THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701100659
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY ANN EGERTON
LENGTH: 69 lines
BUCKLEY: THE RIGHT WORD
About the Uses and Abuses of Language, and About Vocabulary; About Usage, Style & Speaking; Fiction, Diction, Dictionaries; With Reviews and Interviews; A Lexicon; on Latin and Letters, Eloquence and Journalism; and more.
SAMUEL S. VAUGHAN
Random House. 406 pp. $28.
Here in just over 400 pages is a sampling of William F. Buckley Jr.'s essays, criticism, speeches, letters, book and movie reviews, and fiction (begun at the age of 50), even his obituaries. The choices in this collection are those of editor Samuel S. Vaughan, not Buckley. The point of the collection, Vaughan says, is to show Buckley's language and style, not his politics; and he pretty much sticks to his word. We are treated, however, to many of Buckley's opinions on such far-ranging subjects as the Roman Catholic Church giving up Latin in its service (he asks God not to forgive the people who rewrote the Mass), and why there is no eloquence at the United Nations (``because truth is not spoken there, only protocol'').
For those of us amazed or annoyed (or both) by Buckley's dazzling vocabulary, there is also a 100-page listing of words used by him at various times, noting the definitions and when and where they were used. At long last, those too lazy to look them up can learn the meaning of eudaemonia, hebdomadal, nescience and unmeeching. His vocabulary, especially in his syndicated column ``On the Right'' or in National Review, the magazine of conservative opinion that he founded in 1955, edited until 1990, but still owns, has been attacked by well-wishers as off-putting and by enemies as snobbish.
He points out that most of us have vocabularies that are different from each other's and adds that increased exposure to so-called big and hard words stretches us and increases our vocabularies. It seems to me that that is how we teach our children; he just takes the lesson further than most of us.
Despite his upper-class, somewhat British accent, Buckley's first language was Spanish, and his second was French. He began learning English at age 7, and spent several years at English schools. His accent is thus bona fide, but he shows off outrageously in other ways, whether performing on the harpsichord in public (and then mentioning it), or dashing off such sentences as ``It isn't possible to write such judgments into law, no more than to specify . . . to the composer, the exact harmonic situation that benefits from rules that admit the striking of an A-augmented 11th chord.'' Sure.
The problem that many people have with William F. Buckley Jr. is that he is larger than life. Faster too, and smarter, and he isn't shy about living well. Such accouterments as the stretch limo, which he describes in his autobiographical journal Overdrive, drive critics, especially American intelligentsia types, crazy. Some of us are for equal opportunity in theory, but resent certain kinds of outstanding achievement; we may cheer a rock star or professional athlete but we're unwilling to be generous to someone who does what we all do - think and write - so much better than we do.
Buckley can be most generous, especially to good contemporary writers - writers such as John Updike, Tom Wolfe and John le Carre (with whom he disagrees philosophically) - and he is remarkably generous with his time in answering people's letters. He claims that he doesn't like to write, and says that's why he writes so fast, and I don't believe him for a minute. Can't you see him - the author of 37 books - head cocked, eyes and teeth flashing, eyebrows undulating, voice sepulchral, making such a preposterous statement. He gets bored easily, but he doesn't bore often. At 71 he's a national treasure. MEMO: Ann Egerton is a free-lance writer who lives in Baltimore. ILLUSTRATION: Drawing