On Writing Well

“The Road to Character” was an unusual book for me – bought on impulse for a euro in one of the second-hand Bucharest bookshops which give me an intellectual lifeline. And it made me realise how “dead” and technocratic a lot of the non-fiction material is in the “professional” sections of my library – particularly those concerned with Economics, Management (whether public, private or third sector), Development and Politics.

Political economists like Mark Blyth, Paul Collier, Wolfgang Streeck and Yanis Varoufakis are the exception – their prose glows and they keep you hooked – as did veteran Susan Strange’s. And recent Nobel-prize winning Jean Tirole’s Economics for the Common Good (2017 Eng) isn’t your usual economics book but takes themes of interest to us all and reasons conversationally about them.

British political scientists like Richard Rose, Rod Rhodes, Matt Flinders and Gerry Stoker also managed to break away from the mainstream focus on parties, elections and statistics and engage our interest on important issues.

The geographers and anthropologists can generally be relied upon for fresh insights – eg Danny Dorling and Chris Shore - although you have to persevere a bit with the likes of David Harvey.

I have quite an extensive history section but have to confess that my interest gives out at about page 50 of a 400 page tome on the history of a nation or of Europe. The only writers who have survived my boredom threshold for this genre are Richard Evans (Germany) and Geert Mak. But, interestingly, some recent histories of economic or sociological thought (or indeed thought generally) can make for a good read – if they have the appropriate balance between ideas and personalities.

Traditionally such books have been a bit of a slog, with the emphasis too much on the dry dissection of ideas - but the success of a few non-specialist writers in the last decade (think Bill Bryson) has demonstrated the public’s thirst for the exposition of scientific ideas.

The academic community, however, has always taken a dim view of popularisation – the eminent economist JK Galbraith who wrote “The Affluent Society” suffered very much from academic jealousy as did the historian AJP Taylor – so it is great that some writers and journalists have turned increasingly to the world of science and ideas.

Grand Pursuit; the story of economic genius (2011) is a good example.  
Written by Sylvia Nasar, a Professor of journalism (who also produced “A Beautiful Mind” about game theorist John Nash), it attracted a rather sniffy review from one of the doyens of Economics - Robert Solow. (Michael Pollan is another Professor of journalism – this time one who has chosen to convey to the general public the realities of agro-business and food).  

Not, however, that I want to discourage academics from writing well and for the general public! The previous paragraphs have given the examples of those who have managed to do it without apparently attracting opprobrium or jealousy in the fields with which I am familiar. Philosophy is not such a field but I was delighted to discover recently a “popular” book by academic philosopher James Miller Examined Lives – from Socrates to Nietzsche with a nice interview here    

Alan Ryan is another academic who writes well although his On Politics is just a bit too voluminous a history of political thought for me. These extensive notes give a useful sense of what would be in store for any brave reader

My own favourite is “Comparative European Politics – the story of a profession” which invites 28 big names in what was then a new discipline to tell the personal story of how their careers developed. Richard Rose was one of those originals and has a delightful memoir “Learning about politics in time and space” (2014). Here’s one of his reflections on a colleague which will give you a sense of his care with words. Not for nothing was Rose in his very early life a journalist! I’m glad to say he is still going strong in his mid 80s.

I know some of you will tell me that, if I am now finding texts in my own library “dead” and technocratic, I should reconsider my antipathy to novels. I considered this question a couple of years ago in a post which started thus -

I’m not a great reader of novels – the interactions and fate of fictitious characters pale against those of the real people I find in histories…..If I want good prose, I find it in essays, travelogues and short stories – although I grant you that it’s only in stories (short and long) that the inner life of people can be treated in depth…..Perhaps that’s why I’m so partial to short stories – produced by the likes of William Trevor, Carol Shields, Alice Munro, Vladimir Nabakov, Joseph Miller and……Joseph Roth

Nine years ago one post here did actually pay tribute to about 75 novels which had taken my fancy – only one third of which, interestingly, were British….And, of those, most were Irish or Scottish since I have found their style of writing much more lively than that of English novelists…..It’s not just the older generation I’m referring to (such as Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Edwin Muir, Robin Jenkins and Muriel Spark) but also the younger writers (such as Andrew Greig, James Meek and James Robertson on the Scottish side – and John Banville, Sebastian Barry, John McGahern and Edna O'Brien on the Irish).

But too many contemporary English writers seem to be unable to shake themselves out of their limited middle-class environment – eg Ian McEwan, although this is not something you could say about his acerbic mate Martin Amis. Sebastian Faulks and Louis de Bernieres are two exceptions who deal with big issues – the latter giving us “Birds without Wings” about the tragic exchange of population in early 20s Anatolia. And Lawrence Durrell still thrills me – despite the reputation he has unfairly been given for “over the top” writing…… 

I was not always so prejudiced. In my youth I read a lot of novels and the 2010 post reflected the novel reading which continued to entertain me. The later 2017 post demonstrated that I was still partial to novels…. So I don’t know why I suddenly apparently went off the genre…..

Lists of personal favourites are rather self-indulgent and pointless – unless including some sort of justification for the choices….which might just persuade us to give some of the texts a whirl…. 

It’s in that spirit that I now update that earlier post. 

In 2010 I hadn’t quite adjusted to my Romanian base – so had missed a baker’s dozen of superb books - Miklos Banffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy (originally written in the 1950s but only widely available from 2010); Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy (written in the 60s but receiving a new lease of life after the film); and Gregor von Rezzori’s brilliant three semi-autobiographical books drawn from his time in Romanian Czernowitz (now in southern Ukraine) – first written (in German) between the 50s and 70s but issued by NYRB only recently.  

Rebecca West’s massive and stunning Black Lamb and Grey Falcon – a journey through Yugoslavia  was first published in 1941 and is actually four books in one – about Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia – but received a huge boost from the 90s Yugoslav conflagration. It’s not, of course, a novel but, some 80 years on, it is a gripping read - and still repays study.

I would stand by my 2010 list – with the embarrassing exception of Paul Coelho! And I also don’t know how Jason Godwin crept onto the list…. Otherwise the mix of South American “magic realism”; French romanticism and nihilism; Irish, Israeli and Egyptian realism; and Scottish whimsy stands up well……

My recent tributes to the likes of John Berger and William MacIlvanney demand their addition – as do the works of JM Coetze and Svetlana Alexievitch