Thursday, September 11, 2014

The Bone Clocks and early 90s Cambridge

I'm enjoying David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks but I've just got to the bit where the narrative switches to Cambridge in the early 90s and every so often something jars with me. ('You dont know, man.  You weren't there!' Sort of thing.  I was.  Proof: here and (from mid-90s, here).) Simple things that might have been checked quite easily. 

So far:

A band does a gig at the 'Cornmarket'. Wouldn't the Corn Exchange allow its name to be used?

A student says he is studying 'Economics and politics'. I don't think anyone would say that. It would have been Economics or SPS.

A student refers to a college's site as a 'campus'. Would anyone have done that?  Do they even now?


Of course, I could have mistaken these and they are in fact a carefully planted set of indications of an unreliable narrator/author or something.  And, sure, they don't stop me enjoying the book, but they did bother me.

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