I recently started reading Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. Immediately, I was captivated, but one thing sticks out to me as I read: the lack of quotation marks for the dialogue.
There are many U.K. idiosyncrasies in writing. Favourite, colour, kerb (?!) Whenever I discover one, I’m usually delighted. After all, I wrote “dialogue” in the paragraph above. I’ve been spelling it “theatre” my entire life. There are some British spellings that just make sense to me.
But I just can’t get behind not using quotation marks. Thoughts and spoken words are written out the same way, and the narration is also in first person, so I have to read sections a second time just to keep track of what was said.
Example:
Now, admittedly, I’m a dumb American. But since when are quotation marks not hip enough to be used in a novel? I’m genuinely curious. This reads more clearly to me:
“This is how privilege gets perpetuated,” Philip told me in the office one day. “Rich assholes like us taking unpaid internships and getting jobs off the back of them.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “I’m never going to get a job.”
‘kerb’ is just a silly British quirk to me, but the quotation thing is perplexing.
Sara Mazariegos 