# Factual inaccuracies in novels **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2005, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258 "2005-03-12T23:12:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258/41 "2005-03-14T19:54:14Z")
Tigers?! In Africa?! ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258/42 "2005-03-14T20:22:20Z")
> [@BiblioCat](#): > > Although I like the books in general, Sue Grafton’s “Kinsey Milhone” books often have some goofy innaccuracies that any good editor should have caught. > In one of them (can’t remember which one specifically) she is in a motel room with some loudly amorous neighbors in the next room. To combat the noise, she takes one of her bras, stuffs a sock in each cup and ties it over her head, so a sock-filled cup covers each ear. Just a quick look at any normal bra would show you that this is just not possible. The cups are right next to each other and wouldn’t cover your ears like she suggests. > In another, she borrows a pair of pants from a friend, but the friend is much taller and the pants are too long and drag on the floor. Kinsey solves the problem by rolling the waistband up. That wouldn’t work, either. It would just hitch up the waist. The leg length would still be too long. > Both of these things jumped right out at me - as in, “That wouldn’t work!” > Considering that the books are written by a woman, she should know better. I was getting tired of the series (she kept describing one person as fat, but gave her a height and weight that would have made her a size 6…). But the one that stopped me from reading was the Kinsey, a California girl, claiming to have loved Hellman’s mayonaisse all her life. It’s minor, but it’s the minor things that break the camel’s back. Another thing I’ve seen a couple of times is people viewing the Pacific Ocean from Seattle. The Pacific is 100 miles away, and there’s this pesky mountain range between the city and ocean. Makes it kinda hard to see. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258/43 "2005-03-14T20:51:14Z")
A famous old one **Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.** by Jules Verne A league =2.16 miles (in Verne’s context) gives 43,200 miles, yet the Earth’s diameter is 7,926 miles at its greatest. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258/44 "2005-03-14T20:57:19Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > A famous old one > > **Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.** by Jules Verne > > A league =2.16 miles (in Verne’s context) gives 43,200 miles, yet the Earth’s diameter is 7,926 miles at its greatest. I now found a site that shows I have been whooshed, the title is refering to a 20,000 mile journey which took place at various depths below the sea, not 20,000 leages straight down. I thought it was just an error where fathoms were meant to be used not leagues. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2005, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258/45 "2005-03-14T21:11:54Z")
I seem to recall a sketch on _Saturday Night Live_ in which Kelsey Grammer as James Mason as Captain Nemo goes on and on about leagues and fathoms. Hmm. James Mason. James Mason certainly doesn’t fit the novels’ description of Nemo as an Indian princeling and descendant of Tippu Sultan. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258/46 "2005-03-15T00:38:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t recall… Is it ever explicitly stated that Piggy is nearsighted? I don’t have my copy of _Lord of the Flies_ to hand, but going by the discussion of the point in John Sutherland’s excellent _Where Was Rebecca Shot?_, yes it is. Sort of. Apparently, in the same passage Piggy protests that all he can see is “blurs, that’s all. Hardly see my hand”. Which, as a sufferer, seems a reasonable description of myopia. Sutherland’s chapter on the point actually covers how the quibble in this instance became a persistant tradition in English literary criticism. More broadly, his entire series of books on literary enigmas, starting with _Is Heathcliff a Murderer?_, are filled with these sorts of glitches. A personally annoying detail: in Stanislaw Lem’s _The Investigation_, set in London, there’s a cinema opposite the Ritz hotel. Now I understand that Lem wasn’t able to visit the city before writing the novel and so can be excused getting such details wrong, but anybody who knows London realises that there just isn’t a cinema opposite the Ritz. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258/47 "2005-03-15T00:43:11Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I seem to recall a sketch on _Saturday Night Live_ in which Kelsey Grammer as James Mason as Captain Nemo goes on and on about leagues and fathoms. > > Hmm. James Mason. James Mason certainly doesn’t fit the novels’ description of Nemo as an Indian princeling and descendant of Tippu Sultan. Conciel: “Wow, that’s deep!” Cap. Nemo: “No, it’s a unit of length!” (Nemo gets grabbed by the Giant Squid) Ned: “That thing must be 20,000 leagues long!” Nemo: “Now you’ve got it!” I wish I could find a video of that. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258/48 "2005-03-15T00:55:43Z")
In Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonnegut apparently forgot that air and skin contain moisture. Didn’t wreck the book for me, I don’t read fiction for scientific accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2005, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258/49 "2005-03-15T04:21:26Z")
Ian Fleming was fond of repeating factoids in his James Bond novels, implying that independent spymasters the world round have concluded that the most innocuous occupation to cite on a phony passport is “Company director”. While I could sort-of buy this, he also uses a factual error in two novels; describing bats as having radar. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factual-inaccuracies-in-novels/294258.md?page=2)