To read John Simon's writing on poetry is to be held enthrall by a master. He doesn't waste his time or ours with theories. He doesn't believe that poetry has anything to hide behind. There was a lot I missed in school, and Simon is invaluable for catching me up with (fairly recent, as in the 20th-century) literary history. (So I'm willing to overlook the total absence of even one mention of my all-time favorite Elizabeth Bishop.) Although more famous for his scathing movie reviews, Simon is vastly more in his element as a literary critic. Which does not mean, in his case, spouting jargon. Even when he's chiding, more love shines through in this book than in anything else he's written. In fact, you may miss the "acerbic, mean" side of Simon if that's what you're accustomed to. (In fact, I don't think he's tough enough on Philip Larkin; Simon actually seems amused by Larkin's antics and disappointingly doesn't probe the essential Larkin contradiction --a political ultraconservative who loved jazz.) This collection isn't as rollickingly, savagely funny as his earlier lit volume Sheep from the Goats (a book that's devastating, hilarious and out-of-print). The introduction to Dreamers, in which Simon ruminates on and quotes at length from obscure, forgotten yet excellent poets is worth the price of the book alone. It may be the most moving, personal and incandescent passage ever to flow from Simon's pen. Pauline Kael once wrote of the British critic Paul Coates, "he leaves the dross out of criticism and goes right for the gold." The same might justly be said of John Simon.

John Simon has always been an acerbic critic. Gore Vidal once characterised him as a 'literary gangster', a critic with his flick knife always at the ready. Those who find the Simon style bracing will thoroughly enjoy "Paradigms Lost", a collection of articles written for "More" and "Esquire" magazines in the late 'seventies. There is plenty of fire here. The single most brilliant essay in the collection seizes upon fellow film critic Rex Reed. Simon finds Reed the most exalted film critic in the country; he leaves him, approximately five hundred words later, a tattered mess. Simon's clean and supple prose sets its jaws about the neck of Reed's flabby metaphors and bites down.It is one of the most brilliant hatchet jobs in a throughly distinguished carving career. Yet, despite Simon's intemperance, I found this collection to be fuelled by love rather than hate: love for language. Simon's targets are those who would see the English languge become a morass of jargon and inaccuracy. He resents those who believe that people should be encouraged to speak 'the language of the streets' rather than being coached in the fundamentals of English grammar and syntax. The majority of Simon's jeremiads are directed at 'educators' who appear to believe that they should not 'educate'; and he is unfailingly witty and accurate in his denunciations. There will be those who find in Simon a certain reactionary edge. It is true that most of his targets are from the progressive, liberal side of politics. Exclusion, however, is not his aim. While his enemies would fracture schooling along a whole range of pidgin-divides, Simon extolls the beauties of 'Standard English', and he insists that it be made available to all. To avoid creating linguistic ghettos, he urges the fostering of a single, coherent means of communication. Street dialect can retain its status as a second language for use among the cognoscenti, but its place is outside the classroom. That nobody in authority seems to be listening infuriates him; but Simon's message is not one of embittered resignation. Repeatedly he urges that people concerned with language, people who deem it a virtue to say exactly what they mean with the minimum of ornament and fuss, go out and spread the word. Only by fighting the obfuscatory tendencies of others can the English language continue to remain a tool for efficient communication. As a polemic, the collection is first-rate; as a guide to write and speak by, it is equally sound; as a reading experience it is thoroughly enjoyable - stylishly written and cogently argued.

I needed to cite Simon in a paper I was writing on the origins of linguistic prescriptivism. In particular, his quote, "the lapses of the great ones do not make a wrong a right" is a superb response to the advocates of singular "they" and similar illiteracisms. When challenged, these types tend to bolster their arguments with references to such use by Bronte, Austen, et al., yet even the descriptivist _Webster's Dictionary of English Usage_ offers Simon's comment as a nod to the purist camp. I decided to investigate Simon's _Paradigms Lost_ to learn a bit more about this man and his ideas and found the book to be a totally engaging and insightful read. Some of the material (the book is a compilation of essays) is dated insofar as a knowledge of who his targets are is necessary to appreciate his literary criticism thoroughly. If you are familiar with Gore Vidal and Rex Reed you are in his intended audience. My only quibble with the author is that, being a non-native speaker, he occasionally criticizes a common usage that is vibrant and offers a correct but lukewarm alternative; he can be overly picky. This is, after all, a man who will critique a 500-page work with comments such as "I found a split infinitive on page 453, but otherwise the book was fairly well written." Like Mencken and Buckley, Simon truly enjoys the lesser-known and exotic word and few will leave _Paradigms Lost_ without having acquired some useful additions to their vocabularies and a better knowledge of where the battle lines have been drawn in a number of skirmishes on the usage front. Grammar mavens: This is a must for your bookshelf.

This is a very highbrow and uncompromising examination of our declining standards. Simon is one of the most astute theater and film critics currently writing. His understanding of English is truly awe-inspiring (and don't forget that it's something like his third or fourth language). You may feel chastised while you read it, but if you care about the future of the English language, you will agree that Paradigms Lost is indispensable.