The Distillation of Facts

Eric Ormsby and Adam Kirsch are already writing for the New York Sun, and now the newspaper has added Theodore Dalrymple to its first-rate stable of reviewers. Here’s a choice digression from his review of the 614-page Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis, by George Makari:

“Here, as an aside, I make a plea for thin rather than for fat books, at least for the general reader. (I accept the value of fat books as repositories.) There is more intellect in the distillation than in the accumulation of facts; for facts, unlike men, are not created equal. We busy human beings need guidance as to their importance and significance; and there are, after all, very few subjects of such intrinsic importance that we need to know every last detail about them.”

Dalrymple is a master of concision, of saying much with modest means.