The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure
This one's a keeper
Catherine Blyth's new book is a real delight: "The Art of Conversation" reminds us how good it could be if we all started talking to each other again. There's pithy advice (worthy of Nietzsche, but funnier); lively examples spanning the entire human experience (from ancient history to modern pop culture); advice on bores (how to deal with them, how not to become one); why difficult conversations are joyful and why small talk matters; how to open doors with a simple question like "are you praying?"; and, most importantly, the correct etiquette when confronted unexpectedly with a cat.
The author writes brilliantly and in a style that is itself a call for better, sharper words. Her breadth of knowledge is awe-inspiring and her wit is electric; and yet the reader is made welcome, invited in for tea and biscuits and not in the least intimidated, but charmed through and through.
The winter holiday period has given me several opportunities to share this wonderful treat with family and friends, but I think this is a book for all seasons: I lug my own copy with me everywhere. Funny, wise, poignant, contemporary, irresistible, and ultimately very humane.
- Vin de Silva (Claremont, California USA)
January 8, 2009
Revives a skill that urgency kills
I am very happy to have found this book. Although some who are already expert conversationalists may not need what this book teaches, I certainly do. Another author writes about the "Curse of Knowledge," which comes about when one knows a subject so well that it becomes extremely difficult to understand what it is like for those not so accomplished. It becomes nearly impossible for the person so afflicted to teach to neophytes. Teaching and learning are both cut off. As one of the lesser beings in the art of conversation (perhaps at the lowest rung), I see that Catherine Blyth has the great knowledge and does not suffer from the curse. She understands what makes for great conversation, what gets in the way, and why some of us find it so difficult.
To the extent that any one-way expression medium such as a book (or speech, or performance) can approximate two-way conversation, I believe Ms. Blyth does it well in her book. It is as if she has asked me and listened about why conversation is so difficult for me, and then offers guidance while seemingly still listening. In certain professions, predictability, processes, inputs/outputs, response times, efficiency, and flow rates rule our interrelationships with people, machines, and systems comprising both. We study and practice these modes of communication and become very good at it. But of course machines are not people and people are not machines. An interaction between people need not have a direct or "practical" purpose. But the indirect result can have immense practical value, as the rise of professional and social networking proves.
So, while we can study intricate and well-defined protocols used within systems of math, science, engineering, medicine, and law, some of us have lost the art and benefit of human conversation. Some of us actively avoid it. Ms. Blyth shows us how to get back into the game.
The book is delightfully unpredictable, as is life and conversation. That makes it even more enjoyable and effective. Perhaps some lessons are repeated. If so then they appear in different clothes and in different contexts that help refine the lesson and thus make it stick. I loved the references to ancient and modern masters. Yet, one size does not fit all. We have to find our own way and style. Life is not formulaic. You have to think. The book provides inspiration, guidelines, and encouragement to engage; and then to practice.
In her Acknowledgments, Ms. Blyth writes that, "studying conversation can feel like chasing butterflies." Yes! Have any of us not chased butterflies with another as children? Was that activity driven by some production quota? As with other arts, conversation can have practical purpose, or just create a bond among human beings. The Art of Conversation supports both, and helps those of us who have become too much like machines.
- Steven A. Hill "A. Student of communication" (Ohio)
February 16, 2010
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