ABSTRACT
His style exhibits a queer mixture of influences. Much of the dialogue is negro, and that part seems to be excellent, including the effect of negro dialect on the speech of whites, both cultured and ignorant. But apart from dialogue he frequently adulterates his own narrative style with solecisms derived from negro speech. Over and over he uses 'like' for'as if' in a way to make one shudder: 'He continued that thick movement, like he could neither stop it nor complete it.' He invents compounds like a German-'frictionsmooth', 'womenvoices'. And every now and again he writes a passage which distinctly echoes Miss Stein.
