Almost Heaven
Almost no one--since Thoreau or E.B. White, that is--can write like Klinkenborg, as all know who follow him on the New York Times editorial page or who have followed his books. The first third or even half of SEVERAL SHORT SENTENCES ON WRITING consists of all-too-rare and positively brilliant observations about what sentences ARE, what makes them good ones or bad ones, and how writers can learn to write the good kind instead of the bad. Every writer or writer-to-be ought to read what Klinkenborg offers there.
The reader can be pardoned, though, for wishing that the author would move beyond the sentence to other or larger elements and challenges of writing. Perhaps that will come in the next book. This time around, though, the reader is likely to feel restlessly trapped inside the classroom long after the lesson has reached, and passed, its greatest strength.
