What is the most extraordinary cultural error you have found in a novel?

Question

Like: Ruth Rendell and others think that Filipinos speak Spanish.
and - no, Mr Unsworth, Abdul Hamid and his concubine wouldn't have used a position condemned by Islam.

Answer 1

Not culture really but American writers who set their books in England always seem to have aristocrats as their heros and use Americanisms like "I've gotten" and really annoy me!
Eg. Elizabeth George and Martha Grimes although I do enjoy their stories otherwise.

Answer 2

I'm Russian and very often I see a lot of errors in novels and films about my country. The most common is about polar bears roaming about Moscow. As for a novel I can remember Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being. He says that Soviet (Russian) soldiers who came to Prague didn't see beautiful women before. That's not right. In fact Russian and Check are very alike cause they are Slavonic
One more error but from life.My friend had a boyfriend from USA and he asked her "Do you hunt in Moscow?"

Answer 3

Borat seems to be one huge cultural blunder. It would be pure satire if it wasn't using the name of a real country. Imagine a similar movie referring to the USA for instance... Well, not a novel, but this was the first thing that came to my mind :)

Answer 4

Good question, I cant remember anything from a novel but on The OC they said that Kuala Lumpur was the captial of Indonesia

Answer 5

In Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, he is shipwrecked on a desert island in the tropics and he talks about penguins and seals. He also says that he saw lions and tigers in Africa.

Not really sure if it's cultural, but it made me chuckle :-)

Answer 6

..... I need to read more novels. All I read is dusty history books. Sad.