Volume 53, Number 8 · May 11, 2006
Talking It Up
By Russell Baker
Conversation: A History of a Declining Art
by Stephen Miller
Yale University Press, 336 pp., $27.50
The conversation was good on the raft that carried Miss Watson's Jim and Huckleberry Finn down the Mississippi. With quiet evenings darkening over the river the talk drifted whimsically, as good conversation should. The earning power of kings was discussed, and the misfortune that required Frenchmen to talk in French. Social problems were explored: Wouldn't the racket of quarreling wives and colicky children in a fully populated harem make a husband's life intolerable?
Review, 3585 words
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