Word: accents
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...chummy, gin-soaked air of a British club with genuine flair. Moreover, his marvelous ear for dialogue has developed an unprecedented sharpness: unlike the characters in his previous books, the Americans in The Honourable Schoolboy not only speak differently from the British, but each character boasts a subtle regional accent, as well. No one sounds like Perry Mason, either--which alone sets the book apart from a shelf-full of other British espionage tales. In fact, all of le Carre's characters are so strong, so engaging in their own sleazy, desperate way, that the book should boost the author...
...only appear to be. She is a yielding Eliza, melting over a bowl of soap "smelling like primroses" but she is also a Liza quick to assert her own worth. "I'm a good girl, I am," Eliza repeatedly tells Higgins. And with a slip into the old accent or a beautifully rolled letter "r" that is a hint too beautifully rolled, Moynihan welds the link between the new kind of good girl...
Hondini also had the popular image of a "little man against the odds." He seemed at first, more like a truckdriver than a vaudeville star: a short, muscular man with bushy hair, who spoke with a heavy Brooklyn accent. Yet his feats were decidedly extraordinary...
...blinker. Broody, vaulting, magisterial, colored in shades of bleakest gray, it is a psychic tomb out of Edgar Allan Poe's haunted imagination. In perfect aesthetic juxtaposition, Gorey's costumes are funereal black, with ruby splashes in a proffered drink or a crimsoned pendant to accent the theme of Dracula's blood lust...
Michael Russell '76 turns in an almost-too-good performance as Jero. He captivates the audience from the opening scene, and although his movements become a bit repetitive after a few scenes, he plays the role to the hilt, complete with a lilting accent suggesting the mellifluous tones of the Yoruba tongue. If Russell's movements become a bit stale, his characterization does not, and as the central conflict emerges between Jero and his henpecked assistant Chume, Russell pours it on, never losing that vital energy...