Transparent writing consists of prose that doesn't tell; it is prose that shows. E. B. White is the master of this. His prose takes you where he wants you to be and, once there, shows you the sights, lets you smell the aromas and hear the sounds.
A modest man, E. B. White claims often that writing for him is difficult and painful. Yet this collection of letters shows that from the beginning, Elwyn Brooks White had an innate ability to write simply, clearly, and charmingly.
Whether he is thanking young readers for compliments, advising aspiring writers on writing, or berating a famous author for endorsing a product, he is witty, clear, and compassionate.
Reading these letters you will think, cry, laugh, and even wince, but you will not frown in confusion as you wonder what the writer is trying to say. As a very beneficial side effect, reading E. B. White will often improve your own writing.
Am I biased? You bet! Years of reading the stilted, jargon-laced writing of business, and the contrived, artificial efforts at "style" of many authors, reading anything by E. B. White is like talking to your best friend. Letters of E. B. White
E.B. White was a well known writer for The New Yorker, but I think his real genius was in writing letters to friends and family. He wrote about the ordinary and made it more than interesting, but fun. (His description of how to set up your room when admitted to the hospital is hysterical!) But he also wrote about hard times in life, his wife's illness, his own aging, death of friends and family. He wrote with honesty, clarity, and gusto. Letter writing (and READING a letter also) should never be a chore. Reading White's letters never is. I keep this book on the nightstand by my bed.
Letters of E.B. White, Dorothy Lobrano Goth, Ed.; Harper & Row, Publishers (1976); Revised Edition (2006; paperback, 2007; Amazon review "Hardcover Original 5 Stars; Revised Edition No Stars" sent/accepted 08/18/10)
The original hardcover review: "The perfect book is the book where you don't care what page you're on, & this is the perfect book."
Post Note (08/18/10): In case you're thinking of purchasing the Revised Edition of the Letters (2006), don't.
Recently, a friend exhibited an interest in Mr. White after being swiftly won over by sampling a page or two of White's "Wild Flag" (Houghton Mifflin Co.; 1943-46).
I figured his best next venture would be the Letters & foraged into the Amazon marketplace, where I found the "Letters of E.B. White, Revised Edition." I'm game. A paperback copy was purchased.
I was appalled, successively, by:
Richard Grant's cliché-infested "Praise for The Revised Edition" ("deft," etc.) is exactly the sort of cheapjack media log-rolling that Andy White regarded with heart-felt contempt;
John Updike's weirdly disengaged "Foreword" also featured the telltale "deft" (a word most likely to surface when a writer is uninspired by what he's been commissioned to endorse) - & the word "unease," promiscuously employed no less than five times (buy a thesaurus!). Its final paragraph ends with the tone of his writing tailing off into a void of invisible conviction;
(Updike's incessant characterization of White's "unease" should be balanced by what Updike had written earlier which, fortunately, was quoted by White's biographer, Scott Elledge (p. 130, "E.B. White, A Biography," 1985 paperback edition): "What struck me in [White's] walk, in the encouraging memos he once or twice wrote me, & in [what he wrote for `Notes & Comment'] was how much fun he had in him than us younger residents of those halls [of The New Yorker]" magazine.)
And Martha White's graceless & clumsy "Editor's Note" was offensive.
Dorothy Lobrano Guth was the original editor, having done at least eighty percent of the work that was then recycled into the revised edition - hard toil that went inexplicably & rudely unacknowledged by M. White.
(Thankfully, it is emphatically stated right on the front cover of the book: "Originally Edited By" DLG. This makes M. White's silence/omission all the more glaring.)
Additionally, Guth's original empathetic, personable "Acknowledgments" - thanking each one of the many people who had assisted her in the 1976 publication of the original edition - is nowhere to be found in the revised edition, which is outrageous.
And had M. White competently edited, as a matter of professional courtesy, she would have provided a list of the letters in the original edition (by my count, 64) that she left out of the revised edition; & an asterisk next to the letters in the first 14 chapters in the revised edition (by my count, 17) not published in the original edition (the letters in the final two chapters of the revised edition are all "new").
It's a shame that Andy White had not been there to prevent her use of the absurdly redundant slang, "copied out" (editor's note, p. 618. If nothing can be "copied in", the reverse reveals itself as grammatical nonsense. It is incredible that something like this could appear in a book of the letters of a renowned writing stylist who had famously endorsed Will Strunk's advice: "Omit unnecessary words!").
Incredibly, NONE OF THIS MATTERS.
All of the above was irrevocably upstaged by Harper Perennial's technical incompetence. The size of the type employed is so small as to be illegible; the ink density is practically non-existent (illegibility factor squared), & the quality of the flimsy paper is unacceptable.
Hold the book up with the spine of the binding in the palm of your hand, with the book bottom facing you.
It tilts & flounders & flops like a garage driveway-destined annual edition of the Yellow Pages.
So, for all of these reasons, spend a little extra money & buy the hard-cover edition of the original Letters. Fortunately, I had recently found one in a used book store in Maine; little did I know how valuable this discovery would be. It was gratefully given to my friend in appreciation for all that he has done for us in past years.
The Revised Edition, a disgrace, at some point will be discarded. - John Updike - Memoirs - Martha White - Maine'
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