NCERT Solutions For Class 11 English Elective Chapter 46 What is a Good Book?

The essay is written in a rhetorical style in a persuasive manner. The use of the words like ‘and’ in the beginning of the sentences or paragraphs makes it more conversational rather than an edited piece of work. The author has used an explanatory tone throughout the essay.

Ruskin feels that a good author hides his deepest thoughts and gives it as a reward to only those who are hard working. The reader must be like a miner of gold, digging deeply and thoroughly through the words of the author. It is only through patience, perseverance, and use of the best tools that a reader can get the meaning of the work of a good author.

The shifts in style and diction are very evident in the essay. For example, ‘assuredly’ is rarely used now a days. Word like ‘distantest’ is not in use now. Instead ‘most distant’ is the accepted form in the modern language. Certain phrases like ‘peerage of words’ or national noblesse of words’ are not in use anymore because aristocracy or nobility hardly exists. Certain formations of sentences are also different like ‘no one has yet said it’ is now written as - ‘no one has said it yet’.

The use of personal pronouns such as ‘I, we, us, you, etc.’ is the most evident feature of a lecture. Repetition of certain expressions like “if you could, you would; you would write instead” expresses the interaction between the speaker and his audience. Rhetorical questions like “Perhaps you think no book was ever so written?’, ‘But, again, I ask you; do you at all believe in honesty or, at all, in kindness?” are used by the author to engage his audience.

The sentence patterns are mostly conversational. The use of ‘and’, ‘but’ or ‘so’ shows a spontaneity of thought and explanation of the speaker rather than the edited lines of a written text.

Communication depends on the mutual understanding of two or more people. The language being the medium of communication, becomes a very significant part of the communication. Without proper diction or choice of words, the meaning of what a person wants to convey may change. Diction adds expression to the communication and contributes a lot to the subtle meaning of the words. A false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliament of any civilized nation, to assign a man a certain degree of inferior standing forever. Accuracy is a must as far as education is concerned. A truly educated man has in-depth knowledge of the language including its words, their correct pronunciation and origin. Without these, a person is inferior no matter how many languages he knows or books he has read.

We should examine the author’s words - syllable by syllable or letter by letter to get the meaning intended by him. That is reason why a scholar is called a man of letters. It is more useful to study ten pages of a good book letter by letter than reading all the books in a library without understanding anything.

Ruskin insists on learning and understanding the language down to its roots by its words and even letters. He states that mere memorizing the language is the act of an uneducated person. A scholar would be the person who has in-depth knowledge of the language including its words, their correct pronunciation and origin. Without these, a person is inferior no matter how many languages he knows or books he has read.

Ruskin believes that there is a difference between the level of accuracy between an educated person and the uneducated. A literate person has the precise knowledge of a language, the pronunciation of words and knowledge about the origin and evolution of the words. A person without accuracy will be at an inferior standing compared to a person having the real accuracy.

A well-educated man may not know many things, but what he knows, he knows precisely. On the contrary an uneducated man may know many languages and yet truly not know the correct meaning of even a single word.

A few words, well chosen, will do the work that a thousand cannot. This accuracy is what distinguishes a 'literate' person from ordinary writers.

According to Ruskin real books have been written by great men like social reformers, great politicians and thinkers. Today, their works are available for us to choose from. We won't get time to read such great works if we waste our time for trivial things. Once we enter into the company of these great writers, they will never turn us away. Our character will be tested against theirs and our true motives will be revealed.

The company of the dead here means the works of those great men. The author states that if we want to make ourselves fit for the company of those noble authors we must rise to the level of their thoughts as they cannot come to explain their thought to us.

The second criteria stated by the author is that we must show our love by a true desire to be taught by them.

According to Ruskin, the good books of the hour have some limitations. He does not consider them to be books at all. He compares them with newspapers. He says that the newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time and cannot be read all day. He further writes that a long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and weather last year at a place, or which tells you an amusing story or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, but cannot be called a ‘book’. He states that a book means something written which has permanence and good books of the hour are do not have this feature.

1. A book is essentially not a talked thing but a written thing; and written, not with the view of more communication, but of permanence.

2. They do not give it to you by way of help, but of reward, and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it.

3. You may dig long and find none; you must dig painfully to find any.

4. You might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough), and remain an utterly ‘illiterate’, uneducated person; but that if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter—that is to say, with real accuracy—you are forever more in some measure with an educated person.