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[Nigeyb]

Roman Clodia wrote:


"Wow - Who They Was is stunning and certainly not for everyone but I loved it"

Just requested from NetGalley

Here's hoping

Sounds amazing - thanks RC

[Roman Clodia]

Hope you get it - I'd be very interested in whether you also see this as On The Road's triple-X rated older brother.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Wow - Who They Was is stunning and certainly not for everyone but I loved it.

I should add a warning, though, for those who don't do 'street' language and explicit sex and violence ;)"

Ah. You've clarified my question in the other thread. No. If you can't write, don't.

[Roman Clodia]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "If you can't write, don't."

Oh, that's unfair! The narrator (and, I think, the author) just misses getting a first in his BA English degree from the University of London where he reads Nietzsche and discusses him intelligently as well as writing his dissertation on murder in Hamlet. In the story, he writes a letter to a judge who comments on how articulate he is, with some surprise.

He toggles between 'street' and 'proper' English, just as some people switch between, say, German and English. We might say he's bilingual ;)

[Nigeyb]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote:


"If you can't write, don't"

So, for example, if you don't know and follow the rules of syntax, you should not write? If so, why?

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Roman Clodia wrote: "In the story, he writes a letter to a judge who comments on how articulate he is, with some surprise."

And yet he was unable to title his book: Who They Were

Depending on the dialect, I have trouble following it in a book (and more often hearing it). That doesn't make it ungrammatical, just dialect. Street language is dialect. Who They Was is ungrammatical. In any case, I'm glad we've had this discussion. I'm relieved that I don't need to add yet another book to my already over burdened wish list.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Nigeyb wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote:


"If you can't write, don't"

So, for example, if you don't know and follow the rules of syntax, you should not write? If so, why?"

You think people who cannot write should get published and, more importantly, people should spend their precious time reading it?

[Roman Clodia]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "That doesn't make it ungrammatical, just dialect. Street language is dialect."

Yes, exactly. And dialect doesn't have to follow the grammatical rules of its mother language.

Italian, which many people think of as a beautiful language, is actually the vulgar street version of classical Latin. I sort of like to think that people having been having the same discussion as we are for thousands of years!

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Roman Clodia wrote: " I sort of like to think that people having been having the same discussion as we are for thousands of years!."

LOL - OK, this is something that has probably changed in the last 40 or so years. Is it judgment or judgement? Another "Mother" story: she would exclaim: Judgment doesn't have an E after the G! I notice it with an E every time, wince, and move on.

[Roman Clodia]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "You think people who cannot write should get published and, more importantly, people should spend their precious time reading it?"

I'm sure we can all think of bestselling authors who we personally think can't write - but no-one's forcing any of us to read them, and plenty of people get pleasure from them. There are worse ways of spending one's time :)

[Nigeyb]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote:


"You think people who cannot write should get published and, more importantly, people should spend their precious time reading it?"

I'm not sure

I was curious about your position - hence the follow up question

I've certainly enjoyed books extensively written in the vernacular (e.g. Irvine Welsh), and I enjoy the flexibility of English to evolve and expand. Is what you mean by "people who cannot write"?

I love accents, local idioms, patois etc. so I suspect I err towards a more inclusive approach in which anything goes.

A lot of street writing can feel very vibrant and energetic.

I imagine there were readers and critics who felt On the Road was too informal or ungrammatical back in the 50s, and that's now rightly regarded as a modern classic.

[Roman Clodia]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Is it judgment or judgement?"

Haha, as a Brit, it's always 'judgement'. Just as it's 'civilisation', 'colour' and 'programme'. But then I caused a mini-crisis at work this morning by suggesting that we take a lead from American-English and 'weaponize' a policy document... ;))

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Nigeyb wrote: "I love accents, local idioms, patois etc. so I suspect I err towards a more inclusive approach in which anything goes."

So the assumption is that those who prefer well-written books are not inclusive?

Roman Clodia wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Is it judgment or judgement?"

Haha, as a Brit, it's always 'judgement'. "

Haha! Maybe I've only been reading British authors enough recently to notice, but I think Americans are now spelling it this way, too. I was taking your point that language evolves.

[Hugh]

I am British and have always used judgment. Chambers gives both spellings but lists that one first. So I suspect Elizabeth is right that judgement has become more popular in recent years.

[Hugh]

My Chambers is quite old though.

[Nigeyb]

Inclusive in terms of enjoying a wide range of writing styles and varying abilities. Perhaps accepting or tolerant might be more accurate?

[Nigeyb]

I always include the "e" in judgement - I'd never noticed it spelt judgment. I wonder how I missed that?

[Hugh]

Both spellings have been around for a long time but I don't think it is as simple as a geographic preference.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Nigeyb wrote: "Inclusive in terms of enjoying a wide range of writing styles and varying abilities. Perhaps accepting or tolerant might be more accurate?"

Accepting and Tolerant as long as you're applying them to writing styles and not as an attitude in general. I can easily accept and tolerate that not all of us like the same books, for which I am grateful.

I'll just finish off my comments in this vein by remarking that (obviously) titles are the first thing I notice in deciding to inquire more about a book. If the title is off-putting, I need look no further. Perhaps it goes to our earlier conversation about advertising. Some words and phrases will attract some people and others not.

[Nigeyb]

Yes, strictly writing styles


Thanks for the clarification regarding your own preferences

[Chrissie]

I didn't know about this book, The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo, until recently.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I have begun To a God Unknown by John Steinbeck. I am liking it from the start, good writing!

[Joy D]

Multigenerational family saga set in Korea and Japan covering the period 1910 to 1989. This book explores the prejudice experienced by Korean immigrants in Japan. Themes include identity, fate, self-sacrifice, and family secrets. Pachinko is a game of chance, and it represents the outcomes in life for the characters – some win but most lose.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - 4 stars - My Review

[Joy D]

To add to the above discussion on grammar, I also prefer to read grammatically "correct" writing, or at least mostly correct. I can handle dialect and some street language if it is not too extreme (such that I have trouble following it).

I have always spelled it "judgment" - had it drummed into me in school.

[Judy]

Hugh wrote: "I am British and have always used judgment. Chambers gives both spellings but lists that one first. So I suspect Elizabeth is right that judgement has become more popular in recent years."

When I was at school in the 60s, early 70s, I was taught to spell it "judgement", but then informed one day that the correct spelling in the UK was now "judgment"! Since then though I have slipped back to using the "e". I think the same sort of thing happened with one or two other words.

[Roman Clodia]

It's not new, of course, to use dialect/non-standard grammar even in classics: Joseph in Wuthering Heights (utterly incomprehensible to me in his broad Yorkshire accent!), Thomas Hardy's rural workers, DH Lawrence, Elizabeth Gaskell's Manchester workers...

[Roman Clodia]

Chrissie wrote: "I didn't know about this book, The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo, until recently."

I only learned fairly recently that Hugo spent time on Guernsey and finished/proofed Les Miserables there.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Or the stream of consciousness in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I only learned fairly recently that Hugo spent time on Guernsey ."

He was exiled. I learned that in the Zola biography.

[Roman Clodia]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "I only learned fairly recently that Hugo spent time on Guernsey ."

He was exiled. I learned that in the Zola biography."

Thanks, I couldn't remember if it was exile or not. That Zola seems like THE biography to read - everything seems to be in it :)

[Roman Clodia]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Or the stream of consciousness in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury."

Yes! And some modernist poetry.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I have to say it's not clear to me about Hugo being exiled or whether he lived in self-exile, protecting himself. Some of the biography assumes we know things that I do not.

I need to make time to update the Zola thread. Goodness knows, it's not that I don't actually have plenty of time, just that I have been using it in other ways.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

The last Hemingway I read was A Farewell to Arms. I was annoyed to complete distraction at the number of incomplete sentences. I didn't count them - is "number" the right word? Anyway, I know people love Hemingway. I know I probably won't waste my time on him ever again. It isn't whether I think he will waste *your* time, but that level of annoyance is a waste of *my* time.

[Chrissie]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Chrissie wrote: "I didn't know about this book, The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo, until recently."

I only learned fairly recently that Hugo spent time on Guernsey..."

Did you know that in France he is more known for his poetry than his novels?

[Chrissie]

Interesting all the different opinions voiced about correct grammar, dialects and different way of spelling words. I am for flexibility as long as that which is intended comes across, is made clear in some manner.

I do have a harder time with those authors that skip punctuation--José Saramago for example. Here audiobooks are ideal.

[Chrissie]

From what I have read, Hugo was exiled as a result of his opposition to the Second Empire of Napoleon III. First he was banished from France and then later Belgium and I sort of remember the island of Jersey too.

[Val]

I haven't read Who They Was, but from people's descriptions it seems that the character based on the author writes and speaks grammatically correct English at university and speaks a form of street slang with his friends. (I would refer to it as argot, rather than patois or dialect.) The different forms of language show the different environments he inhabits, so there is a reason for it.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Val wrote: "The different forms of language show the different environments he inhabits, so there is a reason for it."

It's a real tragedy that our schools don't do a better job teaching the English language. I don't mean just to children of color, but to all children. In his autobiography, the actor Sidney Poitier spoke to his need (yes, need!) to learn to speak English correctly so that he could have upward mobility, that he could fit in anywhere, go anywhere, be accepted anywhere.

[Val]

I don't think we can blame the schools in this case Elizabeth, he would have learnt the grammatically correct form at school, but chooses not to use it in certain situations.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Val wrote: "I don't think we can blame the schools in this case Elizabeth, he would have learnt the grammatically correct form at school, but chooses not to use it in certain situations."

He chooses not to use it because the guys on the street don't use it. It is *they* to whom I refer.

[Val]

I see what you mean now Elizabeth, but will withhold judgement / judgment on whether his street friends could speak correct English if they chose to do so until I have read the book.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Val wrote: "I see what you mean now Elizabeth, but will withhold judgement / judgment .. ."

Oh, very good!

[Christopher]

Currently reading Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage. I love a good survival story and this is about as intense and harrowing as they come. The remarkable detail of each of the crew members' personalities really make the account shine. Totally hooked already!

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I decided to read some noir. Laura by Vera Caspary starts out very good.

[Roman Clodia]

After a load of contemporary books, I'm making an early start on Madame de Mauves, our buddy-read novella by Henry James.

[Susan]

I loved that, RC. So glad I decided to fit it in and so pleased it was suggested.

[Chrissie]

I have completed To a God Unknown by John Steinbeck. While I like Steinbeck's strong, simple prose, this book is not one of my favorites by the author.

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Now I have returned to another of Vladimir Nabokov's early novels written originally in Russian--Laughter in the Dark. Nabokov was picky about the translation of his books. This I appreciate. Not liking the book's first English translation by Winifred Roy (with the title Camera Obscura), he translated it again, this time himself. His translation was given the title Laughter in the Dark,

[Roman Clodia]

Susan wrote: "I loved that, RC. So glad I decided to fit it in and so pleased it was suggested."

I loved Madame de Mauves too - great pick from Elizabeth! As it's early James, the writing is less labyrinthine than his maturer works and, at around 100 pages, it's perfect as an introduction to James. Plus *lots* to pick over in terms of what was in everyone's heads - I'm looking forward to our buddy-read, opening August 22.

[Roman Clodia]

Having pulled a muscle in my back yesterday when opening a sash window (so embarrassing!), I'm delighted that a library hold of The Pallisers: 12 BBC Radio 4 full cast dramatisations has just come through - hurrah! And I see that Ben Miles (who read some of the Wolf Hall audiobooks) is Plantagenet Palliser.

[Chrissie]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Having pulled a muscle in my back yesterday when opening a sash window (so embarrassing!), I'm delighted that a library hold of [book:The Pallisers: 12 BBC Radio 4 full cast dramatisations|36356625..."


Sorry to hear about your back. I hope it feels better soon.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Having pulled a muscle in my back yesterday when opening a sash window (so embarrassing!), I'm delighted that a library hold of [book:The Pallisers: 12 BBC Radio 4 full cast dramatisations|36356625..."

Ugh! and Wonderful! In the order in which you posted.