Scan barcode
A review by robinwalter
Susan Settles Down by Molly Clavering
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
The last week of my Dean Street December turned out to be heavily focused on Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing
Rule 4 states. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.
In Brian Flynn's Such Bright Disguises instances where that rule was not breached were less commonly seen than are unicorns, in the process making me a convert to Leonard's dogma
Rule 5 is
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
If Francis Vivian was getting paid per exclamation mark for Dead Opposite the Church, that would explain why it was his last novel, as he would have earned enough to buy Bermuda.
Both of those books pushed me towards Leonard's view but Susan Settles Down came very close to being dropped for flouting the only one of Leonard's rules I had already long considered inviolable
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
The first third of this book was an eye-glazing mass of Scots.
Scots is very much its own language, with a long history and a literary heritage to be justly proud of. But having so many characters speaking in it so often and at such length was tiring and tiresome. Especially as Ms Clavering did 'translate' an affected lisp later, which reeked of authorial hypocrisy to me.
The sheer tedium of trying to decipher dialogue in a language I don't speak saw me skim the first half of the book at high speed. Identifying the characters as Lowland Scots could have been done with a few phrases, while translating the rest into an English variant more widely used. Gerald Hammond did this decades later, with a series set in the same general area, but with characters whose Lowland/Borders Scottish identity was not megaphoned by having their Scots dialogue untranslated.
Happily, like Susan herself, the book settled down, and the story became an entertaining read. The very foreignness of Scots was itself used to great effect in one of the funniest passages in the book, where a very English character recites a poem he wrote in Scots. It made me laugh and showed how following Rule 7 could have improved the book.
The last half of the story was sweet and fun, with sufficient sadness to keep it grounded. The ending was never in doubt, which is good thing as it's the reason for reading books like this. If her other works feature more of an English variant I'm conversant with, this may not have been my first and last Clavering.
Rule 4 states. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.
In Brian Flynn's Such Bright Disguises instances where that rule was not breached were less commonly seen than are unicorns, in the process making me a convert to Leonard's dogma
Rule 5 is
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
If Francis Vivian was getting paid per exclamation mark for Dead Opposite the Church, that would explain why it was his last novel, as he would have earned enough to buy Bermuda.
Both of those books pushed me towards Leonard's view but Susan Settles Down came very close to being dropped for flouting the only one of Leonard's rules I had already long considered inviolable
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
The first third of this book was an eye-glazing mass of Scots.
Scots is very much its own language, with a long history and a literary heritage to be justly proud of. But having so many characters speaking in it so often and at such length was tiring and tiresome. Especially as Ms Clavering did 'translate' an affected lisp later, which reeked of authorial hypocrisy to me.
The sheer tedium of trying to decipher dialogue in a language I don't speak saw me skim the first half of the book at high speed. Identifying the characters as Lowland Scots could have been done with a few phrases, while translating the rest into an English variant more widely used. Gerald Hammond did this decades later, with a series set in the same general area, but with characters whose Lowland/Borders Scottish identity was not megaphoned by having their Scots dialogue untranslated.
Happily, like Susan herself, the book settled down, and the story became an entertaining read. The very foreignness of Scots was itself used to great effect in one of the funniest passages in the book, where a very English character recites a poem he wrote in Scots. It made me laugh and showed how following Rule 7 could have improved the book.
The last half of the story was sweet and fun, with sufficient sadness to keep it grounded. The ending was never in doubt, which is good thing as it's the reason for reading books like this. If her other works feature more of an English variant I'm conversant with, this may not have been my first and last Clavering.