If words are weapons, writers are assassins...

"Every story written is
marks upon a page
The same marks,
repeated, only
differently arranged"
Max Barry, Lexicon

We all know the power of words, that a rousing speech can raise the rebellion or give the hero time enough to foil the evil villain... We all know that words can take us to worlds which don't exist, create lovers and friends that we will never meet but we'll adore for the rest of our lives... We all know that words can wound. That hearts can be broken with just a sentence and that a well placed word will create scars that will never leave us...

So is it so hard to believe that there are words out there that can cut through all of our rational defenses, all the social programming, to our very cores? That there are words which make us totally vulnerable to suggestion, instruction and command?

You know that flutter in your stomach when you answer the phone and the line is silent but you know that someone is about to speak... There's your answer. We intuitively know that words have power and we also know there's not a damn thing we can do about it. We are so easy to Derren Brown.

Max Barry knows this and that's why Lexicon is so good.

Lexicon, (isbn 9781444764659), was published in June this year and I've been meaning to write a review for it ever since I raced through the proof copy a few months back. But something kept holding me back...the fact that it was so damn good.

Set in a world where a secret agency has harnessed the essence of language, identified the key personality types and the specific sounds that can hack each of our brains, this is a novel like nothing I've ever read. From the start it throws you in at the deep end and by the time you realise which way is up, you're already well out of your depth. And it's an immersive, obsessive read. I ate it greedily, spending an entire day off reading in bed with a near constant supply of tea and chocolate biscuits and there aren't many books which grip me like that - I think the last one before this was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and if you read this blog regularly, you'll know exactly how I feel about that book :)

But Lexicon is something different.

It is a great read, it has a compelling plot, fully fleshed characters, ingenuity and cleverness by the bucket but there's also something else...

You know that moment when you could almost believe that the X-files is an authorised government leak? That the truth is just a scrape of the surface below the unbelievable... That there's an element of truth in the horror stories which scare us...

With Lexicon there is always an undercurrent that Barry is pulling back the curtain and giving us a glimpse, not of the wizard, but of our programming. Of the way our minds perceive and comprehend language and sound, from the unspoken command of someone saying our name, the instinctual reaction of a mother to her baby's cry, to the way the hairs on the back of our neck stand up when we hear a scream in the middle of the night. A glimpse of how words and sound manipulate...

That sounds could cut through all the bullshit in our heads and leave us vulnerable...

But Lexicon takes it one step even further... What if there were a word, a phrase that could hack everyone? That there was no defense against. What if this wasn't a new word, but a forgotten word, a word that had been with us since the beginning of us grunting and gesturing at the rock, the cave, the fire... What if this word wasn't ours, what if it had come from before... What does that mean? Where does that leave us?

This is a well crafted, incredibly easy-to-read tale that behind the romp and adventure, exotic locations and death toll, behind the curtain are a lot of Big Thoughts. Note the capitals. This is linguistic philosophy masquerading as mainstream fiction. This is subtle, compelling and essentially, this is fucking clever. And not a literary fiction, big-words-and-podium clever. This is a book which knows it's readers can be smart and still like a damn good read. A book that knows you can like Kafka and Iron Man with the same brain.

This is the kind of book that every writer wishes they could write. I know I do. In an industry where some books bludgeon heavy handedly, this is a showman with an assassins blade, this is misdirection and mass entertainment. This is Derren Brown as fiction.

Now, I might be loving Lexicon too much. I might be reading too much into it... I might be selling too hard and showing you the inside of the empty top hat...

But the best thing... The thing that's really going to bake your noodle... The only way you're going to really know whether this book is everything that I say it is... The only way you can decide for yourself is to read Lexicon.

Consider yourself Derren Browned.

Step right up, the show's about to begin...

“We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images... We slip into a dream, forgetting the room we are sitting in... We recreate, with minor and for the most part unimportant changes, the vital and continuous dream the writer worked out in his mind (revising and revising until he got it right)and captured in language so that other human beings, whenever they feel like it, may open his book and dream that dream again.”

John Gardner - On Becoming A Novelist

Very rarely have I read a book that made me feel like I was dreaming and that made me cry upon awakening at the end of the tale, in despair at the end and joy that I knew part of me would forever remain in that world.

The Night Circus is one of those books and it is the plot, the style, the magic, the everything of that book that makes it so wonderful.

On the surface it is the tale of two men of magic, both with different techniques and beliefs. Unable to prove the other wrong, they train a student each, with the intention of competing one against the other: a rivalry which seems fated from the start every time the competition starts anew. Celia and Marcus are bound to the competition and each other, their lives and magic centred around the forum of their gentile and enchanted battle – the Night Circus.

It is a simple enough plot but it's the Night Circus itself that glows at the centre of of the tale, a character all of its own. Full of wonder, weirdness, enchantments, magic and beauty, the circus is lavishly described, from the white and black powdered grass, each amazing and unbelievable tent and to the tips of the fluttering black and white flags. This whole world is spellbinding, so well has Morgenstern described it. And perhaps it helps that the whole of The Night Circus is black and white – not only does the experience for the characters and readers become dream-like, but it works intuitively with us as readers, after all everything we see on the page as we read is as black and white as the circus itself.

The book even structures itself like a dream, hopping from character, location, time period and perspective with abrupt ease and somehow managing to make it work beautifully, because in the back of our minds we trust and let the dream lead us where it will. And like dreams there are things we don't know, can only intuit, especially towards the end...

But despite the things left unsaid the ending is exactly what it should be... With every book or film I hope for the same things, the rising crescendo of music or emotion at the completion of the tale, the resolution as the characters stand in the real or metaphorical sunrise/sunset – that pay off that is at once a little saccharin and cheesey but ultimately fulfilling none-the-less... And The Night Circus has this in buckets, managing somehow to supply us with a rewarding, heart swelling end without resorting to stereotype or any form of cheese or artificial sweetener.

The final chapter with its implications for us as an individual reader... Morgenstern makes us part of the story, a continuum of the tale, forever immortalised and enchanted. And to do that and make you feel it, make you believe it – that is one of the greatest gifts an author can bestow,

In The Night Circus Morgenstern has even created her very own cult/appreciation society; the followers of the fictional Night Circus who travel with the circus, following it as it flits across the western world, wearing monochrome like the circus itself, the black only being broken by splashes of red, a scarf here, a glove or rose there, marking them as Reveurs, the dreamers who have made themselves part of the dream.

As you watch this author, as you follow her tale and watch her rise above the other words and worlds, appearing at signings and award ceremonies – look out for her Reveurs, for they'll be there showing their appreciation with smiles and scarlet.

If you liked Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell read this book. If you like Neil Gaiman's or Angela Carter's work, read this book. If you love or have lingering affection for childhood fairy tales, the brothers Grimm or Anderson, read this book. Simply – just read this book.

It is a hauntingly beautiful lullaby of a story, full of love, theatre, beauty and enchantment. Read it and you won't want to wake up. Read it and you won't know whether your real life or the Night Circus is the dream.

If I close my eyes I can hear the flags catching the breeze in the starlight, I can hear snowflakes rustling against canvas and the caramel popcorn smells so sweet...

I originally wrote this blog way back in September 2011 and have been lax in posting it. Since then I've attended a signing with Erin Morgenstern as a Reveur, have seen The Night Circus hit the best-sellers chart during the festive season and yearned to read it again.

Erin Morgenstern's next book is going to be a film noir re-telling of Alice in Wonderland, complete with seamed stockings and smoking guns... I can't wait.