This quote from Janet Maslin of the New York Times sums the book up pretty well….

A dark, dystopic grabber in which words are treated as weapons, and the villainous types have literary figures’ names. Plath, Yeats, Eliot and Woolf all figure in this ambitious, linguistics-minded work of futurism.

… although I’m not sure the book is actually dystopic or futuristic.

Since falling in love with Syrup, I’ve read everything written by Max Barry. Lexicon is good, probably better than Jennifer Government and Machine Man, but not as strong as either Syrup (which will always have a special place in my heart) or Company, which I think his best novel.

Lexicon like most of Max’s work, moves at a clip. All dull bits have been forcibly taken from the book and shot. That does mean, at times, that the novel feels rushed, especially at a couple of crucial moments near the end. (For those who’ve read the novel, I didn’t buy how Emily ‘programs’ Harry – especially in the five minutes she’s got at her disposal). The ending also feels a little anti-climactic, but that might be because the novel has an epic feel – what with it being essentially about language, meaning, context and the machine code that runs the Universe – and the climax doesn’t match that epicness.

All that said I loved the books non linear structure and how it let Barry play around with foreshadowing and readers expectations.

And then there’s all the linguistic and language bafflegab. I’ve got no idea whether Barry’s theories on language and neurolinguistics (shit there’s a term I never thought I’d use in review) actually reflects current thinking, but it certainly felt like Max had done his research.

But it’s more then that. This isn’t just Max showing off that he’s read… I don’t know… Daniel Dennett or Chomsky… it’s clear as the novel progresses that Max is passionate about how language as data and information can be used to strip away our basic rights to privacy. I’m not really doing the book’s language obsessed theme much justice here. But for what’s essentially a thriller with slight Harry Potter overtones (especially on how words are use like magic spells to compromise people), this book has something to say about how in this internet age language is mightier than the sword.

So, reservations aside and noting that it’s not his best work, Lexicon still a fun read with depth.