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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Alas, a Disappointment,
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This review is from: The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure (Hardcover)
This work is a brilliant magazine article inflated into a mediocre book. The brilliant part ends with page 26. That page, titled "The Concise Manifesto," is a summary of what conversation ought to be, and it may be worth the price of the entire book. From there on, "The Art of Conversation" uses too many devices familiar to writers with deadlines to meet and spaces to fill: short paragraphs, abundant quotations from others, recurring categories and subcategories with slangy names, lists where ordinary paragraphs would do, and subheadings every few paragraphs. In other words, typography and repetition in place of thought.
Two other observations: The author, Catherine Blyth, is as beautiful as a fashion model, judging by the photograph on the dust jacket, and perhaps for her the art of conversation is not as fraught as it is for the rest of us. Also, she is English and occasionally uses phrases that must be clear on her side of the Atlantic but that puzzle me.
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unimpressed and hard to read,
By
This review is from: The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure (Hardcover)
I was unimpressed with this book. Part of the book was common sense. Other parts of the book seemed to me like outdated British manners, and supplication in order to get other people to like you.
I found the book difficult to read. The author rarely stayed focused or on topic, as she went off on many tangents. Some of the examples given seemed to contradict the point she was trying to make instead of supporting it.
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Shallow conversation,
By
This review is from: The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure (Hardcover)
The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure
This is an advice book. Do not expect any in-depth reflections on the philosophy, psychology, anthropology, or sociology of conversation. The best that can be said of it is that there is a lot crammed into its 288 sparse pages and many readers may find some small part helpful. We have all fumbled conversations, and as I read Blyth's book I had some shocks of recognition of mistakes I have made far too often. Her attempt to fit in so much is also the book's chief weakness. I counted 95 "rules" strewn throughout, and that only scratches the surface of her advice precepts. There are also "principles," "maxims," "guidelines," "commandments," and other kinds of lists, adding dozens (if not hundreds) of further directives. Little space is left for meaningful discussion of any of these (although illustrative anecdotes and quotations appear with many of her rules). The Art of Conversation is broad and shallow. There is no way that I, for one, could possibly remember more than a few of Blyth's guidelines when I am caught in, say, a tedious cocktail party conversation. It might be best just to focus on some common sense, such as "don't embarrass anyone" or "listen more than you talk." The author does not overlook such fundamentals as these, but they are buried into all of her other material. After reading the book I was unsure of what she might consider to be the three or four most helpful things she had to say.
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