The Surgeon of Crowthorne
by Gareth on Jul.08, 2009, under Reviews
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Based very firmly on a true story, the Surgeon of Crowthorne concerns the inestimable assistance one Dr W.C. Minor gave in assembling the first concise Oxford English Dictionary.
He was deeply interested in language as well as being a keen painter and a man of science.
Oh, and he was a paranoid, delusional, sex-obsessed, xenophobic murderer as well.
As exciting as all this may sound (the book is billed as ‘A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words’ after all), the majority of the book is comprised the methods through which the OED was compiled and the difficulties associated with this task. Indeed, our secondary protagonist is Dr James Murray – the lexicographer generally hailed as being the driving force behind the creation of the OED.
The remnant of the tale tells of Dr W.C. Minor and the strange circumstances of his life. If begins with Congregationalist Church missionaries on the island of Sri Lanka and ends in Broadmoor Asylum – via the American Civil War, Washington and Lambeth.
It’s obvious that an immense amount of research has gone into this book and effort has been made to keep it honest and without sensationalisation. The story is undeniably interesting, though rather dry in parts. For example, one part of the book concerning self mutilation (in a manner that will cause around forty nine percent of people some distress) is succinctly dealt with in less than a page. True, biographical tales do not have the leeway that fiction does in this kind of scenario, but a little bit of emotive language to emphasise dramatic events would not have gone amiss.
Anyone interested in lexicography, etymology or collaborative literature would, I’d imagine, find this book fascinating. For the less bookish type, there’s still enough of a story to keep them interested. Some parts may feel overly verbose or drab, but there is a satisfactory ending which is worth it.
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