I was reading my Penguin Classics edition of War and Peace the other day and noticed, to my astonishment, widows and orphans all over the place. And quite often there were lines at the end of a paragraph with less than five characters. Picking up my copy of Fellowship of the Ring, I found the same thing. Isn’t that against the rules of copyfitting?
Having said that, I’ve noticed in copyfitting Phantastes that it’s rather hard to copyfit fiction nicely. Dialogue’s the main culprit, I think. Regardless, though, the question now in my mind is this: does it matter? Are these rules there for a reason, or are they just tradition without much basis in aesthetic value? Are widows and orphans really that hard on the eyes? Are “rivers of white” after paragraphs a bad thing?
I’m not sure. The main question is whether these get in the way of reading, since readability is the main function of typography. I think the answer is clearly no. There are a few exceptions (if the small word is at the end of a page, it could easily get skipped as the reader moves on to the next page), but generally speaking they don’t get in the way.
Aesthetically? Possibly. But maybe not. I’m thinking about recopyfitting Phantastes. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll wait till the next book to try out these theories. :)
[tags]copyfitting[/tags]
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