LETTERS
Gordon, Whitney H. & Macdonald, Dwight
Speaking of Style Editors: Irving Howe claims that if Christ gave his Sermon on the Mount next week, among other routine reactions would be that "Dwight Macdonald would write that...
...The point of my little joke was that he has a narrow conception of what good prose is, and that sometimes this leads him to dismiss writers whose styles are elliptical, dense, or elaborate...
...Do we become too quickly exhausted from the burden of disagreement...
...This is singularly inept buffoonery, since the Sermon on the Mount is notably clear and simple, at least as rendered in the King James version, to which I have paid public homage on several occasions...
...Such a routinization of perspective seems to undermine the very premise of the journal, i.e., dissension...
...This is not unsympathetically intended...
...Wants More Variety Editors: In view of your magazine's purported desire to maintain a posture of dissent in regard to "conventional wisdom," I trust you will not be offended if I disagree with you...
...This shows what discoveries can be made if one pays attention to style...
...His discovery of my "conversion" throws me into panic: for if I wrote about King George II or King Louis XIV, might he not then accuse me of becoming a monarchist...
...But in recent issues, I have felt that there has arisen something of a routinization and stereotyping of contributions...
...An effort is made to present a cross-section of reader opinion...
...But there is this much point to it, which some of your contributors might ponder: that were the Sermon woolly and pretentious in style, that would indeed be my reaction, and I should be right, since in that case the Sermon would not be the great moral message it is but a botch, and not only in style...
...Howe has been converted to Christianity, since he refers to Christ as "He...
...Still, it's reassuring to learn that he finds the style of the Sermon on the Mount "clear and simple" (in the King James version, that is...
...To me, he's "he...
...Is the need or social compulsion for habit, routine or "like-mindedness" so intense that genuinely variegated and continuous dissent is beyond our grasp...
...Howe's part, what an admirably subtle way of breaking the newsl DWIGHT MACDONALD IRVING HowE replies: Isn't Dwight Macdonald in danger of losing his sense of humor...
...Great ideas can only be expressed in a great style...
...WHITNEY H. GORDON Muncie, Indiana Dissent welcomes expressions of opinion from its readers and will print as many letters as space permits...
...There is no such thing as a clear message delivered in confused language...
...Everytime someone takes a poke at him in print these days, off he rushes with a letter of complaint, as if he'd become an Institution...
...Perhaps these questions are applicable only to the American scene, outside of NYC...
...the message is the style and the style is the message...
...As I recall some of the earlier issues of DISSENT, there was a considerable variety in underlying attitudes on the part of those who contributed articles...
...perhaps you might like to play with it sometime in the future...
...Speaking of Style Editors: Irving Howe claims that if Christ gave his Sermon on the Mount next week, among other routine reactions would be that "Dwight Macdonald would write that while 'Mr...
...And, on Mr...
...Christ makes some telling points' they suffer from syntactical confusion and 'a woolly pretentious style...
...For DISSENT it would not seem a peripheral matter...
...As for calling Christ "Him," that was required by my fable...
...The editors reserve the customary right to condense letters for reasons of space...
...For dramatic effectiveness, it needed a momentary assumption of Christ's divinity: what literary people, dear Dwight Macdonald, call "a willing suspension of disbelief...
...Selahi Speaking of style, I note that Mr...
Vol. 7 • April 1960 • No. 2
