Why No "Quotation" Marks?

Help me out, all ye literary types and English profs.

Why do some authors decide to disregard punctuation norms?

I read David Guterson's novel "Our Lady of the Forest" with high hopes.  I loved "Snow Falling on the Cedars" but had chosen to skip Guterson's second novel because it was about a 73 year old widower with terminal cancer.  I don't know, the old-man-dying theme put me off a bit, even though I've enjoyed similar old men when described by masters like Wallace Stegner.  So, having passed up "East of the Mountains," I was pleased to find "Our Lady of the Forest" on the library shelf (and proud to be borrowing rather than buying a book for my nightly novel addiction.)  Young mushroom picker turned Madonna visionary. OK, I'll try it.

I liked "Our Lady..." -- but not nearly as much as "Snow Falling...".  I'll omit a review because there are some good ones on Amazon (good because I agree with them, of course.)

But... Guterson has chosen not to use quotation marks in this book.  There's no "he said," or "she said."  You have to keep track of who's saying what by keeping track of the context.  You have to figure out when characters are thinking and when they are talking.  And sometimes, just like IRL, the characters have thoughts while they're talking with other folks.

Don't get me wrong: Guterson pulls off this difficult task with aplomb.  You can figure out who is saying what to whom in 99% of the passages; even when more than 2 characters are conversing at once.  Wow.  Masterful.

But I found the omission of quotes quite irritating.   It.  Slowed.  Me. Down.  Sometimes I had to go back and reread a paragraph or two.  Sometimes it just slowed me down, well, because it slowed me down.  Much the way I get bogged down by the use of odd fonts.  (And I really hate odd fonts in children's picture books because there is no better way for a new reader to enjoy her new prowess than to go back and read a virtually-memorized old favorite. Grrrrrr.)

As an unreflective novel gobbler, while trying to gulp down "Our Lady...," I hated taking those extra seconds to figure out things that my brain usually processes automatically.  Plus, I was annoyed because I felt that somehow Guterson was inserting himself into the narrative -- "Hey, lookit me!" -- even though I suppose he might have intended the opposite.

Why would he have done this?  Why do authors choose to flout rules?  What good reason might Guterson have had for choosing this path?  I'd really like to find an adequate justification because I think he writes beautifully and I love being led into the Northwest -- a part of the country I've never visited. 

Maybe I'll see if David has a blog.  If so, I'll ask him myself.

(And in case you haven't noticed, punctuation, grammar and spelling are not my forte -- I always appreciate copyediting comments -- though for pride's sake I'd appreciate having my mistakes pointed out by email rather than via posts....)

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Update:  I love Google.  Check out this news article:  Guterson suffered massive writer's block after 9/11.  Somehow I find it comforting to know that even great writers struggle.  Plus, I never knew that he was a highschool English teacher when he published "Snow Falling on the Cedars."  I love that he was teaching adolescents, struggling to write after work (or maybe before work) and counted himself among the vast underpaid heros of this country (public school teachers.)  And then, he wrote a brilliant book and got Famous.  And Rich.  Just in time to put 4 kids through college.  Great story.  Plus, in "Our Lady..." he's writing about a young priest's masturbatory fantasies -- turns out Guterson is an agnostic, Jewish mensch.  Plus, you can go to this site, and if you live near Bainbridge Island, you can submit a manuscript to apply for Guterson's 8 student fiction writing workshop.  Now I really want to visit Washington State!  Like I said, I love Google.

Comments

[camicao]

FYI-- Cormac McCarthy is also famous for not using quotation marks. Further, in Spanish, dialogue is not rendered in quotation marks.

I think some would argue that quotations marks are artificial and writerly, and that their omission makes the writing zippier, more fluid. I, for one, prefer writing sans quotation marks.

[Academic Coach]

Thanks, C. I knew my erudite pals would be helpful. Yeah, I like Cormac McCarthy and something about his style makes the lack of quotation marks more expected. Hmmmm.

Zippier and more fluid. Hmmm. The opposite of my slowed down reaction. Perhaps this is how norms are updated over time and I'm just an old shaggy bitch trying to get used to not-so-new tricks.

After all, I liked "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" much, much better than "Ulysses" (which, predictably, I found irritating.)

[lecturess]

I second what Camicao said. Done well, I often very much enjoy the sans-quotation style, as I do with McCarthy. However, it can also seem affected, and I'd be inclined to think I'd feel that to be the case with Guterson, whom I'm not particularly fond of--despite being a Washington State native. (Though I should add that I've only read Snow Falling.)

[Scrivener]

The only book I've read of his is Snow Falling too, and I would tend to agree with Camicao and Lecturess, but then again reading your post makes me wonder. You say it irritated you and slowed you down and made you re-read and sometimes look carefully to figure out exactly what was going on (who's speaking, is that dialog or someone's thoughts, etc), and I could also imagine Gutterson looking for exactly that kind of response. Your post complaining about the lack of quotation marks, oddly enough, makes me want to read the novel to see what's going on there. I tend to like those sorts of games in a novel, though.

[Academic Coach]

Our Lady is well worth reading. Whether you like or dislike quotes -- although I certainly wouldn't bother if you didn't like Snow Falling. And let me say, that I like the ambiguity of the quotation mark-free version of this comment ;)

[Analisa Guzman]

Why would an author omit quotation marks or disregard "rules"? Simple. Poetic license. It might work well or it might not. It depends on the skill of the author...What does any rule broken mean in fiction? One would need to see what is the intended effect on the reader and what it might add to our understanding of character/plot development. I have not read the texts you are referring to so I can't comment specifically on those.

If done well, breaking the rules is what brings innovation to literature.

[russianviolets]

I cannot explain it, but I do share your frustration. I *heart* traditional punctuation.

[Richard]

As Analisa says, the omission of quotation marks is done for effect. That effect is almost always going to be *affect* as well.

Camicao mentioned the "zippier and more fluid" interpretation. I haven't read this book yet, but in imaginging its format, I have to ask whether there was ever a time that you were able to stop puzzling over the prose format and just enjoy the words. It would seem to me that a book that uses quotation marks functions as two sets of discourse between one set of covers -- the things being said by characters, and the things being "thought" at you by the narrator. When you get rid of the quotation marks, the reader may still be able to separate these two in her head, but the discourse of the novel becomes more uniform. Words, thoughts, descriptions all smoosh together into one stew of prose.

I'm reminded of David Lynch's *Dune*, which heavily featured characters whispering their thoughts as if they were merely very quiet bits of dialog. This move broke down the barrier between dialog and narration, too, because the thoughts often served to explain what was going on, as a narrator might. It also emphasized (though with much subtlety) the extent to which the main characters' thoughts were influencing and/or creating the world.

So, to go back to my initial observation, did the "fluid" movement between dialog and narration help you to see or feel anything particular to the story or to the experience of the characters? I suspect the story of a mystic would be hard to tell without all kinds of boundary-transgressions and subtle shifts between ways of seeing/hearing/thinking the world.

[Mike Selby]

No quotations marks were a literary style choice in 19th century 'artsy' novels. I had difficulty and had to stop reading COLD MOUNTAIN by Charles Frazier for this exact reason. I asked a friend of mine who is a Dickens expert, and he said it was an "artsy" trend in the 1800s. He smiled and added "But for Frazier to employ it now, well...that is just posturing!" So huge thanks to all those authors who enjoy making their work more DIFFICULT to read. Isaac Asimov is rolling in his grave.