rclayton reviewed The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine
The Grammarians
3 stars
Soon after the identical twins Laurel and Daphne Wolfe are born they develop a private language they’ll use into adulthood. As they grow up they besot themselves with words and language, and unsettle everyone around them. As adults they continue to be word driven - as copy editors, columnists, teachers and poets - but individuation sets in, starting with a nose job and growing to encompass their essence: prescriptivist vs descriptivist. If you read The Corrections and didn’t like the parts with Erin and Sinéad, you should skip this; otherwise read it, particularly if you're looking for a follow-up to Happy All the Time, although there's more children and death in this book than there is in Colwin’s.
As a special treat for writers, page 210 has a good example of how it goes wrong when you tell instead of show; it’s specially egregious because everywhere else Schine’s prose is …
Soon after the identical twins Laurel and Daphne Wolfe are born they develop a private language they’ll use into adulthood. As they grow up they besot themselves with words and language, and unsettle everyone around them. As adults they continue to be word driven - as copy editors, columnists, teachers and poets - but individuation sets in, starting with a nose job and growing to encompass their essence: prescriptivist vs descriptivist. If you read The Corrections and didn’t like the parts with Erin and Sinéad, you should skip this; otherwise read it, particularly if you're looking for a follow-up to Happy All the Time, although there's more children and death in this book than there is in Colwin’s.
As a special treat for writers, page 210 has a good example of how it goes wrong when you tell instead of show; it’s specially egregious because everywhere else Schine’s prose is graceful and subtle.