Caro's 1-sentence paragraphs

Rules are not ironclad

I am about 5% of the way through Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate, the 3rd book in his behemoth series on LBJ. I have noticed that Caro often uses a paragraph of a single sentence to underscore a point and transition to the next paragraph:

The Man in the White House was a master at pulling levers attached to senators. "Kentucky's Democratic Senator Marvel M. Logan had been recalcitrant about the Court plan," Leonard Baker reports, but Kentucky needed flood control projects. "Senator Logan became a supporter of the plan. Kentucky got its flood control projects." Routine judicial and patronage appointments in many states were suddenly held up because "Mr. Farley is working on them." And the Senate was a New Deal Senate, after all. Democratic Leader Robinson counted the votes now, and assured Roosevelt of a majority.

And indeed if the vote had been taken then, not long after the proposal was made, the President would probably have had his majority.

But the vote wasn't going to be taken then, for the Senate, thanks to the Founding Fathers, also had weapons, most crucially its rule allowing "unlimited" debate. Deliberation requires time—and the Senate was going to get time. Roosevelt and Robinson summoned the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ashurst of Arizona, to the Oval Office. Ashurst was usually soft-spoken and complaisant, but he was, as they may have forgotten, the same Senator Ashurst who eighteen years before had demanded, "Who is this Colonel House?" Roosevelt and Robinson attempted to persuade him to place a limit - perhaps two weeks apiece— on the length of time each side would have to present witnesses before his committee, but Ashurst felt that the Court-packing proposal was "the prelude to tyranny," and, thanks to the Founders, he had a weapon to fight "tyranny." "I replied that I would avoid haste, would go slowly and give the opponents of his bill ample time and opportunity to explore all its implications," he told the President. There would, he said, be no time limit at all.

Caro famously agonizes over semicolon usage so I am sure he gives this tactic a lot of thought. To me, the 1-sentence paragraph does the following:

• It allows me a break in concentration and quickly summarizes what I just read in the previous paragraph, which in Caro’s writing is often long and dense with information

• It neatly sets up the following paragraph in relation to the previous paragraph. As I was taught to write, the single sentence would have gone at the end of the previous one or the beginning of the following one (my teachers conflicted on how to transition paragraphs). But to me, having the link be a separate “bridge” between long paragraphs is more pleasing and clear.

• It gives gravity to the core idea, here that the time between proposal and vote mattered a lot to whether the President got his way.

I find these short paragraphs really pleasant to read. It helps that I hear them in his voice, which is wonderful: Caro’s memoir Working is the best audiobook I’ve ever listened to. It feels conversational, and like Caro is really writing so that I understand what he is trying to convey, as opposed to following conventions blindly so that his book seems serious.

You’ll notice that he also starts a lot of sentences with “and,” another thing I was taught not to do. Again, I think this helps me flow through the sentences and makes me understand the content better.

I expect his willingness to break academic rules comes in part from his background as a journalist, where he had to write in a way that is compelling to busy, everyday people. I appreciate that he gives thought to how to package his ideas for the reader and it says something that these books are held up as masterpieces even as they flaunt some of the rules we’re all taught in school. Thinking hard about what you’re trying to accomplish and then following that instead of relying on convention may lead you to new and better ways of doing things.

If you’re interested in Caro, you may enjoy this article about “thinking with your fingers.”