The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing

A lot of space on this page has been devoted to defending The Elements of Style Illustrated against Yagoda's abrupt dismissal. Fair enough. Anyone who's ever read undergraduate prose in the days before the kids just copied it all from the 'net has to acknowledge that clarity and simplicity are the foundations of expression. If it ain't clear, it ain't stylish. But Yagoda doesn't seem to be denying this obvious truth. He is simply saying that obeying the rigors of S & W is not the same as style in the sense that the word applies to our best writers. *S & W talk about what makes style possible for any writer. *Yagoda talks about the nature of style itself after the brush has been cleared, the foundation laid and all the unnecessary metaphors put away. That said, this is a delightful and provocative book. It suffers, as any book on literary style must, from the necessity of using its subject matter as the means of its own discussion. That is, the style of a book about style is bound to be a little strained. (See Insights and Illusions of Philosophy for both explanation and evidence.) The best use for this charming book is in forcing the reader's attention to words and style. The most horrific part is that it forces a writer's attention to his own words and style. It's nourishment for the former, medicine for the latter who would be well-advised to take small doses and continue writing. --Lynn Hoffman, author of New Short Course in Wine,The and the slightly stylish bang BANG: A Novel

This is a tremendous book, a must-read for anyone who wants to improve their writing skills. I've read many writing instruction books, from Zinsser's "On Writing Well" to Stein on Writing to Strunk and White, and this volume stands with the best of them. The book demystifies (partially, at least) the various tics, choices, and talents that underlie many writers' styles. It's in-depth and intelligent. Extra bonus: it's highly readable. Yagoda's own style is engaging and keeps the educational material far above the standard-issue text. I found it encouraging.

Yagoda's thesis of this highly intelligent, generous book is that the dogma, championed by Strunk and White's Elements of Style, which shames us for having our own writing style, contradicts the joys and pleasures of writing, namely, that writers have their own individual finger-print style or voice. A writer's voice, his or her style, is the sensibility or personality giving life to the page. Yogada interviews several writers, including humorist David Barry, for the subject. Yagoda's own voice is smart and lively but never adademic. I should emphasize that the lack of academic-speak is one of the book's greatest virtues and triumphs. Here Yagoda has taken a book about the style of writing, a topic that could have easily been hijacked by some stuffy pretentious academic, but keeps the passion and accessibility on the level of a delicious pop book. Anyone interested in writing and style and literature in general should love this book.

Think you know what "style" is in writing? This book looks at every angle till you are humbled. Style is ... voice...rhythm..."the man"...conjunction of speech and written word...a response... Hemingway said his awkwardness in writing was called his style. Yagoda's book is an intelligent and erudite look at style, and raises questions rather than hammers down an answer. It's like the blind men touching the elephant and describing ("limning") what they feel. Based on this book, I've ordered Cyril Connelly's "Enemies of Promise."

With this engaging, entertaining and thought-provoking book, Ben Yagoda continues the discussion of what constitutes good writing that he initiated in "About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made." Well researched, considered and reasoned, the book opens with a fascinating cultural history of the concept of style. Arguments over whether it is best to write like Hemingway or Faulkner (or the middle-of-the-road Fitzgerald) date back, Yagoda notes, to the Greeks. In "On Rhetoric," for example, Aristotle emphasized clarity, transparency and decorum with an approach that presages some of the modern -- albeit, as Yagoda demonstrates, far from universally accepted -- message of Strunk & White's touchstone, "The Elements of Style." Yagoda then takes us on a journey across two hemispheres to discuss, with 40 different writers as diverse as Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and best-selling humorist Bill Bryson, how they got their grooves. In short thematically arranged snippets and later, in extended monologues, they talk freely about: the writers who influenced them; how they arrived at their style, or styles; even the nuts-and-bolts question of how their writing implements (pen, typewriter, computer) and methods of revision affect the sound that we hear when we read their works. If you're like me, you'll find yourself endeavoring to read for the first time, or re-read, some of Yagoda's interview subjects and those they cite as seminal influences, such as the grand dame of essayists, Joan Didion. For any reader or writer who gives a damn about the written word, this is a richly rewarding book.