Inaccuracies in fiction

[HoppyHat]

Do they bother you? I realise I am annoyed/disappointed by simple "mistakes" which surely a decent editor should notice?

A couple of examples

A very very popular novel. Set in modern day London. Character regularly gets the bus from A to B along a named road all of which exist in real life. But they don't use the correct bus number! Nothing bad happens on the bus, the driver isn't awful, nothing libellous. So why not use the correct bus number?

I've just finished a book which I really liked. The author is American. But part of the book is set in a posh English school in the 1950s. The headteacher calls the season following summer "Fall". And says (more than once) "you need to write your sister" (or similar) not write TO.

To me these things are so obvious and quite jarring. Anyone else?

This one always annoys me too! I am always very pleased when I find those words used correctly.

Mention of the inverted rainbow reminds me of the artist's work in one of the glossy school non-fiction reference books on the solar system which had the moons of Jupiter and Saturn scattered about in every conceivable position, over the poles even. Not over the equators. And their volcanoes, in those books, were like inverted icecream cones. Not good science.

😂

The book with the 'land-locked' Lancashire can’t be the latest Mark Billingham, I’m guessing, where the main character wanders along the cliffs……..of Blackpool? 😂

It was 'Murder on Lake Garda' by Tom Hindle, @ElectiveAffinities - I don't even remember much about the rest of the book, I was so miffed by that! Apparently the author lives in Leeds too so it's not like he had no knowledge of local geography?! Mind you, a quick look at a map would have sufficed...

Blackpool isn't known for its towering cliffs either 😂

Mind you, a quick look at a map would have sufficed...

Hardly any author ever looks at a map. Or so it would seem, going by the number of errors that could have been avoided if they had.

And a Yorkshire resident shouldn't need to, to know that Lancs has a sea coast.

Maybe he meant, umm, Leics not Lancs? (Grasps at straws)

Could have @WelcomeMarch, although he also made a big feature of the posh people laughing at her northern accent, so I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here!

Not a mistake as such but in the same author's 'The Murder Game', one of the main characters is called Justin Fletcher. Made it quite difficult for me to concentrate on the story when I had the immensely annoying 'Justin's House' theme going round in my head a lot of the time

I have enjoyed reading this thread.
I have just finished a book in which the protagonist is a Yorkshire countryman well able to live off the land and identify many species of plants and animals, but has a massive faile when he hears a bird call 'tea-cher, tea-cher' and thinks it is a robin - even I know it is a great tit, just like the author!
One early read of my book group set in the time of the Crimean war had Italian (I think) villagers drawing water from their wells in iron buckets - extremely unlikely at that period and then some young gal wanting to join Florence Nightingale 'to make a difference'

Elizabeth Zott has a very 2020s way of speaking in Lessons in Chemistry, especially when she talks about racism. I found that jarring.

What's a '2020s way of speaking'? Bearing in mind that it's barely 4 years ago? (Sorry - I haven't read the book, so maybe your post is really obvious to people who have!)

I assume it means she sounds like she’s from the modern day (so the decade 2020’s)

@BIWI the book is set in the 1950s (IIRC) - definitely not present day

Ah! OK. Thanks for explaining

If I recall, that was a criticism of the book discussed in our bookclub, that you didn’t get a sense that it was the 1950s.

@Treaclewell, while I'm finding out little-mentioned details of history (I must stop this, actually, and do some 2024 stuff!) - The Romans valued swimming very highly. They probably used side or breast stroke, as none of the artistic representations of swimmers have raised elbows. There's no evidence of crawl stroke throughout classical Europe, but ancient Egyptians were definitely swimming front crawl more than 4,000 years ago. They only taught boys to swim. The Chinese depicted people with arms out of the water, some apparently swimming back and front crawl (not as well as the Egyptians). Assyrian nobles are shown doing breast stroke, while rank & file soldiers have to splash as best they can with an inflated goat skin for buoyancy.

There was much more cultural exchange in the ancient world than we tend to think, so I'm sure crawl stroke must have travelled in some limited ways. The Romans had specialised divisions for everything - I can't imagine they'd have failed to recruit expert swimmers for aquatic operations and, crawl being the fastest stroke, probably featured coastal North Africans.

Ancient Rome had synchronised swimming displays!

Thank you for that comprehensive account. I do know that one of the Roman invasions of Britain used a division of Batavians who crossed the Medway - I'll have to check whether with armour, memory says yes, brain says have to check, and where on the Medway they did it. If with any sort of kit, they'd need their arms for carrying it. Combat side stroke?

have to check, and where on the Medway they did it.

Possibly Aylesford, where it was fordable?

And to keep this vaguely on topic, I've come across several authors who think that you travel south from London to get to Kent. South across London Bridge as far as St Thomas a-Watering, but if you keep on going south you'll never get to Kent.

I refuse to read anything else by Lissa Evans as the one book I read was set in my hometown & again she had clearly not looked at a map or she would have know that a particular journey on foot, into the countryside, in the blackout, would have take hours not minutes.

Another book, set in an area I know well, had a chapter where the characters drove from a fishing village to a city 3 hours away to buy fish…

Actually he means throw rugs which have been around for as long as people have made rugs. If you look up Sigmund Freud’s couch you will see it is covered in throw rugs.

But did people call them 'throws' in the 1920s?

Yes. First known use in 1909.

It’s covered in rugs, as in actual Persian carpets, and there’s a blanket at the end for clients to use to cover themselves, if cold.

Is’t a beautiful thing?

I'm currently reading through the Famous Five books with DTS1 @BronzeAge and @mimbleandlittlemy and they often refer to sleeping under 'rugs'. I did wonder whether they actually meant carpet type rugs or actual blankets but on occasion they mention blankets too, so I assume the difference is as in the lovely photo above! I can't imagine it would be that comfy to sleep under an actual rug (although none of the Five seem to complain!) but maybe it's warmer/ more convenient/ they were just used to it? How interesting!