Stupidities and irritations in novels

[UnquietDad]

What are the things which annoy you most in fiction? Things characters do, assumptions authors make, etc?

I think my number one has to be the "affluence assumption", where people who are supposedly worrying about money still "have" to send Jonty and Jocasta to the lovely little prep school and violin lessons. (Mind you, there's enough of that on here.)

DW has just finished reading these, which feature such laughable idiocies as a state primary school where people talk about "first years" and "second years" and which has its own dedicated science block and music block.

There are an awful lot of thirty- and forty-something women writing novels these days who are out of touch with any reality beyond their cosy little London mums-and-coffees-and-gym circle. And - surprise, surprise - they are books about cosy little London mums-and-coffees-and-gym circles.

American crime books were the heoine can'tbe super duper at her job and lead anything resembling a normal life. They all have ishoos.

Yes, you Sarpetta et al.

I thought for a few minutes 'oh UQD is married to Rachel Johnson' (and MD thinks he should divorce her for writing crap.)

But now I see he's not, shame.

You know who else wries crap? Iain Hislops wife (her name escapes me, they should have just put Iain Hislops wife on the cover and been done with it), that Isalnd thing, was utter shite I didn't finish it and that's rare for me.

The first series of 'Teachers' does a pretty good job of showing school life from a teacher's point of view; the other series are a bit too silly too be realistic (entertaining, though).

I am sure people like doctors, nurses and policemen get annoyed, too. I often get wound up by hospital scenes in books and TV programmes and I know nothing about it.

Yup

Oh I LOVE the 'reader, I married him' type asides!!!!

badger - have you seen Mitchell & Webb's TV hospital drama "Really Strong Medicine" sketch?

Oh and Harry bloody Potter is utter shite.

Hermoine "squeakes" something or Harry laughs "heartily".

Does she have to have a description of everything?

oh yes, coco, that's a more minor gripe - the professionals who are so dedicated to their crimebusting (can be legal as well as medical) that they barely have time to draw breath, let alone have any sort of existence outside their job.

I wonder whether dads can write convincing "family/domestic" novels. I can only think - and all have their faults - of Parsons and Dave Hill and Hornby (to an extent). And modesty prevents from adding another.

And any book by Tess Gritessen (or something like that) I've had the misfortune to read, the woman Dr, or whatever, always hates the policeman in it. But then by the last chapter she's in love with him and they get married.

Total bastard, I know. Colbeck you are the first person I have ever encountered to admit to this..

It makes me feel like me and Charlotte Bronte are mates.

why are you winking, I'm nervous now, what don't I know????

I love that Mitchell and Webb sketch - in fact, they are very good at getting to the heart of some of these genre cliches.

I physically can't read second-person stuff. It's pretentious and annoying as hell.

I realise 'what don't I know' is a rather general open enede type of question so please don't feel obliged to answer

No nothing, just find it so irritating (and was often brought up in my bookgroup as the bad style yardstick), but different strokes...live and let live I say

Books where the protaganist thinks she is a complete heifer because she is a size 14

Too many metaphors so that I lose track and wonder what the b loody hell is going on (as in sexing the cherries)

I can only think of two second-person novels - Calvino's "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller" and Banks's "Complicity" (every other chapter). Well, unless we count stuff like the Fighting Fantasy roleplay books.

Ah, Ok, relaxes.

Can I join your book group? No one in mine actually reads the book or wants to discuss it, they think I'm 'all intellectual' cos I've read the book(actually I should milk this).

I love general chit as much as the next poerson (beleieve me this is true!) but I did kind of think that was the point of a book group.

Ooh, I just thought of one - pretty much all books that feature the internet/forums etc.

1. They never know the difference between chatrooms and forums.

1. EVERYONE on them is an obsessive internet weirdie (and joking aside, it's a really boring stereotype - I think people who don't use the internet are the weirdies these days).

1. I read one where people on a 'chatroom' typed every message with both a salutation ('Dear so-and-so') and a signature.

1. They always say things like "and two hours later I had four replies - haven't these people got anything better to do?".

1. There is never any recognition of the fact that it is perfectly possible to use the internet as a fun tool, and not spend you entire life on it (at least I've heard this is possible!) and also that people online might also have jobs, families, partners etc etc etc.

Phew, rant over. It just winds me up so much!

Novels written in present tense too (have never read anything in 2nd person must be irritating)

Books where the heroine starts off happy and comfortable and scruffy with no interest in fashion, but after a trauma she loses weight and starts buying fashionable clothes and wearing make up and rants on about how it's transformed her life and how she was really miserable beforehand thus ramming home the lesson that women have to make efforts to look appealing to men, and if you don't, you'll always be sidelined and miserable.

The way in which anyone who isn't in pursuit of heterosexual monogamy/True Love always has to be the murderer or come to some sort of bad end -or if not that, heros/heroines always give up and learn to regret or despise their previous tastes for kinky or group sex because True Love means being satisfied with the missionary position (Marian Keyes and Fiona Walker are both utter pests for this...)

Present tense can work. Needs to be handled carefully.

Definitely a gap in the market for a convincing novel written all in the form of forum postings, chatroom conversations and emails...

I'll let Calvino off, on account of his being a genius, but I've definitely read 2nd-person passages in other novels (I'm thinking the Don DeLillo type).