The case of the bothersome apostrophe
When my bookclub chose Cormac McCarthy’s The Road for March’s bookclub, I was most excited. My blog crush, the Largeheartedboy had said it was one of his favorite books last year.
I’m about 1/4 of the way through the book and I’m somewhat annoyed.
When I picked up the book during Operation Maneater, Kelly remarked about how he didn’t use quotes in the dialog.
We talked about that weird trend and how I had seen it in a lot of the short stories in this year’s Best American Short Stories 2006. I think we came to the consensus that skipping the quotes is not avant garde at all and people should just put them back in.
The lack of quotes in the McCarthy book hasn’t bothered me at all. What has bothered me is his random use of the apostrophe. Now this might sound petty, but one the things we are constantly reminded in our writing classes is that we should never do anything that takes the reader out of the story — whether it’s wonky dialect, implausible situations, or, I would argue, random apostrophization.
The random apostrophes are bothering me and take me right out of the story. See, he apostrophizes I’m, I’ll, I’d, and It’s, but not cant, wouldnt, aint, isnt, and dont. It drives me bonkers. I think I am paying more attention to the contractions then to the story. While reading, I’m constantly making a mental tally of the apostrophes and trying to figure out the mystery. Why do some words get them? What could possibly be the symbolism? Does anyone have any idea why he did this?
If he didn’t use apostrophes in I’ll and I’d you might confuse the words with ill and id.
As for the remainder (ok, all of them, including I’ll and I’d), he just used them to be cool. Lots of people do things that are incredibly stupid just so they appear “cool”. Some people begin smoking (’cause we all know it ain’t for the flav-or) and some people invade foreign countries under false pretenses of WMD creation prevention and nonexistent terrorist links.
So, in a round about sort of way, Cormac McCarthy is allied with the forces of the pro-smoking movement and middle east war supporters.
29 Jan 07 at 11:50 am #Well that explains the desolate, sparse, post-apocalyptic tone of the novel, I guess.
It just makes me sad that so many apostrophes had to die for his art.
29 Jan 07 at 11:52 am #Aha, so you’re a closet grammarian.
Nice.
29 Jan 07 at 12:03 pm #Merely a wannabe.
29 Jan 07 at 12:06 pm #Closeted? Since when?! I seem to remember a rather heated debate on the subject of serial commas on this very site.
29 Jan 07 at 12:53 pm #Well…if he’s in high school then it’s probably an oversight. People don’t seem to recognize contractions with apostrophes anymore.
Other than that, I’d say he’s trying to be artsy.
This information of course means that I can’t read the book. While I can handle a lack of quotation marks, a lack of apostrophes can induce a seizure.
29 Jan 07 at 5:16 pm #But how is not using apostrophes in certain contractions art? That’s what I don’t understand. Is it supposed to be symbolic of the breakdown of civilization? Come on.
29 Jan 07 at 5:51 pm #I don’t think it is art; I think he’s trying to make you believe it’s art, which it is not.
29 Jan 07 at 6:17 pm #upper-case shunning is art, non-apostriphication is lazy.
Use of ellipses is…
29 Jan 07 at 7:10 pm #ee cummings would call it art. But, I have to admit, my all-lowercase posts bug the living shit out of me now. I have half an OCD-notion to go fix them all.
29 Jan 07 at 7:12 pm #No, old posts must remain as-is as a testament to your continual growth as a writer and human being.
29 Jan 07 at 8:41 pm #Or as living proof on what an idiot I really am?
29 Jan 07 at 8:44 pm #Youre not an idiot, its just a sign of growth.
But seriously, I blame McCarthy’s editor for not standing up to him about the apostrophe situation.
01 Feb 07 at 3:56 pm #[...] There has been much bally-hoo about Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-prize winning/Oprah Bookclub, post-apocalyptic powerhouse The Road. Eh. I am still kind of lukewarm about it and the whole apostrophe nightmare. [...]
17 May 07 at 10:45 am #