Inhale

I haven't updated in a while. You could put that down to smoking poppy. Meaning, of course, Smoking Poppy by Graham Joyce. The author was a guest as the last Conflux and since he seemed like a nice fellow, I thought I'd buy some of his work from the dealers room to see if he could write as well. Bill sold me this book. Turns out it was one of only a very few Joyce books sold at the con. Due to a cock up on the catering front, the dealers couldn't get hold of his work. I feel very privileged.

The book is written with a wonderful rich "literate" prose style. That is great except that the main character does not really match that set of descriptions. This rough sullen introspective conservative fellow needs a different voice. It wouldn't be an issue at all if the book was in the third person but in the first person, the words do not match the character. I'm not saying that the dialogue needs to spout out of his mouth in an exact rendition of the character's supposed idiom, but the tone needs to be tweaked. It is put even more into relief when the odd bit of slang does come out - it just seems out of place.

Its a funny thing this matching of voice to writing style. I don't think there are rules about it and other writers with a "literate" style have been able to capture different character expression without seeming forced. It just seems a bit askew in this case. It isn't helped that the character is very conservative and narrow in outlook and yet is supposed to be widely read and a science fiction fan. Those things don't go together in my mind.

Of course it could be that I'm peeved because an interesting relationship setup was made at the beginning of the book which is never played out later. It is just left hanging. Still, beautiful language guv'nor.