The Insidious Effects of British and Irish Crime Fiction
(Also posted on One Bite at a Time.)
I read a lot of British and Irish crime fiction and enjoy it. Ray Banks, Mark Billingham, Ken Bruen, Declan Burke, John Connolly, Allan Guthrie, Declan Hughes, Simon Kernick, Val McDermid, and Adrian McKinty come to mind—alphabetically—off the top of my head; I’m sure I missed a couple. (Stuart Neville’s Ghosts of Belfast on my TBR pile, for example.) Right now I there are probably more writers I would consider favourites of mind from across the pond than there are on my side.
That’s the problem. I enjoy their writing so much it’s threatening to creep into my everyday life before I realise it. Just this morning, after donning my anorak and making sure I had no flat tyres before leaving for work, it occurred to me how I must have sounded like an eejit when I told my wife a joke in a half-arsed Irish accent.
It was even worse when I commented on some blogs today. Reading these writers makes the tendency to think like them even more pronounced, though I run the risk of sounding like a real shitehawker if I try to pass myself off as something I’m clearly not, especially if I know fuck all about it. I might fool a few uninformed gobshites, but someone would grass on me sooner or later. Then even my mates would think of me as a pretentious tosser.
Oh, bloody hell. I’ve done it again.
Bollocks.
I read a lot of British and Irish crime fiction and enjoy it. Ray Banks, Mark Billingham, Ken Bruen, Declan Burke, John Connolly, Allan Guthrie, Declan Hughes, Simon Kernick, Val McDermid, and Adrian McKinty come to mind—alphabetically—off the top of my head; I’m sure I missed a couple. (Stuart Neville’s Ghosts of Belfast on my TBR pile, for example.) Right now I there are probably more writers I would consider favourites of mind from across the pond than there are on my side.
That’s the problem. I enjoy their writing so much it’s threatening to creep into my everyday life before I realise it. Just this morning, after donning my anorak and making sure I had no flat tyres before leaving for work, it occurred to me how I must have sounded like an eejit when I told my wife a joke in a half-arsed Irish accent.
It was even worse when I commented on some blogs today. Reading these writers makes the tendency to think like them even more pronounced, though I run the risk of sounding like a real shitehawker if I try to pass myself off as something I’m clearly not, especially if I know fuck all about it. I might fool a few uninformed gobshites, but someone would grass on me sooner or later. Then even my mates would think of me as a pretentious tosser.
Oh, bloody hell. I’ve done it again.
Bollocks.
Views: 15
Comment
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Comment by John McFetridge on December 12, 2009 at 5:50am
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When you start talking about "the football" and "derbies" then you're in trouble.
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Comment by Eric Christopherson on December 12, 2009 at 5:12am
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The dog's bollocks!
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Comment by I. J. Parker on December 12, 2009 at 4:40am
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Funny. Am reading Tana French. Has talent but gets absolutely bogged down in overdramatization and wordy emotionalism. Is that a female trend? The book is 1st person narrative.
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Comment by B.R.Stateham on December 12, 2009 at 2:34am
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Yeah, it's time to come home. Dana.
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