Tuesday, February 03, 2009

A reference to Robert Musil (not completely unclever) is now credited forever to the wrong person:

Sorry about the long title, but I'm still chuckling over another example of how mistakes on the web run rampant forever.

Charlotte Roche's novel Wetlands (a questionable translation of the original German title: Feuchtgebiete) has finally been published in English. The British paper Observer published a review, and you can find the following quote all over the web:

Sophie Hannah's review provides this hilarious line about the book's protagonist:

The hilarious 'line' from the review is:

But mostly, she thinks, in the great German tradition. Where Musil had a Man Without Qualities, Roche brings us a Woman without Pants.

If you appreciate that quote, then you may share in Sophie Harrison's likely frustration at being misnamed. Here's Sophie Harrison's review. And if you're curious, here's a more balanced review.

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