I have received a review on Amazon for I Stopped Time which I am not sure I
quite deserve: “What I like about her (Jane’s) books is that there is no bad or
offensive language - something that you cannot say about a lot of books these
days.”
This raises an uncomfortable question:
should writers allow their characters to swear? My answer would quite simply
be, yes - in fact they must, if their writing is to be honest and authentic. As
a fellow writer recently blogged: “I work in a factory, and if I was going to depict life in
the factory, I couldn't do it without throwing in some foul language. In all
honesty, it actually makes me a bit uncomfortable to hear how some of the guys
talk sometimes - but my views of decency and propriety don't change the way the
world actually is.”
To some, to permanency of the written word
means that swearing in print has higher shock value than the spoken word. In
1951, J D Salinger was the first author to use the F-word in The Catcher in the Rye. Over sixty years
later, it remains one of America’s most banned books.
We are more familiar with sound of the
F-Word. In 1963, Kenneth Peacock Tynan,
literary manager for the National Theatre Company briefly became the most
notorious man in the country by becoming the first to use it on British
television, a move later referred to as a ‘masterpiece of calculated
self-publicity.’ Mary Whitehouse only added to the equation when she wrote to
the Queen demanding he should be reprimanded by ‘having his bottom spanked.’
How times have changed, Gordon Ramsey (And you, a father of four). This anomaly
appears to remain. The opening scene of Four
Weddings and a Funeral, which consists almost entirely of the F-Word,
manages to remain inoffensive, but it is necessary to be in the right frame of
mind to stomach Vernon God Little.
And yet
there are alternatives. Ronnie Barker sought authenticity for his 1973 prison-based
comedy-drama, Porridge. By introducing the word, ‘Nark’, to the English
language he avoided causing offence and gained an enviable family-based
audience of 15 million.
I believe that over-use sorely diminishes the impact of good old
Anglo Saxon language. I am currently reading Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, in
which the first swear word appears on page 148. It is so shocking in context,
coming from Harold’s imagination as it does, and a damning self-assessment of his
failings as a father, that it triggered a real emotional response in me. Joyce
follows this up by introducing a truly good character called Martina whose
language, in my mother’s often-used phrase, ‘leaves much to be desired’. But
not knowing this to begin with, the reader may start to judge the character.
Because there is kindness in Martina’s intentions, once we get to know her,
just as it is in life, her choice of words ceases to be offensive.
Not
all readers, it seems, can distinguish, between the views of the writer and the
views of their characters. Stephen King offers this comfort: “Not a week goes by
that I don’t receive at least one pissed-off letter (most weeks there are more)
accusing me of being foul-mouthed, bigoted, homophobic, murderous, frivolous,
or down-right psychopathic.”
Jane Davis lives in Carshalton, Surrey with
her Formula 1 obsessed, star-gazing, beer-brewing partner, surrounded by
growing piles of paperbacks, CDs and general chaos. Her first novel,
Half-truths and White Lies, won the Daily Mail First Novel Award and was
described by Joanne Harris as ‘A story of secrets, lies, grief and, ultimately,
redemption, charmingly handled by this very promising new writer.’
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