The Style's the Man: Reflections on Proust, Fitzgerald, Wharton, Vidal, and Others - Hardcover

Auchincloss, Louis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684197421 ISBN 13: 9780684197425

Publisher: Scribner, 1994

Synopsis

A collection of critical essays, some published for the first time, examine literary style ranging over five hundred years of English and American literature. By the author of The Vanderbilt Era: Profiles of a Gilded Age.

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Reviews

This uneven collection of essays (many appeared originally in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review and New Criterion) is a lesser performance by the prolific Auchincloss (The Book Class). Several pieces reflect his affection for Henry James and Edith Wharton, who share his concerns about the moral responsibilities of the American upper class. There are also interesting essays about William Gaddis and Gore Vidal. But the book's eclecticism is also its limitation: Auchincloss expatiates unconvincingly on the merits of Jacobean drama, Tennessee Williams and Ivy Compton-Burnett and on a purported flaw in Proust's craftsmanship. Auchincloss here seems less an urbane man of letters than an enthusiastic and catholic reader whose sometimes querulous criticisms do not always result in nuanced or persuasive evaluations of the books at hand.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Although (or perhaps because) by current standards this collection tends more toward lite crit than lit crit, readers will find in Auchincloss (Tales of Yesteryear, 1994, etc.) an elegant and erudite companion in reading the canon. All but one of these 18 essays (many reprints or revisions of previously issued pieces) look at writers and their works: Percy Lubbock and his friendship with Edith Wharton; Gore Vidal's American history novels; and, in a capsule account, the works of novelist William Gaddis. Even the sole exception, on the ``inner FDR,'' sees the president's identification with the US as a ``kind of artistic creation.'' An account of correspondence between the retired Eton housemaster George Lyttleton and the author and editor Rupert Hart-Davis reminds us how much has been lost with the demise of the epistolary form. A discussion of the three dramatic episodes cut by Pound from ``The Waste Land'' raises questions on how Eliot originally conceived of the poem. Well-chosen examples help make a case for just how little Henry James learned from his unfortunate efforts at writing plays. Consistently thoughtful without being ponderous, Auchincloss employs a dry sense of humor. For example, one piece that intertwines the literary virtues of Clarissa with the moral virtues of its title character, casually notes that another Richardson heroine, Pamela, ``managed to hold on to her virtue and sell out in a bull market.'' It is a thick-skinned reader who can emerge from this collection without some yearning to look up at least one of the works Auchincloss plumbs with such obvious pleasure. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Novelist Auchincloss steps aside, allowing his alter ego to take center stage in a collection of short, agreeably erudite essays dealing with distinctive stylistic elements in the works of eminent writers such as Marcel Proust, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. Auchincloss apparently takes great pleasure in discussing writers who at one time may have been overlooked (as in the case of William Gaddis), or, like Ivy Compton-Burnett, have been out of favor with other critics. But whether he is designating Tennessee Williams as the "Last Puritan" or discussing patterns held in common in three "perfect novels," Auchincloss offers his own incisive and stimulating perspective on topics of literary interest. Alice Joyce

A prolific novelist and essayist, Auchincloss here offers his insights mostly on the literary scene, from Shakespeare, who "gave his audience pretty much what they wanted," to Gore Vidal. Auchincloss's own writing is a pleasure to read-straightforward, elegant, honest. After rereading all 20 of Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels, he confesses that he appreciates them, counter to current critical trends. Other reflections treat Gaddis, Yourcenar, Proust, Pater, Wharton, Congreve, Richardson-and FDR. Auchincloss even names what he considers the three most perfect novels: The Scarlet Letter, Wuthering Heights, and The Great Gatsby. This anthology of 18 short, recent essays will be of interest to the literate reader, but because they have been collected from publications such as the New York Times Book Review, libraries with access to the originals may decide against purchasing.
Nancy P. Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, N.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684197421
• ISBN 13: 9780684197425
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224