The Grammarians: A Novel by Cathleen Schine: book review

The Grammarians (2019) is set in America, in 1980s Manhattan.

Identical red-headed twin girls, Daphne and Laurel Wolfe, both love language and words, and each other. As children, they speak their own “twin language.” They “collect” words–and even call their dog Webster after the Webster Dictionary.

But as they grow older, their interest in men tests their twinship. Laurel and Larry: Daphne and Michael. On their double-wedding day, everyone is blissfully happy. But things change: “And then Laurel made herself a little bit more different. Laurel got her nose fixed.” First appearances, then grammar!

Their devotion to language moves in opposite directions: “There was something wayward in the twins’ relationship now, a devious shift” that their mother Sally sensed.

Daphne is now a grammar columnist, writing the People’s Pedant, determined to preserve the strict rules of grammar in the English language. Laurel is now a poet, determined to experiment with language, its interpretation and intent. Where once they were following the same path, the twins are now in dispute. Push comes to shove when they fight over custody of their valuable family heirloom—a dictionary. Not just any dictionary, but the Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged.

This novel is comical, and absurd, but entertaining and witty. Which view do readers take? Who’s side are you on? Can you be ambiguous, indecisive, and indeterminate, taking both points of view? The twins don’t think so—it’s one or the other. This is sibling rivalry to its linguistic and comic end.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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