“It’s highly disorderly,” he explained, “not like here. There is no easily definable plot, and you can run… — Jasper Fforde
“It’s highly disorderly,” he explained, “not like here. There is no easily definable plot, and you can run yourself ragged wondering what the significance can be of a chance encounter. You’ll also find that for the most part there is no shorthand to the narrative, so everything happens in a long and painfully drawn out sequence. Apparently the talk can be confusing—for the most part, people just say the first thing that comes into their heads.”
“Is it as bad as they say it is?”
“I’ve heard it’s worse. Here in the BookWorld, we say what needs to be said for the story to proceed. Out there? Well, you can discount at least eighty percent of chat as just meaningless drivel.”
“I never thought the percentage was that high.”
“In some individuals it can be as high as ninety-two percent. The people to listen to are the ones who don’t say very much.”
p. 179Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
To a text-based life-form, unpredictable syntax and poor grammar is a source of huge discomfort. Ill-fitting grammar are like ill-fitting shoes. You can get used to it for a bit, but then one day your toes fall off and you can’t walk to the bathroom. Poor syntax is even worse. Change word order and a sentence useless for anyone Yoda except you have.
p. 20
The good thing about being in the BookWorld is that we aren’t hampered by anything as awkward as physical laws. The RealWorld must be hideously annoying to do science in.
p. 172
The idea that people actually do this because they like it strikes me as double insanity with added insanity.
p. 339
