Shorter Notices
Fundamentals of Good Writing is a book ! which gives a comprehensive picture of how the intention, personality or "state of feeling" of a writer can correspond with his $ use of different figures of speech and with such styles of writing as, for instance, narration, suggestive description or dialogue. The book has an up-to-date air, and is written in a key of sustained enthusiasm which never becomes wearisome. Pitfalls for the student writer are not pedantically pointed out; they are to be found by reading the examples of different types of writing given and also by following the investigation made into the reasons why various authors use various styles. The choice of quotations employed by Professor Brooks and Mr. Penn Warren is wide and stimulating. It ranges from Proust's The Guermantes Way to Lee Strout White's Farewell, My Lovely, from Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding to Bertrand Russell's The Scientific Outlook. Each chapter is good and, such is the editing of the volume, can stand on its own. The chapter, "Situation and Tone," is, however, the finest of them all. This erudite book may have, very faintly, the air of a thesis for a doctorate carefully arranged with the intention of pleasing a wider public, but it is a mine of useful, intellectual fact, neatly assembled and presented in a way that can be easily understood. The serious student should not only read it and learn from it; he should keep it on his shelves for reference.
D. S.
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