Are there faults that we can forgive more than others when we come across them in a book?
Posted yesterday at 7:00 a.m.
Chantale Cusson had almost reached three quarters of the Beirut Syndrome, a novel by Alexandre Najjar, when she cut short her reading. The writer then referred to Haiti as “this island in the Pacific”.
“It’s such a big mistake,” she says indignantly. Although she had enjoyed the previous 200 or so pages, she has no intention of reading again. Because “that kind of mistake,” she says, makes her question the accuracy of the rest of the content.
The one who has been a reviewer in the middle of magazines for more than 30 years nevertheless says she is indulgent when she finds typos in a novel. Despite “the urge to scream” when these multiply.
Marie-Anne Poggi, avid reader and instigator of the Club des Irrésistibles, who has already led some twenty monthly book clubs in Montreal libraries, believes she has noticed an “exponential” increase in errors in novels published by “prestigious” French publishing houses. She now notes all the errors encountered during her reading and forwards them to the house in question – despite the absence of returns.
It is thus that in Your absence is only darkness, by Icelandic Jón Kalman Stefánsson, she noted 14 errors – missing words, wrong chords, etc. –, which she indicated at the very end of her review of the book, published on the Irresistibles website, even if she “loved” reading it.
We know it happens, shells. But sometimes I find it really shocking. When the error jumps out at you and it’s every 10 pages, there’s something wrong. Me, it bothers me in my reading. I think of the person who will pay $25 or $30, then who will give up reading because it shocks them too much…
Marie-Anne Poggi, instigator of the Club des Irrésistibles
Already in 2016, translators and proofreaders demonstrated in France to express their dissatisfaction with their working conditions and denounce the decline in quality that threatens the book. Too fast work rates, imposed by the translations of highly anticipated novels such as those in the Millenium series or Harry Potter, had also been highlighted by the French literary magazine ActuaLitté. A proofreader in the publishing world had even revealed that “some publishers sometimes skipped the proofreading stage”.
Quebec is doing well
In Quebec, on the other hand, the situation is quite different. “There are at least three pairs of eyes that will read the entire text – an editor, a reviser and a proofreader”, and all the houses operate in a fairly similar way, notes Renaud Roussel, deputy director of publishing at boreal.
Many Quebec publishers go so far as to name revisers and proofreaders, notably at the end of the book, at La Peuplade, or on the flyleaf at Libre Expression, Marchand de Feuilles, Druide, Québec Amérique , XYZ or even Stanké, among many others.
Olga Duhamel-Noyer, literary director of Éditions Héliotrope, evokes a “praise for slowness” on the side of the Montreal house, for taking the time to do things well.
PHOTO OLIVIER PONTBRIAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Olga Duhamel-Noyer, literary director of Éditions Héliotrope, in 2014
The editor, the reviser, like the author or the author, everyone will try to catch typos, errors, faults, so that it is as clean as possible and as correct as possible.
Olga Duhamel-Noyer, literary director of Éditions Héliotrope
In general, the corrections are initially made fairly quickly in the digital editions, which are subject to updates; then, in a second step, they can be deployed in possible reprints or reissues in pocket format, in certain cases.
“When I started in the business, around thirty years ago, everything was much more improvised; the profession has become much more professional in Quebec and the delays are longer than in the past,” adds the publishing director of Le Boréal, Jean Bernier.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Jean Bernier, publishing director of Le Boréal, in 2013
According to him, there would be an American influence in the way of doing things for Quebec publishers. “There is a rather delightful book by [l’écrivain français] Jean Echenoz on Jérôme Lindon [son éditeur durant plus de 20 ans], who talks about her talks with him. They would go to a very nice restaurant for dinner to discuss his book and they would talk about a comma at the end of the meal. I’m exaggerating, because there are French publishers who work much more rigorously, of course, but American publishers have very interventionist teams. And since we are in Quebec, in a North American environment, there is something of this more interventionist nature that we must adopt. Writers expect that,” he says.
“It is certain that the requirement of perfection, which we never achieve, is still greater for a book, because in principle, we have the time to do things well, adds Jean Bernier. A book is always an important thing and you have to give it all the care you can give it. We must not forget that there are people who will read it in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years; therefore, it has this somewhat definitive character, which represents both a great challenge and its great strength. »