Re: RARA-AVIS: Scottish UK noir

From: Scatalogic@aol.com
Date: 17 Jun 2002


A collection which I have just found and would be interesting and useful reading for next month is:

SOMETHING WICKED, ed Susie Maguire and Amanda Hargreaves. Pub, Polygon 1999.

Scottish crime fiction seems to be full of life at the moment and this one includes; Rankin, Brookmyre, McDermid and a host of others. So far I have enjoyed what I have read.

One gripe I had, and something that might be worth discussion was the phoenetic spelling of dialect/heavily accented speech In Christopher Brookmyre's, otherwise excellent story. I found it really interrupted the flow. At what stage is it necessary/acceptable to render speech like this? Is it not enough to tell us that the characters have strong Scottish accents? Al will know more, I am sure, but where does the line between accented English and Scots' dialect come? I'm not sure if that is really the right question even, but if anyone has any views I would be interested to here. Or if I rendered my speech as it sounds.
"Any 'un gort any vews, I 'ud be innerested to yere." (Forest of Dean).

All the best all. Colin

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