15. Style: often mentioned, less commonly analysed

We’ve all seen men in pizza restaurants spinning the base of their next pizza high above their shoulders before they flatten it on a bench to ladle on tomato paste.  Style, we say, without thinking of the word we’re using.  Style; it’s a word applied to writers all the time, but I have a feeling that it’s used to cover many functions and that as often as not the word is used to replace thinking rather than advance it.  To say that writing is stylish is what I would call a gestural response, the reader’s thoughts being directed without further explanation.  ‘Stylish’ is enough, it seems.

In a book published some years ago (1) I quoted passages from Judith Wright, Morris Lurie, Helen Garner, Olga Masters and Hal Porter by way of showing the different ways these writers used the folding of sheets to establish a variety of points.  The sheets were folded five times, in as many different ways, for each of the writers to make a point, or perhaps an impression; the job was done differently each time.  How could it be otherwise?  Anyone even faintly familiar with these writers would be able to attach their names to the passages quoted.  Try yourself out if you doubt me; it’ll only take you a moment to find the book on my website, and the quotes are there for you to test yourselves.  Easy, you’ll say if you do it.

Why’s it so easy?  Because each of these writers has a distinctive, a personal style. [read more]