Arc, narrative, lacking in dictionary

From Decoy (dir. Jack Bernhard, 1946). Morgue attendants in conversation, as one of them reads a dictionary:

“D-i, die, c-h-o-t, chot, o-m-y: die-chot-o-mee.” ‌[Laughs.] “Ain’t that a lulu? And get this one: die-dack-tick.” [Laughs again.]

“Hey, why don’t you stop reading that junk?”

“What’s the matter with the dictionary?”

“There ain’t enough story to it.”

Film fans will recognize the dictionary reader, the anonymous “Thin Morgue Attendant” (Louis Mason) as the man who’s going back home to starve all at once in The Grapes of Wrath. His antagonist is “Fat Morgue Attendant,” aka Benny (Ferris Taylor). Perhaps inspired by the pair of clowns in Hamlet ?

See also W.H. Auden, “Prologue: Reading,” in The Dyer’s Hand (1962):

Though a work of literature can be read in a number of ways, this number is finite and can be arranged in a hierarchical order; some readings are obviously “truer” than others, some doubtful, some obviously false, and some, like reading a novel backwards, absurd. That is why, for a desert island, one would choose a good dictionary rather than the greatest literary masterpiece imaginable, for, in relation to its readers, a dictionary is absolutely passive and may legitimately be read in an infinite number of ways.

Related reading
All OCA dictionary posts (Pinboard)