Customer Reviews

Clear and Simple As the Truth: Writing Classic Prose

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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Contrary to other reviewers, I have found this book wonderfully useful. It was not written as a how-to book, but the style -- indeed the whole philosophy that the truth is both pure and simple -- is refreshing and enticing. While Oscar Wilde didn't believe it, neither did he believe half of what he himself said.

The writing is clear and pure. Classic style does not portend to talk down to the reader, but assumes that she is capable of understanding the concepts presented. It is a style to intelligently present information and ideas for the consumption of the intelligent. And, as the authors rightly point out, there are frequently other styles appropriate for other things. Unlike other books about writing style (the best of which is perhaps Williams' "Style"), this book does not give rules or advice, but simply observes and inspires.

To me, this book is the prosaic equivalent of Edward Tufte's books on visual design (and Robert Bringhurst on typography). I re-read these books regularly, and try to follow their intelligent examples.

Turner and Thomas (T&T) offer an overview of that which requires a lifetime of practice: writing as a activity done in a certain manner with the aid of a certain set of enabling conventions. Contrary to the usual surface-level gimmicks, quasi-metaphysical hooey, and self-contradictory cliches that plague the teaching of style, T&T offer an approach that can actually be useful, coherent, and intellectually polished. They make no bones about their so-called classic prose's strengths and weaknesses. At any rate, classic prose in the T&T mode is probably the most useful manner of writing (ONE manner, not the ONLY manner, as T&T make quite clear) that can be taught or learned within the constraints of the composition classroom in an institutional setting.

Those yearning, as I did, for more development of some of the key ideas and a suite of pedagogical applications can turn to T&T's website. Google the title of the book and you will find it.

Thomas and Turner offer a provocative approach to writing style. This is not a manual or reference book that you can consult for simple directions on correcting grammar or streamlining sentences. Instead, the authors examine the fundamental questions that underlie the stylistic choices we make. (For example, what is the nature of truth? what is the relationship between language and the truth?) The book focuses on the style they call "classic prose," but they also describe (and give both good and bad examples of) other prose styles, and they are honest about the shortcomings of classic prose and the situations when other styles are better suited to the purpose of writing. The book would be more useful if there were more direct discussion of how specific surface features of an example relate to the author's philosophical stance, but it is a rewarding and thought-provoking text that may well change how you think about writing.

After reading several of the comments here, I see that readers who took this book as a weak or failed guide to writing have missed the point. I should know; I acquired this book for Princeton University Press on the basis of reading the introduction and listening to the authors explain why this is NOT a Strunk & White, useful as that may be. They wanted readers to rethink style, not as a tool or an adjunct of writing, but as substance, married with the message. Therefore, they suggest the classic style (with historical underpinnings in French literature) as a way of developing an attitude about what one is saying. The style flows from that. Therefore, they don't present a 10-point plan for improving writing, or a step-by-step how-to manual. Rather, their museum of examples shows how style, classic and not, has worked, or not, in all kinds of writing--from formal to informal. Of course classic style is not for every situation, but it is very effective in achieving its ends. For me, the book isn't just about writing classic prose. It's about thinking of style--any style--as integral to the message.

This book is strong stuff for those who write during the course of the day (or the week) but for whom writing is not necessarily central to their lives: attorneys, psychologists, historians, politicians, clergymen and teachers, policemen, executives of all sorts and those who write to complain or to praise, to damn, to bid farewell or to congratulate; physicians, pharmacists, students, housewives and grocery clerks; and of course, those who write in order to post to the internet or to present opinions about a book to Amazon dot com.

It is shocking to be told (once more, perhaps) that writing has to do with thinking and not with verbal skills or the domination of a language; those who take pride in drafting elegant prose are often jolted by the notion that the shiny surfaces they so carefully buff have little meaning or usefulness unless they are being supported by clear and precise thoughts from below.

On first reading I found the book disturbing and irritating. Rather than being asked, or being led by the hand towards the utopic writing the title of the book suggests, I found myself being shoved, a little impatiently, into considering what writing is all about. Yet there is nothing in the book that asks you to do things differently when you write, or even to consider your own prose; still, as you move along you become aware of some terrible things you have done in your writing and you promise yourself to mend your ways. But how? The book is certainly not prescriptive in a concrete sense; it is aspirational only. The book does not tell you how to improve your writing, but as you read you sense that it will probably improve nevertheless. While one senses true authoritarianism tucked away somewhere, its presence is not seen, and therefore it is impossible to oppose. There is no list of commandments, no methodology, no magic steps. It is by no means a "how to" book.

The book ranges very widely: Thucydides, Borges, Twain, Alan Greenspan, Euclides and the Audoborn Society Field Guide to North American Birds, Eastern Region, are among the hundreds of writers and works quoted and exhibited as demonstrating either good ("classic") and not so good writing. Lest the reader be put off by the word "classic" (prissy and elitist, pehaps) the following is an exhibit of classic writing cited in the book, taken from an anonymous brochure of a medical clinic: "Hemorrhoids are actually varicose veins of the rectum."

The book stretches and exercises the mind, forcing better writing as a consequence.

Contrary to what another reviewer said, most of the book is indeed written in the Classic Style, and it does in fact tell you how to write in it, at least to the degree that that is possible: it tells you the mindset that must underlie it. Any writing consistent with the classic prose mindset, crafted according to its assumptions, must perforce be classic prose.

Solid introduction to the world of prose style. This book will teach you how to recognize classical and other writing styles. It won't teach you how to write classic prose, however. Unfortunately -- and without any comment on their choice -- the authors choose not to write this book IN classic style, and I found that eerie and ironic. Speaking of irony, I found the book's title downright disingenuous -- the authors use Oscar Wilde's epigram: "The truth is seldom pure and never simple" as an example of classic writing, i.e., an example of "the truth pure and simple." This sneaky ruse tempts the young reader with a come-on nostrum the authors themselves know is bunkum.

What the authors (or someone else) should do is write a "how-to" on writing classic prose and write it classically. Have problem sets converting plain prose into classic. It'd be neat -- getting to write loads of surprise mickey endings to sentences, like: "While the student of writing often first flounders when searching for an authentic writing style, the authors of trendy style books almost always hit gold."

Finally, there are a couple of silly gibes in the book. Up front, the authors go after The Elements of Style. This is kind of useless as the target market for this book -- college students -- have probably ALREADY BOUGHT that book for their first course of English remediation, so that $6.50 is already gone, daddy. And the gibe at the "new" New Yorker is weird and freakishly reminiscent of book burning (or is it just sour grapes?). So let me ask the authors, what's a guy 'sposed to read instead, Sports Illustrated?'

This book is unique in a useful and interesting way. I agree with the negative reviews, to the extent that the book's structure as a 'useage' description was more confusing than it needed to have been. And I agree with the positive reviews, to the extent that I also recognize the philosophical issues within forceful, memorable prose. Since few other books, and virtually no intellectual traditions, look at the issues involved here, the strengths of the book are more important than the failings within the structure and the rhetoric.
One can especially see that the authors are doing something very unusual when reading their discussions of Descartes. Most intellectual traditions and institutions prattle on about 'Descartes' Error'. In fact, criticism of Descartes is so common, I would suspect that there is a book on aerobics that is built around a criticism of Descartes. The error discussed is the way in which Descartes understood and located the certainty of objective knowledge. Certainly many of our worst problems derive from intellectual traditions that rely on Descartes' error--though it is always a question of the level of culpability, regarding Descartes and his users. This book asserts that Descartes' writing style exemplified an understanding that 'truth can only be understood within the context of the speaker and audience'. Descartes' Error ostensibly springs from NOT understanding this. The authors have strong evidence, and while I'm not necessarily convinced, at least they are swimming against the current in a way that abjurs glibness and rejects mainstream intellectual glibness.
Also worthy of praise is that the authors identify, describe and discuss at length the nature of classic prose vis-a-vis the nature of all prose. They are almost hyper-aware of the fact that classic prose can only say things in a very limited way, and that classic prose is not the only--and not certainly even the best--way to be eloquent. I'll certainly give a chance to anyone aware of the holes in their perspective, and I think it is worth it for others to give them a chance too.
The one concern is that the limits of classic prose becomes an excuse for the problems that arise from it. But a more positive view of relativism is fine here, because errors here are often benign, often recognized and addressed, and usually quickly and persuasively identified for the ignorant. I won't pull down an idea that can be exploited by scoundrels no more easily than a typical idea or view. Maybe, though, there isn't enough time in the book to the limits of classic prose made clear by the use of the word 'classic'--i.e., that ideas outside the 'classical' mainstream or the everyday mainstream can't be integrated into classic prose, or proven to be worthy of inclusion in the 'classics' through a defense written in classical prose. For example, I could never say 'classically', "Each man faces his culture as Winston Smith or Winston Rodney," because the eloquence of the statement can't make people more familiar with reggae music, and if you don't know much about reggae, Rastafarianism, or the artist Burning Spear (Christian name: Winston Rodney), then you can't understand or recognize the eloquence or cleverness or usefulness of the equation. Orwell's 1984, though, is almost too 'classically' prominent. How then do we expand the classics?

This book is puzzling. It's a contorted read that breathes platitude after platitude, but does more to demonstrate how to write obscurely than with clarity. At first, I thought the book was a satire, deliberatly using ambiguity, the absence of punctuation, and the lack of clarity to make its points. But, that's clearly not the case. The authors seriously believe they are about making "truth" clearer, but then fail to make a single argument to support any of its propositions. This is one of the worst books on style and clarity I've seen. Not only is it superficial, but its grammatical and syntactical mistakes are glaring. Do the authors know anything of punctuation? IF they do, they don't show it.