Chances are I’ll remember it, even if I don’t remember the book, and when I hear it again, I’ll get a better understanding.

After all, I don’t want to read books, even popular, commercial ones, where I never learn anything new.

Absolutely, but that’s the giant question: How does an author transport a varied readership to that NY setting without some local’isms? Should a character in Ghana squeeze on board a “tro tro” headed to Accra, or catch the “intercity bus”? And did US editions of Harry Potter really need to localize the language? (In that instance, I think if readers can figure out “quidditch”, they can work out that “car park” = “parking lot” and “shan’t” = “won’t”.)

That gives the reader an extra hint and a good visual without 2×6ing upside the head.

But then, I love obscure words, deep concepts and mental trickery. One of the harder novels I’ve read was Peter Watts’ SF Blindsight. I felt like I’d run a brain marathon! I was very proud of myself lol.

Good topic. I’ll have to go back through my story and see where I’ve made things TOO obscure.

Aphra Behn a 2nd rate hack? By our judgment or by that of people in her own time? Anyway, it is immaterial whether Behn was a stellar writer or not; it has no bearing on her being read by Lady Anne. I’ve read a Barbara Cartland book out of curiosity, but it’s not an experience I’ll repeat.
Yes, Behn had some questionable and offensive ideas in her writing. Despite creating a heroic character in Oroonoko, (her most famous work) it is clear she saw him as an ‘exception’ in his race, and that she didn’t view slavery as particularly reprehensible. But that’s part of Lady Anne. It is 1786; she reads widely, but it doesn’t mean she likes or agrees with everything she reads, nor does it mean she thinks every book/play/poem by a woman is a masterpiece!

Donna

FWIW, it irritates the heck out of me when I’m reading a book, lost in the magic of the story and bam, there’s an acronym for something that I have absolutely no idea what it stands for and I’m jerked harshly out of my reading pleasure.

By all means, explain it in full the first time, use the acronym thereafter. I’d have no idea whatsoever as to what MoMA means (aside from a maternal reference perhaps?) and I do think it’s a bit of risk to assume that everyone who reads your work will know what it is. You’re writing for a WORLD wide audience, not merely the US, not merely NY.

I’m certainly not saying that anyone should dumb down their writing, just that it could be a mistake to assume that everyone who buys your book knows exactly what you’re referring to.

I have no problem reaching for a dictionary or synonym finder when an author uses an unfamiliar word, in fact I relish those words when I meet them, but acronyms can be so specific to where and what you’re writing that they deserve to be explained.

I think as long as the context is clear to the reader something like this is fine. For example, if I write a NZ setting, and use a NZism, the reader usually gets it from the context. If I write a US setting and use a NZ word then obviously it doesn’t work. (unless one of the characters comes from NZ.)

“I fell in love with William Brown the very first time we met, in Torridon Road library. He had just received an entire shilling from a generous aunt and was swaggering into his local sweetshop to buy an unprecedented sixpenn’orth of Gooseberry Eyes from the surprised owner. And then I read “‘Gotter bit of money this mornin,” explained William carelessly, with the air of a Rothschild,” and lost my heart to Crompton’s hero for ever. Oh, the exuberant confidence of it — the splendour! The magnificent insouciance!

… Nor did I know quite what a Rothschild was, but I deduced (and had confirmed later by my father) that it must be the name of a famously rich family, and it was actually this — this oblique promise of induction into a world of fluent and evocative expression — more than William’s notoriously anarchic spirit, that drew me in.

….The books I had read so far had all stayed carefully within the semantic and grammatical comfort zone of their readers. Now I saw that an author’s vocabulary should exceed her audience’s grasp — else what’s the bloody book for?”

I wonder if the writer’s comment that she could deduce the meaning of Rothschild is relevant – as long as you can get the sense of the passage, doesn’t matter if a particular reference passes you by. FWIW, I’m in the UK and would have known MoMA.
ANTM would baffle me.