Customer Reviews

Dead Languages (Graywolf Rediscovery)

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For anyone who has experienced frustration in the area of communication, this book makes you feel as though you are not alone. It is written in a manner that makes it seem as though the main character, Jeremy, is talking to you. You feel as though you are allowed into his private world; A world which has been profoundly shaped by his feelings of inadequacy surrounding verbal communication. There are funny moments. Moving moments. It's a great read.

I bought this for cheap when on holiday in Florida - I know it's silly but I liked the cover. Thankfully, the contents also made my hair stand on end...I have never read a more realistic tale of human emotion and communication. I read it years ago, but I can still remember the sadness and lonliness of characters whose intelligence was little compensation for their sheer inabilty to convey their emotions, through the fear of appearing weak. It left me with a cold chill that will linger for my lifetime - or at least until I learn not to fear rejection.

David Shields' novel explores the meaning of language and its strong influence on the main character of the story, Jeremy Zorn. Vividly described scenes of Jeremy's childhood guide the reader through his struggle with language, both in his stuttering and in his writing. Jeremy desires to subdue words, to communicate through a form at times most elusive. In contrast, his mother tames words and people at will. It is this contrast that Jeremy seeks to overcome. Jeremy discovers that stuttering is not simply a lapse of language, but also an effect of his acute awareness of the words he attempts to utter. His speech therapist tells him: "If you're ever going to gain complete control of your communicative skills, you have to pay attention to each successive moment of utterance--now and now and now; in other words, the continuously moving present, not previous moments of poor performance and certainly not upcoming feared words." Thus language and life intertwine, each influencing the other.

I highly recommend this novel to any audience.

I read Dead Languages about nine years ago and recently had the pleasure of rereading it. For anyone who was afflicted as a child, in any awkward, stumbling, humiliating, exasperating way, this book will reach you. Compelling are the narrator's discoveries of how his disfluency (as a stutterer) shapes his character and the way he evolves in a family obsessed with language. Shields is an incredibly talented writer, a true lover of language who knows how to put words together in unique and beautiful ways.

I can't say enough good things about Dead Languages. Difficulty communicating with the world is a very touching and relevant subject for discussion, on both a figurative and a literal level, and the author tackles both subjects with equal success. The story is very personal, it even reads like an autobiography, but like all well-written biographies it deals with things that can apply to almost everybody.

David Shields has created a wonderfully eloquent story, exploring a young man's struggle with his ability to communicate. The book is eye-opening to those of us who take our communication skills for granted, aside from being a great read and a touching story. Go discover this gem for yourself.