Richard Lanham's book "Style: An Anti-text Book" was NOT fun to read. I think that the language he used throughout the book was to difficult to understand that that he tried to use big words to make himself seem more credible or more intelligent. Chapter 3 was especially difficult and really confusing. I feel like he was trying to explain simple concepts, but in super-duper hard terms. I feel like what he was trying to say was relevant to what he have been discussing in class all semster, but I feel like it can be done without reading the entire novel. I did enjoy when, as a class, we pointed out specific quotes from the novel that we felt meant something important or of value to the class as a whole, or that could be applied in our future teaching careers.
Overall, the book was not enjoyable to me and I wouldn't recommend it to others...
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lol... Lanham is notorious for trying to make a simple idea more intellectual. All he is saying is that we should enjoy words and language. Not exactly revolutionary, eh? But maybe at the same time, I wonder how many of us actually DO enjoy words?
ReplyDeleteI would have to totally agree with you holly. I don't see why Lanham made is book so complicated to readers and his argument was so simple. I think by using words that we the readers could not understand made some of us more interested in what he had to say because we had no clue what point he was trying to get across. Which made some of us keep reading and reading. Maybe this is what hes trying to get across and this is how his thoughts and ideas are expressed. I don't know but the book was difficult for me lol.
ReplyDeleteI actually liked the book. I think it reads like an 18th century novel. Then again, I like 18th century novels, so maybe that's why ^_^.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this book was a ..... wierd read. I cannot really say if I liked it or not, it was just odd. I am not sure if it was becuase of the subjext matter or the sort of convoluted way that it was presented. I guess that was the point, to not be like all the other books. Maybe there is a reason why those other books are some ways. I just don't really know how I feel about this book, but I don't think that I would recommend it either.
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