Joshua's
Key
by
H.
Brading
It
is an unusual step for me to take, but i am starting to write a
review of this book before i have finished reading it. I want to be
clear about my feelings and response to it as i go, rather than
simply once i am done, perhaps because Heather is someone local, and
i want to do a good and fair job. Once i have finished the book ~ and finish it i will ~ i shall, as usual, write a review, and i will post it here. Now, though, you are reading a review based on a partial reading.
Currently
i am quite frustrated by Joshua's Key,
and am not grabbing it to read it as often as i would like to be
(admittedly, i do have four other books i am also reading at the
moment, so that might have something to do with it), because it is
not quite as pleasurable as it ought to be. The problem is not with
the story, nor with the characters, nor with Brading's style. It is,
rather, simply with the presentation of those things. There is a
significant number of significant mistakes in the typesetting;
mistakes which ought to have been caught during the copy-editing
process. I am, i freely admit, a pedant with regard to the English
language, its grammar, and its usage. And my pedantry has been
continually outraged.
The
errors are of several sorts, but they seem to resolve in one
direction, which i find rather interesting. I shall discuss some of
the errors to begin with, and then spend a little time thinking about
why they have occurred, and how important they are.
First,
and hugely common throughout today's writing, so by no means is
Brading alone in making these, are mistakes with commas. This little
mark is one of the most difficult things for many writers to control;
it is important mostly as a guide to understanding in silent reading
(the importance of which i develop later) as in speech the tone of
the voice, changes in that tone, and pauses are used to convey
meaning. When we read print we do not have the sound of the author's
voice to guide us, so the comma is used to do the same thing for us:
It tells us when to pause slightly, when a phrase is dependent on
another, when a phrase is not essential for the meaning of the
sentence ~ all vital tasks, all of which can only be done in print by
the correct use of the comma. There are conventions which writers
should follow in order to make clear just how they would read their
writing, what, in other words, they mean. These conventions ~ some
call them rules, but that is rather stronger than warranted ~ can be
found in many places, so i don't propose to list them here; they are,
however, worth pursuing.
A
second common mistake, both in Joshua's Key and in a
surprising amount of modern writing, is the misuse of the apostrophe.
Funnily enough, the apostrophe looks like a comma moved to the top
of the line, and its use is misunderstood ~ or possibly ignored ~
nearly as frequently. It is used for two purposes, which are the
indication of one or more missing letters and the indication of
possession (which may derive from the missing letters usage). All
too often it is used, incorrectly, for emphasis, or because the
writer thinks a plural looks wrong without it. I am happy to report
that i have not yet noticed in Joshua's Key the single most
common misuse of the apostrophe: Using “it's” to indicate the
possessive impersonal pronoun, which is correctly spelled “its”
(“it's” can only mean “it is”).
The
third error or series of errors i have found while reading is the
blurring of sentences which ought to be separate, so that transitions
are not made smoothly or effectively. Instead, i find myself
confused about who is doing the action, because the change in subject
has not been clarified with a change of sentence. Sentences, at
least in writing (casual speech is different), are designed to make
the meaning clearer, just as commas and other marks of punctuation
are. The author knows exactly what he plans to convey; structure is
used conventionally to make that conveyance easier.
As
i mentioned above, i find that the mistakes in Joshua's Key
imply that they are derived from one particular fact about it. Now i
recognise that i am guessing, i have no way of knowing for sure, but
i would not be surprised to learn that the book has developed from a
series of stories told by Brading to her children. The reason i
suggest this is that the errors i have identified seem to me to be
related, very possibly, to the transition between the spoken and the
written language. It seems quite likely to me that Brading told the
story originally, then decided to write it down, and did so in just
the fashion she had told ~ or possibly was telling ~ it.
Unfortunately, in the process she did not realise or make full use of
the conventions of written English grammar and punctuation, relying
instead on those of the spoken language, which are different.
This
single and fairly simple mistake is a great pity, as i fear it will
cause some people to be driven from the book. That is to be
regretted as, so far as i have gone into it at this point, it is a
good story deserving to be told. On the brighter side, though i no
longer read aloud and am sadly not likely to for some time
(grandchildren please!), i suspect that Joshua’s Key would
be an excellent book to be read to a child. Under those
circumstances, the spoken grammar would not be such a barrier.
The
final, overwhelming lesson to be drawn from the book is the
importance of a good copy-editor prior to publication. If a reader
cannot find his way easily into a book, no matter how great it is,
the risk to the author is that it will no be read. And that would be
sad.
