Reading Style

March 31, 2014
Although this charming and erudite collection of essays originated in a series of lectures delivered at Columbia University, professor and critic Davidson (Breeding: A Partial History of the Eighteenth Century) thinks of it more as “a field notebook,” a sampler of sentences, and a “modest manifesto.” She studies sentences that have “a high glimmer factor,” with examples by writers ranging from Jane Austen to Harry Stephen Keeler. Davidson understands that reading is largely a matter of taste, and offers both apologies and helpful instructions for reading her book, freeing readers to nibble off corners of essays and move on if necessary. Readers familiar with the works discussed will have an edge over those encountering Henry James or Georges Perec for the first time. However, Davidson’s lengthy quotes and in-depth analysis provide enough context to understand the intricacies of The Golden Bowl, or the challenges and pleasures of a novel that completely avoids the vowel “e,” or a novella whose only vowel is “e.” Most valuably, Davidson stresses the importance of reading for both enrichment and something many of us may have forgotten: pleasure. Agent: Kathleen Anderson, Anderson Literary Management.

June 1, 2014

Do not expect a writing guide here; Davidson (English, Columbia Univ.) examines ways of reading and writing, creating a work of homage to her favorite writers, many of whom are not popular or well known. She starts with the usual suspects, such as Jane Austen and Henry James, but eventually turns to those who are clearly her pet authors: Georges Perec, Roland Barthes, W.G. Sebald, Alan Hollinghurst, and others. Davidson spends a lot of time in the Jamesian and Proustian schools, placing authors squarely within either one. The result is a rather dense log of the author's favorite wordsmiths and excerpts from their works; it lacks the dissection at the sentence level that one might expect from the subtitle. Finally, she questions the act of novel writing itself: "it seems to me fatally artificial." VERDICT Academics of a small niche of English literature may find this enlightening, while other readers will likely find it more perplexing and obtuse than its rewards warrant.--Linda White, Maplewood, MN

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2014
Davidson (English and Comparative Literature/Columbia Univ.; The Magic Circle, 2013, etc.) encourages readers to hone their critical skills and develop "a deeper comprehension of how to know which objects reward such scrutiny." Taking issue with the idea that literature teaches about life, the author maintains that the "main reward of reading a novel" is not "becoming a slightly better person." Instead, Davidson reads for the pleasure of style: the sparkle of a well-chosen word, the topography of a well-crafted sentence and the "acoustical elegance of aphorism." She considers distinct stylistic elements, exemplified by extensive passages from the many works that Davidson admires, some predictably canonical: Jane Austen's Emma, whose prose "is remarkable in being at the same time supremely stylized, crafted, controlled and also exceptionally productive of identification and empathy"; Moby-Dick ("electrifyingly strange, mesmerizing, lovely"; Henry James' The Golden Bowl, whose sentences "display a virtually unprecedented subtlety and complexity." Some contemporary writers also merit praise, such as Jonathan Lethem, whose The Fortress of Solitude Davidson found "immensely satisfying in the exact placement of the words"; Yiyun Li, for her short stories but not her first novel; Alan Hollinghurst, for The Line of Beauty; crime writer Harry Stephen Keeler, whose "use of simile and comparison is strikingly imaginative"; and Lydia Davis for the "chewy" quality of her compressed stories. Others fail to meet Davidson's exacting standards: She cites Alice Munro, Alice McDermott and William Trevor as writers whose emotional landscapes are "woefully narrow" and exemplary of "the sort of self-absorption" pervasive in North American literary short stories. The author of four novels, Davidson confesses her own frustration with what she sees as the artificiality of made-up characters and plots. Davidson prefers the intellectual challenge of analyzing "a problem or a situation" such as the problem she astutely considers here: how writers create the splendid prose that readers cherish.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.