by Dwight Garner
If you taught the artificial brains of supercomputers at IBM Research to write nonfiction prose, and if they got very good at it, they might compose a book like David Grann’s “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.”
This is not entirely a complaint. Grann’s new book, about how dozens of members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma in the 1920s were shot, poisoned or blown to bits by rapacious whites who coveted the oil under their land, is close to impeccable. It’s confident, fluid in its dynamics, light on its feet.
What it lacks is the soulful, trippy, questing and offhandedly cerebral quality of his last and best-known book, “The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon” (2009). That volume is deservedly regarded as one of the prize nonfiction specimens of this century.
"The Osage Indians Struck It Rich, Then Paid the Price" by Dwight Garner, from THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 12, 2017. Copyright © 2017 by The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Used under license.
Question
Use the passage to answer the question.
Which sentence from the passage best summarizes the reviewer’s opinion of the book’s style?
(1 point)
Responses
“If you taught the artificial brains of supercomputers at IBM Research to write nonfiction prose, and if they got very good at it, they might compose a book like David Grann’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.’”
“If you taught the artificial brains of supercomputers at IBM Research to write nonfiction prose, and if they got very good at it, they might compose a book like David Grann’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.’”
“It’s confident, fluid in its dynamics, light on its feet.”
“It’s confident, fluid in its dynamics, light on its feet.”
“That volume is deservedly regarded as one of the prize nonfiction specimens of this century.”
“That volume is deservedly regarded as one of the prize nonfiction specimens of this century.”
“This is not entirely a complaint.”
“This is not entirely a complaint.”
1 answer
The sentence that best summarizes the reviewer’s opinion of the book’s style is:
“It’s confident, fluid in its dynamics, light on its feet.”
This sentence directly describes the style of the book in a positive light, highlighting its strengths as perceived by the reviewer.
