The Grammarians
By: Cathleen Schine / Narrated By: Hillary Huber
Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
A story of girls growing up… and then becoming real jerks… But the parents were AWEsome!
Oh huzzah for me, and p’raps I’m getting back to my Never Read the Publisher’s Summaries roots!
I went into The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine guided by only the compelling cover pic of twins and by the posssssible awesome performance of Hillary Huber—ya never know with Ms. Huber as sometimes it seems like the text bores her, and she phones in her performance.
And at the beginning, I thought to myself: Uh-oh, she seems bored… as the early narration is rather lackadaisical as we enter the world of the Wolfe twins, older-by-a-few-minutes Laurel and “little sister” Daphne. The two appear to the parents to be gibbering, but actually they’re communicating about their situation in this new world outta the womb. We’re hungry… one says. I’ll scream, and that’ll get them here… the other responds. From this we see the set up: Laurel takes the lead in all things with Daphne waiting in the wings, all dramatic-like.
Then we get into their entire lives as headstrong twins, a We-Are-Me sort of existence for the two. Both are precocious and FASCinated with words, often driving their Uncle and younger cousin to bellow or to dissolve in angry tears, relatively. Dad’s recent purchase of a simply massive dictionary is placed on a stand and becomes like an altar for the girls. They live for words; they navigate their surroundings, their relationships, through words.
And then it’s a loooooong story of growing up, of what it means to be family, of what it means to be an individual, esPECially if you’re one with another person. Their child selves: How can we use words to drive our Uncle and cousin nuts? As young women: How can we use words to individuate and become “me” as opposed to “us”? And here, Schine crafts probably the sweetest relationship in the book, that of husband of Laurel and husband of Daphne as the two share a joint wedding, joint lives, and soon, the utter dissolution of the relationship between sisters.
Because eventually words are what the women fall back upon when they find they are completely and unutterably themselves, each unique, and tho’ their life paths are similar, they are totally at odds. Daphne sees language and grammar as something ignorant people are always torturing. Laurel sees language and grammar as elitist, a way of dismissing the lower classes.
And that, I discovered, was what the Publisher’s Summary says this is all about.
Uhm? Noooooo!
This is really just a very long, very good 7 1/2 hours. It’s the life of a family, the lives of two women. Initially, as Daphne was coming into her own, not being the sister that always followed but a voice in her own right, I thought she was getting pretty danged shrill as she went along. While I applauded her becoming a person, and I thought Laurel kinda sorta was getting a bit of a comeuppance, and while I knew she’d been written as The Dramatic Twin, still? Shrilllllll!
Then Schine continues the story, and Laurel suddenly became shrill herself to the point where I was disliking BOTH of them. I totally loved their mom, their dad, but the Twins? Oh, they grated on my very last nerve, and by the time that dictionary became a focal point for their fights, their possessive and self-sanctimonious behavior, I looked down and saw I had only a few more minutes in the story. So? Publisher’s Summary that intimates this will be a comedy of two strong and eccentric wills, sparring and vying for the Family Dictionary? Not so.
Nope, not that, but I did appreciate it as a (short) epic of two generations of the Wolfe brothers (Dad and Uncle) and their wives (Mom and Aunt), and their children (The twins and Cousin Brian). It was sweet that Brian grew from being a bratty kid whose only “weapon” against his twin cousins was to use the scientific terms for bird names. And then he grew up to be an ornithologist. Sweeet!
Most people, if they didn’t like the book, said that it was that leeeengthy (80%) first part of the book that dragged before it picked up at the end with the feud and the dictionary fight. Noooo, THAT part was annoying, and were it not for that lovely relationship between husbands, I think I probably would’ve groaned the entire final 20% of the book. Noooo, it’s the first part of the story, with all growing up, and then to the verrrrry last, with all growing old, where you’ll find bits of story that shine. Those bits are what make this a fun Listen, a worthwhile one.
But oh that feud, and oh those women! ICK!
…and…? Hillary Huber did NOT phone it in, so presumably she enjoyed the story as well…! The question is: Whom did she dislike more, Daphne or Laurel? Tossup as both came off as…? Yessss, shrillllll!
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.