As you know, The Marginalia Review will be up and running by the end of the month. T. Michael Law, author of the forthcoming book, When God Spoke Greek, has written about the prose standard…
One of the values of writing book reviews is that it forces us to read more attentively and to examine arguments more carefully. But it should also push us to think about writing as a craft. If another of the goals of book reviews is to hold authors accountable to their ideas by examining them under the microscope of our own specialisations, so that an aspiring author knows she had better not publish the book until it can pass scrutiny, it should be no less important that we hold style to a high standard.
http://www.timothymichaellaw.com/a-missing-element-in-academic-book-reviews/
I tried to write better prose — believe it or not, my prose was once really good. Of course, I wasn’t blogging, tweeting, or facebooking either. Now? Now, I need help constructing basic sentences.
Anyway, I understand his post. I do. I’ve read some really good books, no… wait. I mean I’ve seen some really good arguments destroyed by bad prose.
I realize that this is my first book, and all, but I am worried about the prose… and of course, the prose is a part of the book. By that I mean… John Henderson’s article on Lucan’s language. Read that. You’ll see.
But that is on purpose.
Anyway, I’m sure that Law’s book, When God Spoke Greek, will be prose-tastic.
Anyway, read his stuff. Good stuff.
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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