'In a Letter, in a Newspaper, Almost Anywhere'

A reliable bedside book is likely built of autonomous parts, usually brief, to accommodate that indeterminate period between climbing into bed and passing out. Accordingly, anthologies, dictionaries, almanacs, field guides and similar collections are preferred reading matter, especially when one is between other books. Max Beerbohm called such titles “dippable-into” (he was describing his own 1920 essay collection, And Even Now).

A favorite is a hefty volume (1,012 pages) edited by the late John Gross, The New Oxford Book of English Prose (1998). As a collection, it is nearly comprehensive and genuinely democratic, in the sense that one suspects Gross had little use for some of the writers he includes (James Purdy? Norman Mailer?). But his emphasis is on the quality of the prose. Even lousy writers can be quoted sympathetically, if seldom. In his introduction, Gross refers to his selections as “unashamedly literary” and adds:

“A well-argued legal judgment, a lucid scientific paper, a readily grasped set of technical instructions all represent triumphs of prose after their fashion. And quantity tells. Inspired prose may be as rare as great poetry—though I am inclined to doubt even that; but good prose is unquestionably far more common than good poetry. It is something you can come across every day: in a letter, in a newspaper, almost anywhere.”

Gross reminds us that writing (and reading) prose is more than merely utilitarian, though that’s generally how it’s taught in school. Teachers treat composition (and reading) as a punitive exercise, whereas the only way to write is enthusiastically, with gusto and gratitude for the privilege.

Many of Gross’ selections are inspired and not the customary anthology-fodder or "fine writing." For instance: the interview with De Gaulle in The Road Back to Paris (1944) by A.J. Liebling; the delicious scene of postwar London described by Rose Macaulay in The World My Wilderness (1947); T.S. Eliot on Tennyson; Nabokov’s description of Timofey Pnin preparing a lecture; David Hume on Jacobean prose; Conrad’s description of Pedrito Montero in Nostromo (1904); Santayana’s digression on the fear of death in Three Philosophical Poets (1910); and the opening of the “Battle Royal” chapter in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952):

     

“It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!”

Often, as the result of absently dipping into Gross’ collection, I’ve been inspired to return to an old favorite. Last week he moved me to reread Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” (1897), which I haven’t read in forty years or more.