Bad Writing - a Thog-a-like thread for dreadful prose.

"And that's where you go on holiday, that is. That's your favourite destination."
 
I may get shot for this but I find the last paragraph of The Day of the Jackal a little clunky.



"The following day the body of a man was buried in an unmarked grave at a suburban cemetery in Paris. The death certificate showed the body to be that of an unnamed foreign tourist, killed on Sunday August 25th, 1963, in a hit-and-run accident on the motorway outside the city. Present was a priest, a policeman, a registrar and two grave-diggers. Nobody present showed any interest as the plain deal coffin was lowered into the grave, except the single other person who attended. When it was all over he turned round, declined to give his name, and walked back down the cemetery path, a solitary little figure, to return home to his wife and children.

The day of the jackal was over."



I would have changed a few words to flow better with less repetition:

"The following day the body of a man was buried in an unmarked grave at a suburban cemetery in Paris. The death certificate showed it to be that of an unnamed foreign tourist, killed on Sunday August 25th, 1963, in a hit-and-run accident on the motorway outside the city. Present was a priest, a policeman, a registrar and two grave-diggers. No one showed any interest as the plain deal coffin was lowered into the ground, except the single other person who attended. When the ceremony was concluded, he turned round, declined to give his name, and walked back down the cemetery path, a solitary little figure, to return home to his wife and children.

The day of the jackal was over."
 
lol I wondered that too.
The book is well-written--I don't remember finding anything quirky but that last paragraph really stuck out for me.
The best dialogue line in the movie is not in the book though.

"I am entralled by carbine harvesters. In fact, I yearn to have one as a pet."
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
Unrelated question:

What is a "plain deal" coffin as opposed to just a "plain coffin"?
Click to expand...

'Deal' from what I remember from my parents antique dealing days was the kind of cheap wooden functional furniture that got popular in the Stripped Pine era of internal design Sunday Supplément wankism.

A plain deal coffin would be a cheap utilitarian thing. If he'd just written 'a plain coffin' that would still have left room in the reader's head to supply something elegant, (but plain) rather than the unfinished, rough plank affair that was intended.
 
So we just have to be careful not to order a square deal coffin...?
 
From this morning's newspaper:

A woman is writing to an advice columnist about her bi-polar sister.

"She lives with her husband who is a wonderful man who drinks to excess after he plays golf most days and does volunteer work."
 
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