Don’t confuse conversation with dialogue or quips

Catherine Blyth says that conversation is an art: its essence is the acrobatic business of reading and changing minds — talking with people, not at them

How would you feel if you arrived at a dinner party to find your plate garnished with a menu? Impressed, irritated or inspired to discover a new level in social intimidation? Imagine that menu listed not dishes, but conversation topics to wash down each course, such as, ‘Which of my ambitions is likely to remain unfulfilled?’ or ‘Is sex overrated?’

According to Alain de Botton, writing in Standpoint, topic menus promise the salvation of the art of conversation. Sartre reckoned hell is other people. To me, hell is other people’s utopias, and I can picture few visions more gob-stopping than de Botton’s.

Like him, I love conversation, and admire his efforts to do for philosophy what Jamie Oliver has done for cooking. However, the faintly bullying concept of pre-fab talking points — pioneered at public dinners in Oxford by the academic Theodore Zeldin — seems a real turkey twizzler. Simultaneously lofty and naive, it’s a recipe for self-consciousness. Although I suppose, if dinner parties are forums for status display, their success might be measured by the angst they cause guests.

De Botton is right, conversation is in decline, increasingly seen as a chore. But it can’t be forced, and the idea that good talk is a couture activity, available only at meals with tickets, seems misguided. The essence of conversation is engaging and paying attention — whether in a queue, at a party, or over the negotiating table. Like anything else, conversation can be done better or worse, which is why I decided to write about it to celebrate the pleasures and possibilities, taking a guided tour of the mysteries, as well as timeless techniques.