy, though in satire way. It’s like reading Pablo Neruda’s poem with side line commentary:” Gosh, it is so cheesy, irrational near foolish, I will never, ever, ever, do, think, say, act, like that kind of stuff!” But you give yourself a moment, and then you remember the young and innocent you who did, not, just one or two, but all those stuff. And the grinning and giggles induced. It’s okay my dear friend, you’re not alone, you and me are the birds of a feather flock together.
Sonnet XVII - Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
For me the deal breaker is when I need to find all the meaning of the word in the book, not just the words that the author picks to inspire a story, but even sideline words inside the story. I need to understand every words in the book, because every words matters. It seems to me David Levithan don’t waste every word that he wrote. If you are English native speaker may be you can’t experience it, but if English is not your mother’s tongue language, it is when you have to check every word that you don’t understand or understand but in vague way in dictionary. In other book, I may just play the game guess the meaning of the word according to the sentence and story but I feel I don’t do the book justice if I did that. I find myself reciting words from the book in my free hours, between lines and lines of work waiting to be done. So beautiful, funny, and innovative, highly recommended!
paleontology, n.
You couldn't believe the longest relationship I'd ever been in had only lasted for five months.
"Ever?" you ask, as if I might have overlooked a marriage.
I couldn't say, "I never found anyone who interested in me all that much," because it was only our second date, and the jury was still hearing your case.
I sat there as you excavated your boyfriends, lid the bones out on the table for me to see. I shifted them around, tried to reassemble them, if only to see if they bore any resemblance to me.
only, adj.
That's the dilemma, isn't it? When you're single, there's the sadness and joy of only me. And when you're paired, there's the sadness and joy of only you.
