Why we should read-- — Edition Insights

A Conversational Critic at Work

Mais’s prose is deliberately informal, as if he is talking to a friend over tea. He uses rhetorical questions to draw the reader in: “Why is ‘napkin’ to be preferred to ‘serviette’? Why do not people who speak of ‘the influenza’ say ‘the appendicitis’?” These are not pedantic queries but invitations to notice the quirks of language. He quotes Pope to frame his approach: “Together let us beat this ample field, / Try what the open, what the covert yield.” The effect is to make criticism feel like a shared exploration rather than a lecture. Mais also peppers his text with personal asides—he admits to rereading Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy alongside modern novels—which reinforces his ethos as a reader, not a mere judge.

Diction as a Window to Character

Mais pays close attention to the words authors choose and what they reveal. In discussing Sheila Kaye-Smith, he quotes a line of dialect: “That’s why it’s a pity it wurn’t sense.” He then praises her for creating a character who is “strange, dignified, real and crystal-clear.” The contrast between the rough dialect and the refined judgment is typical of Mais’s method: he values authenticity of voice over grammatical polish. Similarly, in his section on language, he explores why certain pronunciations (like “sarvice” for “service”) died out while others (like “Derby” with a “dar” sound) persisted. For Mais, these shifts are not mere linguistic trivia; they reflect changes in social attitudes and regional identity.

The Shape of an Argument: Structure and Surprise

Mais organizes his book into four parts—English classics, contemporaries, language studies, and foreign authors—but within each essay he often digresses. His piece on H. C. Wyld’s History of Modern Colloquial English begins with a defense of philology, then veers into a discussion of Chaucer’s language, then into the impact of printing on spelling. This associative structure mirrors the way a curious mind works. Mais does not pretend to be exhaustive; he picks details that intrigue him and lets them lead. The result is a book that feels alive, full of unexpected connections. He even includes a long section on the Project Gutenberg license at the end, a reminder that his text exists in a specific digital context.

The Reader as Co-Discoverer

Throughout the book, Mais treats the reader as an equal. He does not dictate what to think but models how to read attentively. In his introduction, he admits that “the majority of men and women are very much like myself” in their eclectic tastes. This humility is strategic: it lowers the barrier between critic and audience. When he praises a work, he explains why it matters to him personally, as when he says that lovers of the soil will find satisfaction in Kaye-Smith’s novels “hardly to be found elsewhere in fiction.” He does not claim universal validity; he offers his enthusiasm as a starting point. The book’s title, with its trailing dashes, suggests an open-ended invitation rather than a final verdict.

Mais’s Why We Should Read—— is best approached as a series of provocations. Read it with a pencil in hand, ready to argue with his judgments or follow his leads to other books. His voice is that of a companion who has read widely and wants to share his discoveries—not a schoolmaster assigning homework. The essays are short enough to digest in one sitting, but their implications linger. Let his enthusiasm guide you, but trust your own taste as much as he trusts his.

There’s a particular comfort in how Mais talks about reading—like an old friend describing a favorite walk, not a map. His zest for the personal, the concrete, the occasionally contrary, reminds me of evenings spent with the Romantics, who felt everything so loudly. That same restless seeking is in Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany — Text and Context, a quieter companion to that same fervor.