*irritated*

[anghraine]

Apparently, there's a new Austen novel coming out - and, shockingly, it's based on Lady Susan, not P&P.  Normally, I'd be thrilled - LS is up there with P&P and MP for me (*thinks happy crossover thoughts*), and it's brilliant and troubling and I've always wanted to see it in novel format.  But . . .

I have this theory for fanfic in general.  If there are errors in the summary, the author obviously can't be bothered to get even the basic things right.  Like, oh, subject-verb agreement.  And if they can't go to even that much effort, the likelihood that they'll get the subtler, more significant things right is . . . hm.  Low.  So I refuse to read, on general principle, anything which has non-typo errors in the summary.  Or anything which simply has an annoying summary, since I've discovered from long experience (heh) that if I dislike the summary, I'll hate the story. 

It seems I should also apply my rule to titles.  Yes, really:  the book's first error is in the title.  It's not a spelling error, either, but a simple, basic technical error that is, unfortunately, painfully obvious.

This fic book is Lady Vernon and Her Daughter.  Apparently, the authors didn't realise that the main character of Lady Susan is actually called . . . Lady Susan.  I know, shocking.  But I thought that was kind of basic reading comprehension.  And I expect that they'll constantly call her "Lady Vernon" (the ad for the book does, anyway) and it'll irritate me every single time I read it, and then regardless of quality the whole thing will be irritating, and honestly, how do you take seriously a fic which doesn't manage to get the main character's name right?

Of course, anybody who brings this up gets thoroughly lectured by the other fen on 'oh, British titles are so obscure and complicated that nobody could get them right anyway' or, alternatively, 'you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, you know, Jane would be so ashamed' etc etc.  Hmph.

(Unrelated tangent:  the high school football team just dropped by on some sort of fundraising thing.  High school has always seemed just the other day, but they were so young!  Ack!)

Comments

[sixbeforelunch]

British titles are complicated and obscure, but they're not impossible to get right. I got the basic jist of them within a few weeks of coming into the fandom.

(Side note: I've seen it suggested that the oh-so-complicated nature of the titles is like a shibboleth used to identify the people who belong to the group and those who don't. Obviously it's possible for an outsider to figure it out too, but if you screw up the titles it's a pretty obvious indication to the aristocracy that you are not One Of Them.)

[anghraine]

Yes, they can be, but . . . the whole Lady Anne/Mrs Darcy thing at least had the mini-series to blame, but Lady Susan? Perhaps if her name weren't the title, it'd be less jarring. And, as you say, it doesn't exactly take exhaustive research to get it right.

I suspect that the various rules simply evolved over time; William the Conqueror brought Norman feudalism and Norman titles over, and they met up with Anglo-Saxon jarls (=earls) and whatnot and came up with a working system, and then added bits here and bits there (baronets!)