Style
His style combines the formal (in the kind of language one would find in a seventeenth-century Bible) with the colloquial, in a highly recognisable way. Similarly, his humour and often paradoxical view of the world relies on the contrast between exalted mysticism and common sense. The irony that pervades his work and his tendency towards extreme statements has caused confusion among readers. Many doubted the sincerity of his conversion to Catholicism, although Reve remained adamant about the truthfulness of his faith, claiming his right to individual notions about religion and his personal experience of it.
Read more about this topic: Gerard Reve
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get—but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The authoritarian child-rearing style so often found in working-class families stems in part from the fact that parents see around them so many young people whose lives are touched by the pain and delinquency that so often accompanies a life of poverty. Therefore, these parents live in fear for their children’s future—fear that they’ll lose control, that the children will wind up on the streets or, worse yet, in jail.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)