The life of Swift by Irvin Ehrenpreis is a great act of consonance. But one reviewer has deprecated the fact that Ehrenpreis does not write with Swift's genius. So the first thing to say is that Ehrenpreis, though he has the great good sense never to emulate the supreme Swiftian manner, does nevertheless command the steely style which T.S. Eliot praised. Deploring the symptoms of decay in the wording of the preface to the Revised Prayer Book, Eliot concluded: 'And there was once a Dean (of St Patrick's) who formed the purest, the most supple, the most useful type of English prose style.' (Eliot's parenthesis is a tacit rebuke to metropolitan and national vanity.)

LRB 3 May 1984 | PDF Download