Posted by Dave W on July 30, 2000 at 12:16:16 from dewaller.demon.co.uk:
The following observation may be inviting the wrath of Tarboard to appear in great force, but I have not seen discussions of the following point, and am curious to hear the views of others.
Just occasionally, in a number of the books I have found myself having to re-read a passage because AR's narrative flow seems to be interrupted by a sort of litery stutter : he occasionally writes "had had" and "that that". I have no doubt that these are grammatically correct, and the meaning is exactly what AR intended, but as I said, these occasional constructions seem to me to interrupt the flow.
I have noticed very few instances of this style by other authors.