The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
Author: Steven Pinker
Rating: â 3/5
Date Read: 2017/11/29
Pages: 368
This book taught me that many students of English have learned incorrect language rules from their teachers, and their writing can be improved by unlearning them. Lucky for me, I went to a failing high school where I didnât learn shit. This must be why my prose is so sparkly.
Steven Pinker possesses a great mind and admirable writing ability. Ironically, his writing is at its worst when he tries to pin down why it works. The deeper he gets into usage-based explications of linguistically-interesting constructions, the further away he gets from offering real advice to budding Hemingways. Realistically, there are two steps to improving your writing: read some fucking books, and write a lot.
Improving your writing is like improving your Spanish: youâre not going to logic your way into understanding the secrets of syntax, just like youâre not going to find a satisfying logical explanation for that pesky personal âa.â Instead, you have to tune your ear to what sounds right, and what sounds off. The main problem with Pinkerâs style guide is that he tries to intellectualize something that has to be learned through experience. Itâs like learning Spanish by memorizing the Wikipedia page on the Spanish language. Itâs not going to work.
Ultimately, a writer has to get intimate with good prose, roll around in bed with it, be nakedly, uncomfortably vulnerable with it. Pinker wonât get you there. A writer should look to the great writers: Tolstoy, Joyce, Eliot, Proust. Their words make you want to grab their paragraphs, push their chapters against the wall, and ravish them.