An indisputable masterpiece

Of how many novelists can it be said that they have never written a bad sentence? Well, it can be said of William Trevor, as it could of his fellow countryman John McGahern, and of many another Irish novelist. What was it that so formed them, to write such elegant, flexible, lucid, beautiful but serviceable prose? Instead of spending time doing MA courses in Creative Writing, all aspirants should be locked in a castle with only the novels of Trevor and McGahern to read and re-read.