Great works of literature are often found to be slightly wayward with strict grammar and spelling.
Who doesn’t think that James Joyce’s Ulysses would have been vastly improved had he been able to run it through spell check quickly before sending? Not to mention tidying up some of those long sentences he uses.
Now another artiste has railed against the idea that she should have had a copy editor glance over her work before she sent off what appears to have been a first draft off to publishers.
A furious debate ensued following a rather innocent blog review of the novel "The Greek Seaman" by Jacqueline Howett, with the reviewer at Big Al’s Books and Pals saying that, despite the book being “interesting and compelling”, it was difficult to actually get to the good parts due to the text strewn with spelling and grammatical errors.
“At times, you’ll be engrossed in the story when you’ll run across a flowery description of the emotions Katy is feeling about her situation or her husband,” the review states.
“Then you’ll run into one that doesn’t work and get derailed again. Reading shouldn’t be that hard.”
Howett took exception to what seem to be rather understandable criticism, with mistakes apparently attributable to an unchecked review copy rather than any grand stylistic endeavour.
To show that she was well able to take fair criticism on the chin, Howett then preceded to paste into the comment section a number of reviews from Amazon which said that this was indeed a fine specimen of fiction, and that perhaps the reviewer was unable to understand as she is writing as an English person.
Of course despite inventing the language it appears that some occasionally find it difficult to understand us Brits.
One commentator duly remarked “Your behaviour is atrocious. You act like a child when your macaroni painting isn’t worthy to sit in the Louvre.”
To which the author replied:
“…Well what should I expect of anyone associated to Big ALs snake pit and rat hole. You are a big rat and a snake with poisenous venom. Lots of luck to authors who come here and slip in that! Look how you are all enjoying it! I think you should stick to horror books only.”
It was then pointed out that even Howett’s attempts to argue about the typos in her novel were littered with “awkward phrasing and grammatical errors”, and that she should probably just be grateful that people were interested enough to read even her semi-legible scrawlings in the first place.
To this suggestion the author ended the argument with a classic literary bon mots that Joyce himself would have been proud of, stating simply, but emphatically to her lesser critical adversaries, “F*** off.”
re
The WSJ article about Gates and Allen was good, but one small atomic typo crept into
the copy here: I have the WSJ eds to correct it online: "Mr. Gates's
attempts to lower Mr. Allen's stake in the company reflected concerns
that Mr. Allen wasn't working hard enough and wasn't ***commitment***
to the company, say people familiar with the relationship. That was
one reason, these people say, that Mr. Gates put a provision in their
first partnership agreement that would allow him to buy out Mr. Allen
if he thought there were "irreconcilable differences" between the two
men.
Should read "wasn't COMMITTED" - past tense
This is what we in the universal newsroom call an atomic typo because
the two authors' best efforts to type correctly and despite their
editor's best efforts to catch every typo before the piece went to
press, er, screen, OOPS, they did not catch this one. I have since
alerted the WSJ to this atomic typo of minor proportions, but an AT
nevertheless.
Sincerly,
Atomic Typo Man
Taiwan
Read this.
http://jacquelinehowett.blogspot.com/
The grammar and spelling look fine to me in her blog.
How many people are now aware of her work due to the review of The Greek Seaman and her subsequent break down??
They say 'There's no such thing as bad publicity'
>Jacqueline Howett is the author of The Greek Seaman. A seafaring novel, on KIndle, the Nook and Sony ereaders and PC's.
>All images on sight are copyright and cannot be used without permission.
>Fish also supposedly rids of split border line personality, mood swings and harbors against anger or depression, migraine headaches and is good for your eyes and memory.
In this case, it's maybe kinda sorta possible that bad publicity isn't. Unfortunately, I think it's much more likely that everyone now has the chance to see what a professional (sic) crybaby looks like.
Frankly her writing, from the samples I have gathered from various sources, has mistakes that would embarrass a twelve year old.
Her reactions to the review however, were truly priceless.