Clear and Simple As the Truth: Writing Classic Prose New Ed Edition

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.

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.

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.

What to expect:

In classic style, the convention is not to argue, not to anticipate every conceivable objection, but rather to convey ones authority, and ones confidence in the reader's intelligence, by making statements as clear and simple as the truth. That's the essential message.

The first half of the book is devoted to a succession of brief chapters and sections, detailing attributes, conventions, stances, assumptions and nuances of the classic style. The second half is devoted to a "museum" of examples of classic style writing. Because the authors do strive for a classic style in their own prose, there is a lack of intimacy to the book. One doesn't get the personal reader-writer relationship here that is typical in many current writing books. The experience is more like what I imagine an expository writing class would have been like at a prep school in 1950. The authors lecture on the nature of classic prose, and provide examples, and expect students to think about and learn from those examples without much interaction.

Cons:

The reviewers who claim that the book is contorted and (ironically) not written in classical style are expressing a frustration I felt myself at times, wading through some of the chapters. Classic prose, the authors tell us, has a lightness and vitality (owing to its succinctness, lack of elaboration and over-argument). By contrast, some of the chapters in the book come to feel sluggish and dogmatic as the authors make one meticulous point after the next, fastidiously polishing each facet of each point. Let's chalk that up to a professional hazard for anyone authoring a book about what they consider to be an Aristocratic style. They're clearly fascinated with their topic and may see nuance where I see slightly self-satisfied redundancy.

Pros:

On shelves lined with writing books, this one stands apart. It has unique value to contribute. I found it worth propping my eyelids open and sticking with it when, at intervals, it got too fastidious for my taste. (Chacun à son goût!) I found it also worth reading despite my lack of specific interest in the classic prose style.

Where the book is at its best (the writing is often fresh, crisp and immediate, even difficult to put down) I find nuggets of great wisdom. The book helps one to examine consciously the kinds of choices that one typically makes intuitively. The discussions I value most are those concerning assumptions one makes as a writer, about the nature of truth, and the intelligence of the reader, and the access each person has to the truth.

The book is about more than Classic Prose. It's about certain fundamental choices writers make, writing in ANY style, and ought to make consciously.

The book is also about much more than writing. It helps me to think about human nature, the complex motivations that drive communication, why it's so difficult to tell an unvarnished truth, and how writing more conscientiously might constitute a kind of moral striving.

Summary:

The book provides a handful of really thought provoking ideas, and it inspires me to want to put some muscle into my writing, come back to it with some new energy. I'll return to the book repeatedly, I expect, to meditate on these ideas. It expanded my perspective (at least subtly) on a subject I've already been thinking about for 20 years, and I hope it will have an impact on the quality of my writing. It will certainly make me more thoughtful about it for a while. What more can anyone really ask of a writing book?