Jack Swanzy
asked:
on p.16 of the hard back, Saunders writes "The story has said of her, 'She is unhappy and can't imagine any other life for herself.'" Why put this statement in quotes? It isn't found in the text.
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A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life,
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Kumari de Silva
"has said" indicates a bit of dialogue is about to follow. As in She said, "It's hot outside." In this case the speaker is a story, but it is dialogue none the less.
Richard Pearce-moses
Of course, only Saunders can answer your question. But I'll offer and observation and a guess:
In the paragraph above that begins, "If a story begins, 'Once there was a boy ...'", Saunders uses quotes to distinguish the text of this hypothetical story from his own words. I think he may be doing the same thing in the sentence you quoted.
Omitting the quotation marks would (IMHO) be a reasonable option, especially if the author were very much a minimalist when it came to punctuation. But, I think using them makes text a bit more readable. And, he seems to use this convention to highlight words and short passages through the book.
In the paragraph above that begins, "If a story begins, 'Once there was a boy ...'", Saunders uses quotes to distinguish the text of this hypothetical story from his own words. I think he may be doing the same thing in the sentence you quoted.
Omitting the quotation marks would (IMHO) be a reasonable option, especially if the author were very much a minimalist when it came to punctuation. But, I think using them makes text a bit more readable. And, he seems to use this convention to highlight words and short passages through the book.
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