The Professor and the Madman

Rating:
Summary: Quick read for philologists, historians, and others.
Review: I like reading the occasional historical fact (rather than historical fiction) "novelette," and The Professor and the Madman was definitely easy to get through. One can learn much from books like this, particularly the way normal people lived their day-to-day lives in a certain time and place.

A few things I liked about this book:

1. One will assuredly learn a thing or two about the English language, in reading it. You will learn some obsolete words, the origin of some words, and just get a refresher of other, more common words. Each chapter begins with a dictionary entry of a particular word, some very normal words, some more exotic words.

2. The parallel lives of the two main characters are interesting to follow. One feels real emotions for both. There are a few shocking moments in the book, which stand out quite a bit in front of the otherwise fairly tame narrative.

3. I grew up with the Oxford English Dictionary, and I always wondered how they compiled all the words. It was great learning about how they did that.

4. The book covers an array of themes and topics, and a fairly diverse geography. Mental illness, civil war, sexual propriety, crime and punishment, one can learn a little bit about a lot of issues in the reading of Simon Winchester's book.

I wouldn't recommend the book to just anyone, though. It can be kind of slow, and sometimes one simply grows tired of bouncing back and forth between the two main characters. It is also fairly short; one sort of wishes for more detail on certain events. In some places, the book reads like a crime/detective novel from the 19th century, in others it is more like a biography. It sort of skips around from one style to the next, almost as if different parts were written at very different times by an author in very different states of mind. Overall, though, this book is a nice, quick read, a good plot, and you will learn a thing or two from it.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, informing, and overall pretty good
Review: I must say that this was the first non-fiction book that I had picked up in a very long time and was quite happy that I took the opportunity. I always imagined that it was hard work to put together a dictionary but I never would have guess as to the actual amount of work it takes. This book really gave insight into a part of life that we sometimes take for granted.
However, this book was just not a history lesson; it was also the story of one man in particular who contributed a great lot to the writing of the English Oxford Dictionary. The story of how he went mad and spent his time in an asylum finding literary examples for words in the dictionary. This aspect of the book took it away from a history lesson and turned it more into a novel/biography with a bit of history mixed in with it. Truly interesting to see how people were treated before the use of a lot of medicine and techniques that we use today.
I thought it was wonderfully written, however at some parts it was a little dry, but when you thought you just needed to find something else to read Winchester would reveal a little more information to the reader and keep you hooked for just a little while longer.
I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning a little about the history of the English language and the life of a truly interesting person.


Rating:
Summary: A good story. Not a good book.
Review: I wanted to read this book as soon as I heard about it. I waited quite a long time for it, as it wasn't being printed in the U.S. yet.

I would be happy if I hadn't waited. I would be happy if I'd forgotten about it completely.

The story is a good one. Making a dictionary for the first time is a good story--undertaking the process using only paper, no computers, no phone calls, stacking up those papers for years and years. Interesting. Stories about madmen are intriguing. Looking into the unknown and actually getting a glimpse of what's there is interesting.

Putting the two together has real potential.

Still, the author tells the story in a way that makes the madman into a cobbled together character who is pitiful and helpless. We also expect that the professor will be a person involved in the madman's life.

Neither of these things is true.

I see that I am in the minority in not liking this book, but I object to the hyperbole used. The way the author is somehow trying to blend Jack the Ripper with the idea of a person having _A Beautiful Mind_ creates an unfortunate picture that shows both the professor and the madman to be duped or shortchanged by life.

This isn't called historical fiction. It's history told poorly. It's history misrepresented. It's history turned into a soap opera and human beings turned into fictional characters.

Rating:
Summary: Ancedotes of History
Review: Is this really worth a book?

That is a question worth answering. It is a single but interesting ancedote filled with trivia about mental illness, Civil War justice, the history of dictionaries, and finally self-mutilation.





Rating:
Summary: A Victorian beautiful mind
Review: It is odd, but I recently read "A beautiful mind" which is about a mathematician John Nash who suffers from delusions, recovers and goes on to win the Nobel prize following a full remission of his symptoms. This book is also about a brilliant academic - and murderer - who suffers no remission, but is able to turn his finely tuned mind to the creation of the Oxford Dictionary. Locked in his room in an asylum with only his books, armed with his incredible mind and astonishing persistence, W.C. Minor performs a massive work that forms the backbone of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The story highlights the amazing story of an American rightly imprisoned for criminal insanity who is able to perform the arduous task of compiling meanings for the dictionary. Winchester is a superb storyteller and he even makes the forming of a dictionary an interesting tale. Mixing the tragedy with the remarkable achievement of W.C. Minor, you close the book with an immense feeling of satisfaction. I cannot recommend a book more highly.

Rating:
Summary: pretty not bad
Review: Makes a great story about insanity and the human potential. Genius is inextricably linked to madness in the interaction of different characters and also in a single individual. Books like this are fascinating because they take everyday objects and bring them into a historical context--every time I use my dictionary now I think of the story behind it, and how that may only be the tip of the iceberg. Wincester's prose is manageable for the most part--sometimes it doesn't flow smoothely, but one doesn't have to plow too strenuously to get through this fairly short book. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in madness and/or the origins of household objects we take for granted.

Rating:
Summary: A thorough, if overwrought, true tale
Review: Simon Winchester writes of James Murray (the Professor) and W.C. Minor (the Madman) and their unique relationship, which led in part to the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Minor, suffering from paranoia, kills a man in Lambeth, London, in a fearful panic, and is placed in an asylum. He finds a life preserver in a published request by Murray, editor of the dictionary, asking for submissions to the great tome. For decades, Minor descends further into madness while feeding supporting quotations for word definitions to the OED staff.

Winchester draws the story slowly, exceedingly so. He seems to admire the long length of Dickensian texts because this book is as verbese, suffering from the weight of its wordiness. Repeatedly you'll find yourself asking the author to get to the point. Why spend numerous pages explaining the etymology of a single word within the story? Even Winchester's acknowledgements plod on for seven pages.

Curiously, Winchester hasn't included any photos in the book. He could have saved us some of his lengthy descriptions by providing photos instead. He has not included an index either, a strange omission for a book about the creation of perhaps the greatest index ever compiled.

Many will undoubtedly enjoy the saga of Murray and Minor, though few will enjoy it (or Winchester) as much as Winchester does.

Rating:
Summary: Great story, and it's true!
Review: The history of the OED that is contained in this book is enough to make this an enjoyable historical read. But the true story of one particular man's contribution to the creation of the OED is fascinating and makes this volume a page-turner.

For dictionary nuts, biography lovers and those who like the off-beat - "The Professor and the Madman" is a great read for a rainy weekend and the perfect gift for any word lover.

Rating:
Summary: A fun read, but somewhat flawed
Review: The Professor and the Madman deals with the role of asylum inmate Dr. William Minor in the development of the Oxford English Dictionary, and with the relationship of Dr. Minor to James Murray, the OED's longtime editor. The book's main strength, and also its primary emphasis, is its treatment of Minor's downward psychological spiral, beginning with his traumatic experience as a surgeon in the US Civil War, continuing through the murder that landed him in the asylum, followed by his extremely productive years as a volunteer researcher for the OED, and finally through his severe sickness in his later years, when he no longer channeled his energies into the OED and slipped even further into insanity in the absence of the obsession that had linked him to the outside world. The book deals with many tangential matters as well, giving a brief but interesting history of the dictionaries predating the OED and going into some detail regarding the development of the OED itself and the lives of its primary editors, notably Murray.

Especially near the beginning of the book, I felt that Winchester was going off on a few too many tangents, as though he thought he needed filler to give the subject a book-length treatment; for example, he spends nearly four pages discussing the definition of the word "protagonist," and, after telling us that in Shakespeare's time there weren't any English dictionaries, proceeds to do nothing but restate that fact for the next two or three pages. His tangents are, admittedly, written in a charming style, but they can be frustrating for those of us who might like Winchester to simply get to the point. Another thing that disappointed me was that Winchester spent very little time speculating on why it was that Minor chose to obsess himself with the OED, and why his contributions tapered off around the turn of the century. Of course Minor was bored and had relatively few options because of his detainment in the asylum, but clearly most people in his position found other things with which to busy themselves. The fact that both Minor and one of the other greatest volunteer contributors to the OED, Fitzedward Hall, were Americans with psychological problems is an interesting fact. Considering that Winchester was audacious enough to speculate that Minor's autopeotomy near the end of his life may have been a result of his shame over romantic feelings or possibly even acts involving the widow of the man he murdered, it's disappointing that Winchester didn't spend much time considering the much more central question of why the OED attracted Minor so.

Despite these weaknesses, The Professor and the Madman is an interesting book and on the whole does a very good job dealing with Minor's schizophrenia. Short and written in an engaging style, it's a quick read and was well worth my time.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable with a few flaws
Review: This book--part true crime, part literary history, part human interest story-was difficult to put down. It tells the story of two of the personalities behind the making of The Oxford English Dictionary. One, the professor James Murray, was the editor of the tome. The other, Dr. W.C. Minor, was a major contributor to The OED, a former American army surgeon, and a raving lunatic. The Professor and the Madman also narrates the process of compiling The OED and throws in some fascinating etymology. This more "academic" portion of the work is written modestly enough that it should interest even those with only a passing curiosity for the English language. The chapter headings, which contain definitions of words appropriate to the chapter's content, are an interesting touch.

Winchester is an able if not a masterful writer. There is nothing complex or poetic or particularly profound in his narrative, but he tells a fascinating story and captures the reader's interest. I will offer two critiques, however, both of which relate to the author's unskilled method of foreshadowing. Winchester would occasionally drop a hint that leaves the reader hanging, which is fine, if the reader has some concept that his whetted appetite will eventually be satisfied. But after dropping these hints the author would move on as though he had simply forgotten about them, leaving the reader little idea that he planned to reveal all later. (One such example is when the author mentions that only one word was ever lost from the OED. The reader immediately thinks in frustration, "What word?" But Winchester continues his narrative as if he has no intention of revealing the secret. Much later in the book the author mentions the fact again, and this time he reveals the word, after the reader has already given up hope of learning it.) Secondly, this inexpert foreshadowing also tends to obscure the chronology of the story from time to time. Despite these minor frustrations, however, the book is an excellent read.