Exercice de Style:
“Periodic”
What do I find on page 6 of the latest from P D James, The Private Patient, but the following:
Her father’s periodic bouts of violence were unpredictable.
Oh dear. “Her father’s periodic bouts of violence were intolerable” would have been equally wrong — assuming that the father was, indeed, an unpredictable human being — but I might not have caught it. I’m amazed that no editor did. “Sporadic” would have been better; it’s at least correct. But surely way to fix this sentence is to join it with the first half of the following one:
Her father’s unpredictable bouts of violence meant that no school friends could safely be brought home, no birthday or Christmas parties arranged. And, since no invitations were ever given, none was received.
The Private Patient is really the most clever old thing. It involves (so far) a successful Harley Street plastic surgeon who runs a private clinic in the country. How’s that for up-to-date? I almost wish that Ian McEwan would bring back Henry Perowne to write a parody, because Private Patient is totally not up-to-date. It’s a wonderful old creaker. The clinic has been fitted into an old half-timbered manor house, with gates that close and mysterious rocks in the garden, where a witch was once burned. No crime has been committed — yet. A plastic surgeon in a remote country house — paging Dr Frankenstein?
update: In fact, however, the Gothic tease is soon thrown off, to reveal a ripping yarn about the consequences of plagiarism.