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paulmslima 's review for:
The Kingdom of Speech
by Tom Wolfe
What a strange book in terms of tone and style, and even content to a point. It's about the evolution of our understanding of speech through the ages, and the political/philosophical battles it lead to between various academic schools. An interesting enough topic. But the book is filled with many aimless meanderings and Wolfe's tone is often odd. He's sarcastic. He fools around. He stutters. He is mock awe. I don't get it. He concludes the book, after taking us through pages and pages of his strange approach to the history of thoughts on speech, with a rather powerful essay on the importance of speech to human development: without it, we would be nothing as a species. Fact is, the essay stands alone, without the rest of the book. That would have been a good enough read for me. It's almost like he wrote that first and then decided to wrap it in the book. Pass.