When the author gets it wrong.......it's all in the details

5 years ago

In The Huntress the author writes about the Thanksgiving dinner being ruined. She says that she could smell the burned turkey...

How hot does an oven have to be and how long have you left the poor bird in there to actually turn it to a charred lump ?!

Obviously she has never actually cooked a turkey.....or perhaps she's relying on the sitcoms where suddenly smoke comes pouring out of the oven as the dinner is declared a disaster.

It worked for Lucille Ball in those old I Love Lucy shows but we were naive back then .....

'come on, man' .

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annpanagain

5 years ago

I don't like being jerked out of a story by silly errors that should have been corrected by an editor. It spoils the mood.

I find that even Jane Austen slipped up in Mansfield Park where she changes the sex of Pug a male dog to a female having a litter in the future. Lady Bertram tells Fanny that she will give her a puppy. Fans of J.A. have made various excuses for this lapse.

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Comments (13)

msmeow
5 years ago
Maybe the dinner rolls were in the oven with the turkey all day. :)

Donna
vee_new
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
I can't count the number of books that have been ruined for me by the number of mistakes they contain. I am unable to go with the flow and enjoy what is written on the page and not stop to think "This is rubbish, such-and-such would never have happened like that" "Did Neanderthals have light switches in their caves?" "Were up-tight Victorians really so forgiving of their wayward daughters who run away with the dustman?" "That boy could never have raced fifteen miles in ten minutes to get help for the men stuck down a coal mine" "There certainly are no fairies at the bottom of my garden."

I must learn to lighten up and suspend belief.

And as for Lucy . . . if she can fool even her husband by the simple disguise of slapping on a Zapata moustache, then burning a turkey to a crisp is totally believable . . .
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yoyobon_gw
Original Author
5 years ago
lol....that error would be very 'on trend' today !
aziline
5 years ago
The one that peeves me off to no end is The Nightingale. She is making a pork tenderloin for dinner and puts it in the oven and lets it cook while she makes the potatoes. Um... PT doesn't take that long to cook. Then they also have a baguette that she baked the previous day "of course". No... Has the author ever eaten a day old baguette? and I'd guess they'd have a village bakery then. Then later once the Germans have invaded she has to eat day old bread and is all annoyed. If it wasn't a baguette it was probably just fine. Then lastly her friend makes canales and shares them with her. This struck me as odd knowing that special copper tins are needed. Looked into and it doesn't seem likely to be true.

And that's just for food. The whole book is a mess.

Stupid book...
vee_new
5 years ago
azline I checked out The Nightingale (never having heard of it) and as you say many comments on Amazon, esp. the ones from the UK or those from people who had any idea of the French in WWII were totally negative. The author has got so much serious historic information totally wrong . . . let alone her mistakes over cookery . . . rather like the Guernsey Potato Peel Pie book . . . only worse!
msmeow
5 years ago
I just finished Dark Sky by C J Box. I enjoyed it a lot, but there was one scene where the hero was aiming his rifle and he lined up the far sight then lined up the near ”site”. Even a quick proof read should have caught that error.

Donna
annpanagain
5 years ago
Vee, I have been reading some of the One-star reviews on Goodreads of The Nightingale with horrified laughter! Oh, dear!

I have finished The Man in the Queue, published in 1929, and I am puzzled why the wealthy gang leader needed to leave his home to make a phone call from a box with borrowed coins as he apparently didn't have a home phone! Unless he didn't want an address listing in the telephone book?

Why should a close relative of a musical star need to queue for a cheap seat when she could have easily asked for a good one. I would love to ask the author some questions!
yoyobon_gw
Original Author
5 years ago
ann....after researching this on line I found the statistic that nearly 41 percent of homes had telephones by 1930. So I think you are right about that not being accurate.
annpanagain
5 years ago
Yoyobon, thank you.
aziline
5 years ago
@vee_new I read it for a bookclub. First one I had been to and my MIL was hosting. Everyone just nodded politely about the book so I didn't say anything. There are worse things than the cooking but that's what first jumped out at me.

The Guernsey book was interesting in that it talked about things, like the prisoner slave workers and their conditions, of which I was sadly ignorant of before. No such thing can be said of the Nightingale book. But at least the reviews add some entertainment :)
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5 years ago
I read a fiction book years ago that was advertised as being a natural for garden club discussions (the main character specialized in using herbs and plants for natural healing), but when it got to collecting oleander berries (NOT for healing obviously) from bushes growing wild along the highways in NEW YORK STATE, my opinion dive-bombed. Oleanders only grow wild in zones 8-10, excuse me! Don't ask me the title of the book, because I immediately put it out of mind. :)
Carolyn Newlen
5 years ago
I once read a whodunnit set in Kentucky that kept mentioning the politicians down in Louisville. It's true that Louisville is the biggest city in KY, but the capital of the state is Frankfort.

When the author gets it wrong.......it's all in the details

annpanagain

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msmeow

vee_new

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When the author gets it wrong.......it's all in the details

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