No, not children or government officials this time, but novels. More specifically, two novels that have really pissed me off in the past few months. With the first one, I should have known better. I'd just finished reading "Remains of the Day" and wanted a palatte cleanser before moving on to "The Plot Against America" -- something light and fluffy, with jokes and a happy ending. Ah, "The Man from Perfect" by Andrea Semple! Looks just the job!
Andrea, Andrea, Andrea. I'm thrilled for you that you've published two other books. Now, take some of the money that Piatkus gave you as an advance and buy a decent grammar primer. Turn to the pages on personal pronouns and learn the difference between subject and object. "Me and James went to the park" is wrong. It's "James and I went to the park"! It's not difficult - take out the "and James" part and read the sentence and then CORRECT IT! This is bloody elementary English, but if you feel that even this is beyond you, hire a decent copy editor who can correct the myriad examples of this basic mistake that litter your book (and also pick up the spelling mistakes and unclosed punctuation). Christ! Heat called this "painfully funny" -- at least their adjective was spot-on.
However, Andrea's grasp of plot was pretty good and her characters developed nicely, unlike in "Eleven Minutes" by Paulo Coehlo. "Can Maria, a beautiful Brazilian working for a high-class escort agency in Switzerland, move beyond the meeting of bodies to a meeting of minds or even souls - to a place where sex itself is sacred?" Gah! Paulo, if I wanted the classic male fantasy of the happy hooker who falls in love with her rich, handsome client, I'd have rented Pretty Woman - at least it has some decent shopping scenes. This book is just infuriating. I read it with mounting astonishment while on holiday -- "Surely he's not going to have her fall for a client? Who loves and accepts her? And who's young, good-looking, and a hugely talented artist? That would be so cliched! So trite! So Hollywood!" Unbelievable.
Philip Roth: I'd better enjoy The Plot Against America and not find any glaring grammatical errors or there'll be hell to pay.
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Though I did have a few quibbles (which we'll discuss in February) altogether it was a good read. I especially enjoyed how realistic a "typical New Jersey/American childhood" Roth creates for the reader - lots of details resonated for me.
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