Buckley: The Right Word: About the Uses and Abuses of Language, including Vocabu lary;: Usage; Style & Speaking; Fiction, Diction & Dictionaries; Reviews & Interviews; a Lexicon... - Hardcover

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679452141 ISBN 13: 9780679452140

Publisher: Random House, 1996

Synopsis

The book his readers have asked for--on the uses and abuses of language, vocabulary, diction and dictionaries, journals and journalists, style, eloquence, interviews and reviews--Buckley: The Right Word includes interviews with Charlie Rose and The Paris Review, verbal encounters with Borges, le Carre, Galbraith, Schlesinger, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times, essays on formality and style--even a Buckley lexicon. Online promo.

About this title

From the Back Cover

readers have asked for--on the uses and abuses of language, vocabulary, diction and dictionaries, journals and journalists, style, eloquence, interviews and reviews--Buckley: The Right Word includes interviews with Charlie Rose and The Paris Review, verbal encounters with Borges, le Carre, Galbraith, Schlesinger, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times, essays on formality and style--even a Buckley lexicon. Online promo.

Reviews

Vaughan, who has edited most of Buckley's books since 1976, has "selected, assembled and edited with an introduction and sundry comments" a sprawling, annotated scrapbook of Buckley's nonpolitical jottings on the subject of writing English well. Topics range from notes he's sent people who have dared to correct his grammar, to letters to old friends and enemies on matters dealing with English usage, to book reviews, interviews, selected columns, essays and even obituaries, the last of which are especially flavorful. The book's conclusion is worthy of Dr. Johnson himself, a 100-page "lexicon" of words and phrases?partita, paternalistic, paucity, pedagogical?used over the years by Buckley. Much of this book has already appeared in print scattered over a lifetime of publishing, but Buckley's admirers will be delighted by the generous sampling of the author's correspondence. Vaughan's notes, introductions and running commentary more than do the job of holding together this sometimes unwieldy collection. They are downright entertaining in themselves.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A whimsical miscellany that is essentially what Vaughan (Buckley's editor at Doubleday), in his introduction, calls it, a ``book on language,'' although it does not hold itself opprobrious, reprehensible, or peccant for wandering off topic. Letters, essays, interviews, speeches, and columns by National Review editor Buckley (Brothers No More, 1995, etc.), along with some letters written back to him, explore subjects as varied as the origin of Buckley's fictional spy Blackford Oakes, subjunctives, Norman Mailer, and the Roman Catholic Church's abandonment of the Latin mass. Of course, Buckley does hold forth on fine points of English usage, but even he has his limit, as demonstrated when one correspondent, after taking exception to Buckley's usage of ``momentarily,'' explores various ``sleazy blunders in word usage.'' Buckley's response: ``Aw, lay off, fellas.'' Such moments of humor, generously sprinkled throughout, do much to give the book its appeal. For example, Buckley experiments with translation software by using it to render two brief notes into French and then back into English, with predictably hilarious results. Of the interviews, there is a particularly memorable one with Jorge Luis Borges; discussing his admiration for English, the great writer notes that its Latin and Germanic roots give it ``two registers.'' There is a group of reviews, including one of Henry James's travel writings, which Buckley adores (the prose is ``so resplendent it will sweep you off your feet''), and one of the movie The Right Stuff, which, he says, lacks the ``leavening humor'' that Tom Wolfe's writing brought to the subject. In a chapter of obituaries, Buckley pays respect to a range of people, from Claire Boothe Luce to his own mother. An appendix of ``Buckley lexicons'' will attract only those burning to know how Buckley uses terms such as ``matrix'' or ``pertinacity.'' In all, an assortment to entertain even some language lovers who find Buckley's politics less than amusing. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A style manual? A dictionary? A chrestomathy? An apologia pro vita sua? Whatever words define this compendium of Buckleyan writings might not exist, and Buckley, conservative that he is, would abhor pasting some faddish neologism on this title. Suffice it to say, the English language, even with its capacious vocabulary, doesn't seem big enough to contain Buckley's subject--the usage of words. His book tries and contains a copious quantity of his letters, memos, columns, novel excerpts, interviews, and, yes, a personalized dictionary (in the sense that Buckley, verbally self-confident and immune to imputations of self-idolatry, uses his own published phrases to display in action some polysyllabic word or other). About the only categories of Buckleyiana not represented here are transcripts of Firing Line debates and songs he might sing while showering. In this variety of formats, one quality associated with Buckley is absent: politics on the Right. This is a collection for word lovers, not partisans of polemics, and so should widen readership beyond the subscription list of the National Review, the magazine that, besides being the voice of conservatism, seems to have as its mission debating the obfuscatory or coruscant meanings of words. A vital volume for verbomaniacs. Gilbert Taylor

Vaughan, currently editor-at-large for Random House, has edited nearly all of Buckley's 35 books since 1976. In this collection, he showcases Buckley's "language in action" rather than focusing on his politics. Vaughan has included Buckley's pieces on the uses and abuses of language, reviews, letters, and journalism, among many other things. Whether responding to letters to National Review, being interviewed, or skewering a reviewer, Buckley is prolific and provocative, influential and infuriating, and always intellectually stimulating. In an appendix, there is a lexicon of words defined and used by the master grammarian. This veritable cornucopia of language and logic belongs in every library.?Cathy Sabol, Northern Virginia Community Coll., Manassas
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679452141
• ISBN 13: 9780679452140
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 524