Mary Duffy's Writing Guide:
Write Clear and Crisp prose
Augstine's City of God
When I read a book and feel disappointed by it─as for example: The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl, or the DaVinci Code─I quickly pick up The City and read a few pages.
My faith in good writing is then restored. Besides wisdom, Augustine being a rhetorician, one finds sentences that flow and gurgle in a crystal stream of sheer magic.
That is not to say that it is a perfect book, for it contains some gross generalizations and prejudices e.g.: “Indeed, a similar sign appeared when the Lord was crucified by the cruel and impious Jews.”
Augustine's main thesis is the existence of two cities: the earthly city and the city of god. The former is the city of every day reality and of those whom God will ignore for salvation. The city of God, on the other hand, will embrace those who are virtuous, who have received God's grace, and who love God.
The City of God is not situated physically in heaven. It is not even a single physical city, like London or New York. Instead it refers to the collection of good people on the earth, and the good society they can form amongst themselves.
This concept of the City of God has been expanded by Spanish philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, who views immortality as salvation here and now, in our own time, in our own towns and cities.
To make his case (a defense of the charge that the Christian church caused the sack of Rome), Augustine deploys an arsenal of rhetorical weapons. And knowing he was writing a huge book, he made the writing athletic, quite acrobatic I’d say--never boring.
To wit: "For evil has no nature of its own. Rather, it is the absence of good which has received name 'evil.'" Or,
How much more honourable a thing is to believe that which was taught by holy and truthful angels; uttered by prophets inspired by the Spirit of God; proclaimed by Him Who was foretold as the coming Saviour by the messengers who went before Him; and preached by the apostles whom He sent forth, and who filled the whole world with His Gospel!
Why is The Dante Club boring? Because it is narrated with the pattern subject-verb-complement throughout. How long can a reader take of this annoying pattern before he puts the book down?
Why does one find the DaVinci Code superficial and offending? Well, for one: it is badly written. A novel with twenty different points of view can only be an attempt at entertainment, something laughable, but not literature by any means.
Well, while I only read 24 pages before I put The Dante Club book down never to pick it up again, I will go on reading The City─its 1,200 pages─a lifetime.
Because this book has been a companion for so many years, it’s neither an adjunct nor an extension, but part of me, of my mind; I hope it becomes part of you, too.
