THE SOUND ON THE PAGE:
STYLE AND VOICE IN WRITING by Ben Yagoda
Harper Resource (June 1, 2004)
(a book review by Linda M. Donovan)

"Writers are fascinated and mystified by style. They realize, consciously or not, that it is essential and fragile...Style is most clearly discernible when you don't look straight at it, but keep it at the periphery of your vision."

Ben Yagoda, The Sound on the Page

In his most recent book, The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing, Ben Yagoda states, "the time is ripe for style to reclaim its full meaning."

'Full meaning?' I was intrigued, then relieved when he dodged the temptation to create yet another self-absorbed book on voice and style. As director of the journalism department at the University of Delaware, Yagoda chose to use his non-fiction skills, but he did so with a humor that uniquely marks his own style, both entertaining and informative. In addition to researching the evolution and trends of style throughout western history, he conducted interviews with over forty authors, asking about style and writing and the mystery of voice—stylists such as Dave Barry, Harold Bloom, Junot Díaz, Bill Bryson, Tobias Wolff. It is this investigative approach combined with his deprecating humor that sets his book apart, that lends credence to his conclusion, i.e., style matters.

He observed that writers entertain, move and inspire us less by what they say than by how they say it. The former is information and ideas or story and characters; the latter is style. Yagoda gives us the following non-literary example of style: Michael Jordan and Jerry West both make twenty-foot jump shots, but what makes them unique is style, how they do it, i.e., overtly or quietly, with flair or in a matter-of-fact-get-the-job-done manner. Now consider a literary example: the much-loved, but tread-worn theme of forbidden love, and note the differences in style between Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. As Yagoda observed, style matters.

Yagoda emerged from his studies and interviews with a paradox: "many craft-of-writing books purporting to be about style were unable—or possibly unwilling—to endorse that style is individual. Since William Strunk's Elements of Style was revised by E.B. White in 1957, style has been defined and judged by its conformity to rules of punctuation, capitalization, precision, simplicity, and effectiveness." Yagoda observed that writing outside that conformity has been the "literary equivalent of wearing white after Labor Day, a guarantee of literary ostracism."

Yagoda points out the inconsistencies in Strunk & White, quasi-religiously used as the arbiter of style for most of the 20th century. In the introduction to his new book, Yagoda writes, "One odd thing about Strunk and White is the way it uses style in different, sometimes seemingly contradictory, senses...They purport to be talking about "style," but they are really advocating a particular style." Yagoda did not deny that "the little book" has value in terms of an invisible style, one that is best applied to business or technical writing, but he is quick to point out that E.B. White's own prose style, "although outwardly plain, simple, orderly, and sincere, is also idiosyncratic, opinionated, and unmistakable."

In tackling a controversial subject, Yagoda addressed it from two angles. In Part I, "Style from the Outside: Theory," he looks at the history of style, its evolution and its practices. In Part II, "Style from the Inside: Practice," he looks at conscious and unconscious ways writers approach style, how authors define their voice, how they originally discovered it, and how now they stretch it and change it based upon the needs of their work.

One valuable aspect of The Sound on the Page is that it can easily serve as a continuing reference. Pick up Yagoda's book and turn to his interview with Joan Didion to discover why her writing has such deep rhythm. Read his interview with Jonathan Rabanand to get insights into Raban's personality and how it sounds on the page.

And finally, Ben Yagoda reveals the source for his title in this quote from Robert Frost:

Sentences are not different enough to hold the attention unless they are dramatic. No ingenuity of varying structure will do. All that can save them is the speaking tone of voice somehow entangled in the words and fastened to the page for the ear of the imagination.

In other words, style is the sound on the page.

© Linda M. Donovan 2005

Linda M. Donovan (McKennaD18@comcast.net) lives near Puget Sound, Washington. A former software engineer, she says, "I write from images and emotions, then ferret out the story and characters—kind of like bending chicken wire into strange shapes, then placing the right mix of materials to produce something pleasing to experience; something to remember; to ponder."

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