Burgess Unabridged: A new dictionary of words you have always needed — Reading Companion

The Voice of the Lexicographer as Satirist

Burgess adopts the solemn cadence of a real dictionary while undercutting it with absurdity. The definition of Meem, for instance, begins with clinical precision—"An artificial half light that women love; a charitable obscurity"—then slides into a poem that winks at the reader: "All meemy was the studio, / And meemy maidens—wait! / Say, were they maidens? Heavens, no! / Are maidens thirty-eight?" The shift from declarative prose to verse is abrupt, mimicking the way a standard dictionary might quote usage, but here the "usage" is Burgess's own comic invention. The cross-references (e.g., See Kipe) further parody scholarly apparatus, creating a mock-serious network that rewards browsing.

Pacing Through Definitions and Digressions

The entries vary in length and rhythm. Some, like Mooble, run long, accumulating examples: "Dancing with your own wife is a mooble—a fairly good play, a dinner-party where the ménu makes up for the dramatis personæ—moobles!" The list accelerates, piling up targets (tall blonde women, the W.C.T.U., commencement essays) before landing on a punchline: "the perfect mooble is the man you used to be engaged to." Others, like Moosoo, are tighter, defining a mood with a few concrete scenarios. This alternation between expansive cataloging and concise snapshots controls the reading pace, inviting both quick dips and longer stays.

Recurring Patterns in the Made-Up Lexicon

Several structural tics recur across entries. Nearly every definition includes a parenthetical cross-reference, often to a term not yet encountered, encouraging nonlinear reading. Many entries end with a four-line poem that restates the definition in rhyme, creating a predictable but satisfying closure. Burgess also repeats certain rhetorical moves: the use of "the" plus a generic noun ("the meemy woman," "the tame young man") to typify social types, and the habit of listing mundane examples ("cornstarch custard, warm iced tea, vanilla ice cream") to ground abstract concepts. These patterns give the dictionary a coherent voice even as the subjects range from vanity to ineptitude.

Because the entries are self-contained, readers can start anywhere—but the cross-references reward sequential browsing. Pay attention to the poems: they often sharpen the satire that the prose softens. The book's humor depends on recognizing the social types Burgess skewers, so reading with an eye for early-20th-century manners adds another layer. Treat the dictionary not as a reference but as a continuous comic performance, where the joke is as much in the form as in the content.

I keep thinking about Burgess's made-up words — how each one holds a little mirror to how we behave. Then I stumbled onto that old collection of seventeenth-century jokes and jabs, Humour, Wit, & Satire of the Seventeenth Century — Reading Notes, and it felt familiar, like laughter across centuries, quietly pointing out the same human silliness.