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A review by donasbooks
Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style by Suzanne McConnell, Kurt Vonnegut
4.0
"Sometimes I don’t consider myself very good at life, so I hide in my profession." p356
I know I can relate to this statement from Kurt Vonnegut, and I know many writers who also can. But the truth is, Vonnegut was intuitively brilliant "at life" -- he was insightful, empathetic, resolute. Again, I know many writers who are -- these traits aid them in their work, as they did Vonnegut. PITY THE READER explores in depth how Vonnegut's approach to life translates into an approach to writing, which produced fiction that changed the world.
As an actual style guide, this book is not very useful, unless your goal is to write like Kurt Vonnegut. But PITY THE READER is a fascinating stand-in for the writing memoir Vonnegut never wrote. It delves deeply into Vonnegut's impetus to write, and his process.
From his scattered notes, talks, and letters, McConnell manages to gather several pieces of advice, some mundane, a few personal to Vonnegut. Taken together, however, these suggestions can't really be called a style guide -- perhaps a cheat sheet. What is of more interest and value to the writer are the life lessons, such as the chapter about mental illness. Writers' mental illness, their families' mental illness, their depictions of mental illness in their writing, Vonneguts own process of understanding mental illness in his life, in Chapter 34: Caring for Your Piece in the Game. There's a chapter about presenting your humor, which seems given, seeing that Vonnegut favored dark, dry humor.
There are also surprising, invaluable gems like this, from p362: My wife [Jill] said to me the other day, after a knock-down-drag-out fight about interior decoration, “I don’t love you anymore.” And I said to her, “So what else is new?” She really didn’t love me then, which was perfectly normal. She will love me some other time—I think, I hope. It’s possible. If she had wanted to terminate the marriage, to carry it past the point of no return, she would have had to say, “I don’t respect you anymore.” Now—that would be terminal.
I read the Kindle version of this book, which has some real organization issues. The information seemed lumped together to me, and I yearned for some sort of headings or at least more compartmentalization. Still, PITY THE READER is a really excellent read if you love Vonnegut and want to know more about his process or style.
But if you want a good style manual, I would recommend something different, like Steven Pinker's THE SENSE OF STYLE or Ben Yagoda's THE SOUND ON THE PAGE.
Rating 3.5 stars rounded up
Finished July 2022
Recommended to Kurt Vonnegut fans, students of style, fans of writing memoirs
I know I can relate to this statement from Kurt Vonnegut, and I know many writers who also can. But the truth is, Vonnegut was intuitively brilliant "at life" -- he was insightful, empathetic, resolute. Again, I know many writers who are -- these traits aid them in their work, as they did Vonnegut. PITY THE READER explores in depth how Vonnegut's approach to life translates into an approach to writing, which produced fiction that changed the world.
As an actual style guide, this book is not very useful, unless your goal is to write like Kurt Vonnegut. But PITY THE READER is a fascinating stand-in for the writing memoir Vonnegut never wrote. It delves deeply into Vonnegut's impetus to write, and his process.
From his scattered notes, talks, and letters, McConnell manages to gather several pieces of advice, some mundane, a few personal to Vonnegut. Taken together, however, these suggestions can't really be called a style guide -- perhaps a cheat sheet. What is of more interest and value to the writer are the life lessons, such as the chapter about mental illness. Writers' mental illness, their families' mental illness, their depictions of mental illness in their writing, Vonneguts own process of understanding mental illness in his life, in Chapter 34: Caring for Your Piece in the Game. There's a chapter about presenting your humor, which seems given, seeing that Vonnegut favored dark, dry humor.
There are also surprising, invaluable gems like this, from p362: My wife [Jill] said to me the other day, after a knock-down-drag-out fight about interior decoration, “I don’t love you anymore.” And I said to her, “So what else is new?” She really didn’t love me then, which was perfectly normal. She will love me some other time—I think, I hope. It’s possible. If she had wanted to terminate the marriage, to carry it past the point of no return, she would have had to say, “I don’t respect you anymore.” Now—that would be terminal.
I read the Kindle version of this book, which has some real organization issues. The information seemed lumped together to me, and I yearned for some sort of headings or at least more compartmentalization. Still, PITY THE READER is a really excellent read if you love Vonnegut and want to know more about his process or style.
But if you want a good style manual, I would recommend something different, like Steven Pinker's THE SENSE OF STYLE or Ben Yagoda's THE SOUND ON THE PAGE.
Rating 3.5 stars rounded up
Finished July 2022
Recommended to Kurt Vonnegut fans, students of style, fans of writing memoirs