Devil may care guide to proofreading
Here’s the extract from the new Bond book that Toby Litt begins his review with. Why do you think it might be worth quoting…?
“Bond and Scarlett went into a spacious air-conditioned room that was painted crimson: floor, ceiling, walls - there was nothing in the room that wasn’t poppy-red. Behind a desk stood an old-fashioned swivel chair with a maroon leather seat, and in it sat a man with an outsize gloved left hand”
If that captures the essence of the book then it really is terrible. But, no. He quoted it because
This paragraph, exactly halfway through Devil May Care, is where Sebastian Faulks really gets Bond. In many ways, the rest of the novel is a building up to and a falling away from this trademark moment - captured 007 and feisty Bond girl paraded in front of criminal mastermind in the heart of his evil and overdecorated lair.
That’s not what I saw in there. I saw “there was nothing in the room that wasn’t poppy-red. Behind a desk stood an old-fashioned swivel chair with a maroon leather seat.” Nothing that wasn’t poppy-red. Apart from the thing that is mentioned immediately after this description. Tsk.
