Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookpossum
I certainly wasn't suggesting that you are a dumb American, and I don't expect people to know who was Prince of Wales when. My point was that if someone wanted to clarify who this person was, it can be looked up. It doesn't need to be included in tedious detail in the text.
Probably my problem is that I have expectations of a book claiming to be a non-fiction history, as opposed to historical fiction, because history is a particular interest of mine. So I hope we can just agree to disagree on the book and the way it is written.
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No, I didn't really think you were suggesting I'm a dumb American, and I shouldn't have implied it. But I do not understand why anyone should object to an author adding a little bit of detail so that the reader doesn't have to stop to figure out who someone is or to look it up. What is wrong with the author being specific? And just where do you want to draw the line on what is tedious detail and what is detail helpful or interesting to the reader?
If someone throws a name at me, I want a clue. Sometimes I need it, sometimes I don't. But how does it hurt anything to have that clue included? We don't all have the same frames of reference in history, literature, popular culture, whatever. Why is it objectionable for an author to take into account readers' different levels of knowledge?