There’s a disagreement in a small kingdom, about which food should represent the word ‘delicious’ in the dictionary being compiled. A boy is sent to poll everyone in the kingdom and see if they can come to a consensus. But not a single person agrees on exactly what ‘delicious’ means. And there’s something at far greater stake than just settling a word definition. Someone else is riding ahead of the boy, spreading little words around that sow further disagreement between the people, until every place he goes is in an uproar. The boy Galen is just trying to do his job- but then he also finds himself trying to solve the meaning behind a fragment of an old song, and right an ancient wrong done to a mermaid who still weeps. Is she still alive somewhere? Can Galen return to her what was lost? Even more importantly, can anything be done to stop the civil war that seems on verge of erupting?
This was quite silly- or rather, it showed how very absurd human egos can be. It’s got some great characters and is wonderfully written, but it just didn’t quite grip me. It’s one I really wish I had read long ago as a kid myself. I found it a bit hard to see how the two disparate parts of the story- one about strife and argument over words, and the other more like a fable, involving the mermaid- were related. They felt very different in nature. It did weave together at the end, but felt oddly unsatisfying. And I’m sad that at the end of the story, people were still arguing over what best defined a word- now it was about the color ‘yellow’ (yellow is a sunset, no a daffodil) but more mildly now- agreeing to disagree I suppose.
It’s worth keeping on my shelf for a future re-read though. I think I might have just been in an irksome state of mind.
