Style as proof

In an essay on M. H. Abrams’s Natural Supernaturalism , Wayne Booth praises the style of the book, but more: “I must emphasize that I am not simply praising Abrams’ style. i am making what I take to be a much more risky claim: that a style that is good in the way Abrams’ style is good not only tends to carry us with him: it ought to. It carries a legitimate warrant for the author’s theses. To write well in this way helps prove your case, though of course it cannot go it alone . . . . The fact that if ‘a subject’ – whatever that means – enables a critic to write well about it, without requiring him to rely on easily separable blandishments and charm, the mere production of hundreds of pages of well-written sense about it constitutes as good a test as we have for his these. If the theses were very weak, we have a right to conclude, a man like Abrams (as implied in his style) would have discovered the weakness as he tried to write honest sentences about them; and if he became dishonest and tried to fake, it would somehow show.”