Uh, but can you talk a little bit about your own approach to style, your own sort of rules of the road for writing?

Well, it's funny, uh, because right now, the essay you just mentioned, I'm in the process of turning into a, a little book for Norton, the, uh, editor at Norton.

Reading that essay when it was originally published invited me to write my own style manual, n- not any bigger than Strunk and White's, but obviously utterly contrarian in its claims and probably painfully flippant.

Uh, but, I mean, my, i- i- my philosophy is very simple, um, which is w- w- write well and do not restrain yourself according to the orthodoxies of this or that school of editor or writer or the, or, or, or this or that phase in the development of what was regarded as standard English prose.

I think the 20th century, while it produced many great writers, also, um, in academia, uh, for pedagogues, I should say, story, uh, st- uh, teachers rather than just scholars, but among editors, uh, those who, who govern, uh, the world of print, uh, fell into this rather, uh, dogmatic sense of what constitutes good writing.

Always a matter of economy, always a matter of, uh, prudent restraint, as plain as possible, not trying to baffle or, or dazzle.

Whereas to me, this is a betrayal of the entire history not only of English prose, but of, of writing in general.

[laughs]

Uh, but can you talk a little bit about your own approach to style, your own sort of rules of the road for writing?

Well, it's funny, uh, because right now, the essay you just mentioned, I'm in the process of turning into a, a little book for Norton, the, uh, editor at Norton.

Reading that essay when it was originally published invited me to write my own style manual, n- not any bigger than Strunk and White's, but obviously utterly contrarian in its claims and probably painfully flippant.

Uh, but I mean, my, i- i- my philosophy is very simple, um, which is write well and do not restrain yourself according to the orthodoxies of this or that school of editor or writer or the, or, or, or this or that phase in the development of what was regarded as standard English prose.

I think the 20th century, while it produced many great writers, also, um, in academia, for, for pedagogues, I should say, story, uh, st- uh, teachers rather than just scholars, but among editors, uh, those who, who govern, uh, the world of print, uh, fell into this rather, uh, dogmatic sense of what constitutes good writing.

Always a matter of economy, always a matter of, uh, prudent restraint, as plain as possible, not trying to baffle or, or dazzle.

Whereas to me, this is a betrayal of the entire history, not only of English prose, but of, of writing in general, that th- th- that confining yourself to this register has produced a lot of incredibly boring writing.

[laughs]

Uh, but can you talk a little bit about your own approach to style, your own sort of rules of the road for writing?

Well, it's funny, uh, because right now, the essay you just mentioned, I'm in the process of turning into a, a little book for Norton, the, uh, editor at Norton.

Reading that essay when it was originally published invited me to write my own style manual, n- not any bigger than Strunk and White's, but obviously utterly contrarian in its claims and probably painfully flippant.

Uh, but, I mean, my, i- i- my philosophy is very simple, um, which is w- w- write well and do not restrain yourself according to the orthodoxies of this or that school of editor or writer or the, or, or, or this or that phase in the development of what was regarded as standard English prose.

I think the 20th century, while it produced many great writers, also, um, in academia, for, for pedagogues, I should say, story, uh, st- uh, teachers rather than just scholars, but among editors, uh, those who, who govern, uh, the world of print, uh, fell into this rather, uh, dogmatic sense of what constitutes good writing.

Always a matter of economy, always a matter of, uh, prudent restraint, as plain as possible, not trying to baffle or, or dazzle.

Whereas to me, this is a betrayal of the entire history not only of English prose, but of, of writing in general.

[laughs]

And I was wondering if you talk a little bit about dictionaries, you know, your own relationship with using the dictionary, because I think it's something that sometimes people feel, um, you know it makes them feel silly if they have to go consult a dictionary they don't want to do it so they turn away from books

see that's silly i i have it's true i have an enormous vocabulary because i was a strange child i found diction it found words fascinating i would literally take the OED to bed at night to read through it at times because it was fascinating to me.

And luckily I also had a classical education at an early age, so I knew the history of some of these words and language fascinated me from an early point.

But I still, I mean, English is just an absolutely immense language.

It has the largest vocabulary of all modern languages, and I still have to look up words, and I don't regret having to do so.

I'm always grateful for a new prouvé, you know.

So I always thought that was one of the gifts that a good writer gives to his or her readers.

Obviously, they exist in our culture and our minds, but you seem to be interested in everything.

Hmm

... like certain kinds of sacrifice, certainly.

And Paul makes it clear that's what he's talking about.

He's not coy about it.

He's talking about, well- You know, it's talking to like an early letter when he's still such a firebrand.

He's talking to the Galatians who've been convinced that to be good Christians, they now have to go get circumcised if they came from a pagan background.

And he says, you don't need that.

Yeah.

Wow.

And yet I think that's a holy impulse.

I, I, it's not good nec- necessarily, but nonetheless, I certainly hate the God who would make that happen.

But that's not the true picture of God.

That whatever, uh, the book I wrote on this years ago called The Doors of the Sea, is, is that the thing that I find ex-most beautiful in the New Testament on this issue is that it grants that freedom struggle.

I mean, you find that in the New Testament.

I'm, you know, Paul talks about trying to finish the race.

Hmm.

And yet the question that I always find it difficult to even begin answering is, what is that thing? Like, when we say mechanistic or a universe that's just made of, like, inert matter, like, what are we, what are we talking about? What is that picture of the universe? And I ask you because even though it's not your view, your book is in many ways an exercise in steel manning the opposition because you have, uh, different characters holding different views.

Yeah, no, and I, I did try to be honest about that with Hephaestus.

I didn't want to make him a straw man, and, uh, in part because I have some sympathy for his skepticism regarding how much you can actually conclude, uh, and more because I have sympathy for his, uh, problem of evil meditations at the end of the book.

But, um, yeah, uh, uh, as I say, it began merely as, uh, a, a matter of method.

That is, you can, uh, you, you can isolate processes in nature without presuming you know what their final cause would be in Aristotelian terms.

Not even necessarily assuming that there isn't such a thing, but they're just, uh, they have to be banished from method as, as ghostly, uh, uh, distractions from the phenomenon before you supposedly.

And in that act of isolation, you, you learn a great deal.

Yes