Alan Hodge (1) (1915–1979)

Robert Graves is primarily known for his memoir Goodbye to All That, I Claudius and Claudius the God. This work which was co-authored with Alan Hodge is exactly what its sub-title claims, a social history of Great Britain between the two World Wars. It does not ignore political history by any means, but the main focus is on the changing manners and mores of the British people in the Twenties and Thirties. It would be a daunting task to recapitulate all of the topics discussed in this work, each of which is described in minute detail. Graves and Hodge use as source material and comment on the British news media, newspapers and wireless programming. Of course, wireless means the fledgling BBC. The newspaper articles, editorial positions, advertising and features are drawn mostly from the middlebrow and lowbrow press. Not much attention is paid to the Times or the Telegraph except to cite them as the newspapers of the "thoughtful" part of the populace or to dismiss them as being in editorial lockstep with government policy. (Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.)

Graves and Hodge play considerable attention to the evolution of Britain's entertainment industries and highlight the major influence of American trends in popular culture as manifested in cinema, music and literature. Fashion was still largely the province of developments across the Channel in Paris. They note what they refer to as a twelve-year lag between a new trend in Paris and its catching on in England.

Politically, the national government headed by Ramsey MacDonald gave way to one headed by Stanley Baldwin that ushered in a Conservative Party era that culminated in Neville Chamberlain's prime ministership and his fruitless effort to preserve the peace in Europe via a policy of appeasement toward the dictators. The authors cover the failed General Strike of 1926, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the Spanish Civil War, the Munich agreement and they end the book with the entry of Britain into war with Germany in the first week of September 1939.

One theme that resonates throughout the book is the near universal inclination to pacifism in the British people. They were deeply scarred by the experience of trench war from 1914-1918 and agreed with Chamberlain that there was no compelling reason to resort to war due to "...quarrels in far-away countries between people of whom we know nothing."

There is a lot more to this history on the lighter side of life and if you are inclined to the study of social history or to the story of Great Britain "between the wars" there is a lot in this work to recommend itself to you.… (mehr)

On the cover of this reissue, the name Robert Graves appears in a much larger type size than that of co-author Alan Hodge. This is not just for the sake of marketing. The voice throughout this book is unmistakably that of Graves. Yet it was not false modesty on Graves’s part to credit Hodge as co-author (indeed, I’m not aware of Graves ever being accused of modesty, false or true). Hodge was twenty years younger than Graves, the two had recently collaborated on a social history of Britain after World War I, The Long Week-End, and Graves viewed him as a partner in this enterprise of expressing principles of good English prose and illustrating them with examples of the failure to respect them.
Graves and Hodge list twenty-five principles of clear statement and sixteen principles of graceful prose. According to the authors, they arrived at these by reading, at their normal pace, whatever came to hand. That included many of the leading literary figures of the time (Shaw, Pound, Eliot), government press releases, newspaper columns, and local church bulletins. Whenever they encountered difficulty in understanding, they sought to identify the reason for it. The second half of the book is devoted to excerpts from their reading. Numbers (for principles of clear statement) and letters (for those of graceful prose) set in superscript flag the violations. The reasoning used in citing these violations follows, listed under these numbers and letters. Thirdly, the authors present a “fair copy,” that is, their rewrite of how the author could have better expressed him or herself. Finally, a comment, in many cases exculpating the author, who perhaps had to write quickly and didn’t have the chance to edit what he or she wrote. At other times, they surmise, the writer’s official position forbade them saying what they really meant, which resulted in a muddle.
In general, they stress that not even the most careful of authors is free of committing these faults. Their inclusion of a passage of their own is proof of this.
Their attempts at fairness didn’t go so far as to prevent the comments from causing me to laugh out loud at times. One example, about J. Middleton Murry: “Mr. Murry has often apologized to his readers for the confusion of his thought, but ascribed it to the difficulty of conveying novel and important intuitions of spiritual truth. The confusion is due rather to the mystical ecstasy which overtakes him and blunts his critical sense of what he is writing.”
In many cases, these examples of faulty writing are found in texts that address the non-specialist reader. Many of the authors represented are known as poets or novelists. Mostly, the excerpts here are not from their novels, but from works of criticism or commentary on current affairs. There is one exception: the dissection of a passage of Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms is savagely memorable.
If you can’t find a used copy of the original edition of The Reader Over Your Shoulder, which appeared in 1943, then this, from 2017, is the edition to get, for it restores portions cut from the book in the reprintings in between (this has 615 pages, rather than the 290 erroneously given in the book description). Regrettably, this edition is marred by typos. I suspect they crept in when the book was reset for publication, but the only way of knowing for sure would be to compare side by side with the original. Especially irritating are the errors in the intricate system of cross-references between text excerpts and the principles cited.
The book includes an overview of the history of English prose. Some readers may be put off by the manner of presentation, which seems like a series of ex-cathedra pronouncements, but these are based on close-reading of the authors discussed and are worth savoring. For instance: “Anglo-Saxon was the language of the belly; Norman-French, that of the heart — the Normans had learned to have hearts since they had settled in France; Latin, that of the brain. English, as Chaucer used it, was a reconciliation of the functions of all these organs. But in Chaucer’s as in all the best English prose, the belly rules: English is a practical language.” Graves has his favorite periods, for instance, the “classical prose” of Dryden and Defoe, but his love of English as a living language keeps him from seeking to freeze the language in any period and display it in a museum. For that reason, it is beside the point to complain that one wouldn’t take Graves and Hodge either a model of writing style now, eighty years later. Style changes, but the principles endure. That seems to be the point of this book.… (mehr)

In late October 1939, Robert Graves wrote to Alan Hodge: “I have begun a new book, about English.” Graves and Hodge had recently completed a social history of the between-wars period called The Long Week-End. Now they embarked on this new project, “a handbook for writers of English Prose,” to be called The Reader Over Your Shoulder.

This is a hardcore book with a morsel of tersely written humor thrown in, and adequate piss-taking of the self to make any reader realise that, yes, this is the real shit, y’all. This book makes for a great companion to Strunk/White, not to mention the prose of Arthur Conan Doyle and Graham Greene – two of my favourite writers, of whom the latter gets a bashing.

The first parts of the book contain guidelines and principles on writing of English prose, with plenty of tips and critique concrete enough for any interest in language and the writing of prose to sate all, I believe. The last two thirds of the book are modern examples – mind you, from when the book was written, in England, in the middle of the Second World War – of how brilliant writers succumb to bad grammar, torpid use of doublets, far too complex sentences, and simply using words that are too hard to understand.

Even though the book is written with a fair amount of direct and indirect racism and sexism, it’s deeply meaningful, especially as one considers how much one gains per sentence in the book. In fairness, the last time I read advice this well written, I picked up what is broadly loved as The Book on technical writing. Reading this one is like listening to Glenn Gould playing piano; over all, and foremost, it’s technically brilliant, but deep in the mix, there’s style.

All in all, an excellent chop of English. I give it 4/5.

To finish, remember that self-insight is the best way to understand others.… (mehr)