Review: Good character - pity about the errors
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 18, 2012
I am not sure whether I am reading an older version of the book, as the author comments that corrections have been made. But in my edition there are many grammatical errors - compliment and complement are two different animals. You compliment someone, but your clothes complement you. Loath and loathe mean different things. Stan is loath to leave Granny's living room, not loathe. Granny also made meals for someone every day, not everyday. Every day means daily, everyday means ordinary. There are instances of wrong words - of instead off, her instead of here, too instead of to - simple things that a close edit of the book would pick up. Oh, at one point Arthur asks how he can live without Edith. I am pretty sure it is meant to be Stan.Also, there are inverted commas at the end of sentences with no dialogue, but there are times of dialogue where there are no inverted commas to indicate the end of dialogue. For example, 'London,' Nigel said and offered his hand to Arthur. 'Nigel Charlton.'Arthur Smith,'Where are the inverted commas at the end of that sentence?Having said that I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Granny is a wonderful character, refreshingly different and politically incorrect. I loved that she still smokes in a time when it is frowned upon; that she is an unrepentant hippie and even that she is blind to her son's faults. She is astute and not scared to speak her mind. She is also very human and that is a large part of her charm. I think most of us can identify with her.On a personal note, I liked the Welsh/Gaelic phrases that are interspersed in the book. I am a Norwich girl (raised in South Africa and now living in America) but my grandmother moved from Wales to London when she was 8 and could not speak English when she first arrived. She taught me quite a bit of Welsh before we emigrated to South Africa, phrases that I never forgot.