Addendum: Vulgarity and I

[greygirlbeast]

These days I am trying so, so hard to be good and not berate "reviewers" who clearly cannot be bothered not to be idiots. But this evening I find that I am in need of some small bit of spleen venting, and so I would like to direct your attention to the following excerpt from a recent "Book Fetish" "review" of Daughter of Hounds:

The use of vulgarities throughout the chapters convey a lack of language skills from Kiernan however in times, I did find myself having to look up one or two words from the sheer unusual ways that they were being used as in the text. I found the cursing overdone because by knowing mere body language, a person would be able to be conveyed as a foul being.

Firstly, this excerpt, like most of the "review," is only marginally literate ("however in times", "the sheer unusual ways", and "used as in", for example, or that whole last sentence). Secondly, the author is an antonym ("evilpoet," Angela), significantly diminishing my opinion of himherit from the outset. Thirdly, didn't I just address this whole profanity thing a week or so ago?

Here's the deal. In large part, Daughter of Hounds is about people who make Mafia hit men look like choirboys, changelings who would just as soon shoot you in the face as give you the time of day. Stolen children raised by inhuman corpse-eating ghouls to be sociopathic killers. And I cannot even for a moment believe that Soldier and Odd Willie, Saben White and the Bailiff, would not be some of the most foul-mouthed motherfuckers imaginable. Period. To have written them any other way would have never rung true to me. Which is to say that my "use of vulgarities throughout the chapters" most certainly does not indicate a "lack of language skills," obviously, but, rather, decisions about characterisation. Otherwise, Emmie and Pearl and Madam Terpsichore, Miss Josephine and Esmeribetheda and Sadie Jasper would all have been just as foul-mouthed as the changelings. Capice? If you don't like the book, fine. Say that you don't like the book. But keep your moral outrage over my characters' colourful and indelicate vocabulary to yourself and, also, keep it from making you look foolish by drawing absurd conclusions as to my general "language skills," especially when you yourself are only just barely capable of writing coherent sentences.

There are other inane charges in the "review" which I will not bother to address. The profanity thing just really drives me to distraction. Also, I'm not linking to the "review." If you want to read the whole thing, I've given you enough information here to find it on your own.

Gods...there are days when the idiots just make me want to stick a very sharp No. 2 pencil (Ticonderoga, since 1913, of course) through my goddamn good eye and be done with it. There's a lot about writing I have to put up with, crap that just comes with the territory, but nowhere have I ever agreed to suffer fools gladly. And I shall not be entering into any such agreement anytime soon.

Comments

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

As you must take the high road, I feel compelled to take the lower.

Sure, you could make a threat like this:

"As a unexpected consequence of the expulsion of a relatively insignificant mote of elemental lead (hypersonic velocity, of course, withstanding as a circumstance) from this proximally-oriented handheld firearm presently contacting the limb traditionally affixed to a superior-rostal aspect of the body (which does, most commonly, result in grievous cranial damage, grostesque destruction soft tissue, and immeasurable cortico-cerebral trauma), I anticipate seizing the welcome opportunity presented by the radical creation of a moist, temperate body cavity to submerge my tumescent glans within the wound and agitate the aforementioned limb until I achieve a gratification that satisfies both my libidinous & choleric desires. If you wish to forestall such a gruesome destiny, I caution compliance in its most expedient permutations."

Or you could say,

"Get in the fucking car before I dome your punk ass and skullfuck the hole."

I might be paraphrasing here too, but I'm sure Odd Willie has probably opined that most everyone, regardless of cultural or linguistic background, speaks "gun to the head". And you don't need any high-falutin' language skills at all for that. Maybe that was the kind of "body language" this reviewer was referring to.

But the point is: Which one suits the story & characters better? Should Odd Willie start drinking top shelf blue-agave special-reserve tequila instead of rotgut mezcal too? Perhaps the Bailiff should have scones and fresh genmaicha tea with his boy harem crocheting circle?