So, Livia is reading a book by a highly regarded, bestselling, multiple-award-winning author, and she comes across the following line of dialogue: "He had to surrender his passport. So how could he go to Texas?"
Now, since this is dialogue, you could make the argument that the guy who's saying it is supposed to be a little dense. But that's not the case, and none of the other characters point out to him that, uh, Texas is part of the United States. You don't have to show your passport when you cross the Red River from Oklahoma.
Obviously, this isn't a huge error. I like this writer a lot and will continue to read his books. But it's a good example of how mistakes sometimes creep in and slip past everybody from the author to the editor to the copy editor, no matter how hard you try to keep them out. This one just struck me as particularly funny. (Maybe somebody caught it and fixed it for the paperback edition.)
In Memory of REG DOLPHIN (1915-1990), by William Smith.
44 minutes ago
7 comments:
Is it possible the dialogue is a political statement, tongue in cheek, that is anti-Bush?
TAMU -- 1976
If he wasn't trying to be funny for some reason it is sad that this got past everyone who is supposed to look for these type of errors before a book goes to print.
One of my favorite science fiction authors put out a book several years ago in which there were several spelling and grammatical errors (glaring ones) and a point in which he mixed up two characters in the plot. Never did go back to see if they corrected these in the paperback edition but I was annoyed that a major publisher would put out such a garbage copy of a book.
I haven't read the book yet, but Livia says there's not a hint of humor in the scene, and the line of dialogue is spoken by a lawyer to a cop, explaining why the lawyer's client couldn't have committed a particular crime.
The thing is, all writers make mistakes. I've perpetrated plenty of howlers myself. The trick is to catch them before they escape. That's why I edit and polish several times before my manuscripts go out, and Livia always edits them, too. But we've still let things get by that I wish we would have caught.
The thing is, all writers make mistakes.
Well, I did have a buddy from near Nacogdoches who's grandfather kept a "Lone Star" flag in the dining room just to remind them of their heritage. I never asked to see his Texas Passport though. :-)
It's nice to know that Texas, like Canada, doesn't require a passport. But give Homeland Security a few more years and it'll happen.
I once wrote something about the socialdemocrat thinker Edward Bernstein, but instead I wrote Leonard Bernstein, who is of course the famous composer. I had had the article ready for four of five years before it finally made into print and during all that time I hadn't noticed the mistake! It required a friend of mine who pointed it out to me.
Juri's comment reminds me of when Kosygin confused the Bernsteins as well, and ended up denouncing Edward for his variations, then attempted to correct himself in denouncing Leonard for his deviations.... (No hint of humor in this joke, either.) Meanwhile, I have to wonder if Carl V. isn't remembering the first US edition of John Brunner's THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER, wherein the clever Yank editor "corrected" the text in such a way as make two similarly-named characters one, and apparently did some other foolish if less damaging things to the text. But that's more than a few years back, now...that would be a few decades back. You don't get that kind of full-on incompetence that often, one hopes...so perhaps the blame in the case of the situation CV refers to lies more with the publisher's staff than with the writer in question.
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