Futtock-shroudery

[oursin]

Or, do the details matter?

Concede that sometimes they do, cue here whingeing from me and from others about historical inaccuracies anent the rules of succession, the laws on divorce, etc, which have completely undermined our belief in the narrative we were reading.

But exchange earlier today on bluesky about specific time/place cultural references, do they throw you out -

At which I was, have I not read books involving baseball, and, on reflection, elaborate gambling scams, and I do not understand these at all, but this does not interfere with my enjoyment of the story. Possibly we do need to feel that the author knows what they're writing about and is not commiting solecisms on the lines of 'All rowed fast, but none so fast as stroke' - though apparently this is apocryphal.

I also felt that when I was reading that Reacher novel the other day that perhaps we had a leeeetle more detail than we really required about his exact itinerary whenever he went anywhere - the street-by-street perambulations in NYC, for ex. I am sure one could trace them exactly on a map, and any one-way systems were correctly described, and the crossings in the right place.

Which is sort of the equivalent of where I got 'futtock-shroudery' from, which was reading Age of Sail novels with Alot of period nautical terminology. (On the whole I though O'Brian got the balance on this right.)

There has been a certain amount of querying expressed in the Dance to the Music of Time discussions about some of the significance of parts of London invoked by Nick Jenkins, which is not just geography but Class (there was at least one passage where I was getting strong Nancy Mitford's Lady Montdore dissing on Kensington vibes), connotations of bohemianism, etc.

Sometimes the detail is load-bearing. But often it's not, particularly.

Comments

[sartorias]

Sometimes it's distracting when you recognize the source the author is using.

[calimac]

Unfortunately, I find stories in which I cannot follow the technicalities at all to be baffling and unrewarding. In my one attempt to read the Aubrey-Maturin novels, for instance, I drowned in a sea of nautical terminology.

[flemmings]

Your reaction to Reacher is my reaction to Ackroyd. I'm sure the description of all the streets in Clerkenwell meant something to him, but it means sweet nothing to me. In moderation it can give a sensaplace, but Ackroyd doesn't moderate.

What I liked about O'Brian was having Jack explain the nautical terminology to Stephen and it still doesn't make sense. It's just enough detail to add verisimilitude to the narrative, but I learned early on I could skim over it happily without having to try to unentangle it at all.

[redbird]

And sometimes, we the readers want writers who have a feeling for which details matter, and which can be slipped in quietly to entertain the readers who notice them. An example I was reminded of yesterday is Louise Fitzhugh's novel _Harriet the Spy_. It's set in New York City, and the author throws in details of the neighborhood. I enjoyed comparing some of them to my memories, having gone to school near there, but Cattitude and Adrian weren't confused by not recognizing the name of a specific park: it's enough to know that the characters were sitting on a park bench, looking at the East River.