A Fatal Failure

I'm reading a novel that in many ways is superb, but it has a fatal weakness. Its hero speaks in a vernacular that is so thick it is impossible to follow. It forces the reader to pause, translate the phonetic misspellings, and try to make sense of them. The result is that it continually yanks the reader out of the story, pulls him back into the world of book and print, and demolishes the thread of the storyline.

I have seen that from time to time over the years. Storytelling is an art, and requires a restraint that keeps the reader glued to the story. Years ago, when Terry Johnston first published his fur trade novels, he wrestled with the same problem. A critic gently pointed out to him that when it comes to vernacular, less is more. You can create an entire way of speaking by hinting at it rather than replicating it in every spoken word, which drives readers nuts.

Terry was a gifted, superb storyteller, and eventually did modify some of that oddball dialogue and exchanges that were difficult for modern readers to follow, and swiftly rose to the top of the publishing world with one best-seller after another.

The novel I am now reading, by another author, needs some serious restraint, not only in the use of vernacular, but also in its burlesquing of characters. It renders them so absurd and improbable that they trigger a retreat in readers who would love to be carried along by the story.