Comments on: Where Have All the Quotation Marks in Novels Gone? (Quote of the Day / Lionel Shriver)

By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom

1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:20:05 +0000

And italics bring their own problems. They can make it seem that a novelist is trying to add emphasis to the words through the italics — especially at first, before you’ve sorted out what’s going on in the book.

By: David H. Schleicher

David H. Schleicher — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:02:08 +0000

I found the lack of quotation marks in Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD very distracting. Every time the dialogue began, the story stopped dead. I have read works where authors use italics or some other way to make dialogue stand out. The SWEETSMOKE style sounds interesting, but if an author has to “explain” his style before it makes sense, then I think that is a distraction that takes away from a story.

By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom

1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:53:54 +0000

How well the device works does vary with novel. And I can see how it might work better in novels in which you know people are speaking another language because the “foreignness” of the lack of quotes could, in a sense, represent the foreignness of the language. Thanks for bringing this up.

A librarian just told me that an author named Jenna Blum also omits them …

By: sarahsk

sarahsk — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:40:23 +0000

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith uses dashes and italics, but no quotation marks if I remember correctly. It was surprisingly easy to get used to, and I didn’t have any trouble determining who was speaking, but I don’t imagine it would work for every author who uses that technique. Also one reason why it didn’t bother me was because I sort of saw the dialogue as subtitles, since the book takes place in Stalinist Russia and I knew they weren’t “really” speaking English. That might just be a weird Sarah response, though!

By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom

1minutebookreviewswordpresscom — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:08:40 +0000

Interesting. That may be a unique use of the device.

By: speedytexaslibrarian

speedytexaslibrarian — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:48:28 +0000

I recently read Sweetsmoke by David Fuller, a Civil War era story about a slave on a tobacco plantation. All the whites and freed blacks have quotation marks, all the slaves do not, "Because, in this writer’s view, they have no voice" (according to the author's blog).