A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation
Daniel Menaker
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 0446540013
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A GOOD TALK is an analysis of and guide to that most exclusively human of all activities-- conversation.
Drawing on over forty years of experience in American letters, Menaker pinpoints the factors that drive and enliven every good conversation: the vagaries (and joys) of subtext; the deeper structure and meaning of conversational flow; the subliminal signals that guide our disclosures and confessions; and the countless other hurdles we must clear along the way. Moving beyond self-help musings and "how to" advice, he has created a stylish, funny, and surprising book: a celebration of "the most excusively human of all activities."
In a time when conversation remains deeply important-- for building relationships, for relaxing, even for figuring out who we are-- and also increasingly imperiled (with Blackberries and texting increasingly in vogue), A GOOD TALK is a refreshing celebration of the subtle adventures of a good conversation.
dinner party, with Socrates down at the other end of the table, hectoring someone else with his insistent iconoclastic scrutiny. The Dark Ages that followed the Roman Empire appear to have been Quiet Ages as well—at least with regard to documents about conversation. There are very few secondary or even tertiary Western sources of material on the subject. In his excellent book Conversation: A History of a Declining Art, Stephen Miller says that “no equivalent existed at the time to classical or
coffeehouse run by Edward Lloyd where ship insurance underwriters got together. The conversationally most famous of coffeehouse patrons was Samuel Johnson, and here he is: But, as with Socrates, the written record—principally, James Boswell’s Life of Johnson—doesn’t support his eminence in this regard. He too often seems merely to hold forth, pronounce, and judge—brilliantly, but not what you would call interactively. From near the beginning of Boswell’s account, in one of a chain of
I’ve just written a piece about Neko Case. GINGER: Oh, cool! What’s your piece about? FRED: It’s about her. I mean, she has a new CD coming out. GINGER: So it’s just sort of a profile? FRED: I went out to Tucson, to see her. GINGER: Gosh, you have the best life! Don’t you? FRED: I have a pretty good life. Well, given the human condition I have a pretty good life. GINGER: Which I will take as a given. That’s pretty great. What did you think of her? FRED: I like her music. I think she has
this one. If you don’t know Hume’s essays—Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, first published in 1791—try searching for them online and then see if you don’t want to read them all in book form. They admirably follow the advice that Hume himself gives us about writing and speaking—that “we ought to be more on our guard against the excess of refinement than that of simplicity.” I wouldn’t recommend any of Denis Diderot’s writings, partly because evidently very little of what he wrote concerns
Grateful acknowledgments are made to Xavier Dufail for permission to reprint the picture of the chimpanzees; and to Rockmasters International Network, INC. for permission to quote from “If You Want to Be Happy.” ISBN: 978-0-446-55801-3