The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure by Catherine Blyth

Author:Catherine Blyth [Blyth, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2008-12-25T23:00:00+00:00

He played angry, they believed he was justified. Alas, it worked for Hitler too.

➺ Rule five: Scavenge for material

Nothing to inspire you? Excuses, excuses. Imagine doing zip all, beautifully, full-time—and having to entertain bored masters, potentially on pain of death? Courtiers, muzzled by etiquettes and sheer monotony, somehow unraveled viable material from their cocooned existence. Their techniques repay study.

Sei Shōnagan, a tenth-century Japanese lady and the empress’s chief wit, was more constrained than most. Sitting behind a screen (one could not be seen) dueling poetic ripostes with a man, was life at its most thrilling, and writing verse, off the cuff, in public, a frequent, terrifying ordeal. Relief came in light conversation. What, in such a shuttered existence, did she talk about? Her technique was to watch everything closely, sucking joy from minutiae: the hush of blossom falling, ice shavings sweetened with syrup, snow on a sunny day.

Look around and you’ll find endless material. Like bitching, only nicer (if you avoid needless risk: remember the mauve catsuit), observations bond people by ranging them metaphorically side by side—facing outward instead of at each other, wondering what to say.

Admire the whiskeys behind the bar, wonder how so many Scottish islands can support distilleries. Does that arch frame a bucolic bosky view? Did you love climbing those kinds of trees when you were a child? Is that man over there wooing that woman? You like that necklace? Then admire it. Observe the effort the boring host has made, aloud. He may light up. You might jump-start something new.

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