Word: adamson
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...Morpho Eugenia" will satisfy readers of Possession, Byatt's prize-winning last novel. It is the story of William Adamson, a naturalist back from a decade of butterfly collecting in the Amazon who marries into the family of his aristocratic patron. Detailed accounts of ant colonies benefit from Byatt's richly detailed descriptive style, and the life of the ants provides a strong counterpoint to the life of her human characters. Indeed, she is often at her strongest when describing the ants...
...study of the ants which Adamson undertakes similarly functions as a disruption of the plot's family drama and provides a distraction from his feeling of imprisonment in the family. His entrapment is a comment on Victorian class structures, from which, through an unexpected twist of the plot, he is ultimately able to escape by returning to the Amazon. Byatt makes subtle use of the American Civil War as background both to the ants' warfare and slave-making, and to the inhuman treatment of one of the family servants by her employers...
...ghost of their beloved Arthur Hallam (his best friend and her fiance, and the subject of the poet's In Memoriam) move through Byatt's pages alongside the mediums Sophy Sheekhy and Lilias Papagay (the latter being the widow of the briefly-glimpsed Captain Papagay who sails William Adamson off to the Amazon at the end of "Morpho Eugenia"). The passage concerning the Tennysons and Hallam seem little more than recitations of literary history, the passages from In Memoriam are poorly integrated into the body of the text, and Emily and Alfred seem less alive than their fictional companions, seeming...
...retired to the Washington law office of her friend and mentor, Lloyd Cutler, at 24th and M streets. Over coffee and sandwiches, an exhausted but clear-headed Baird rehashed her day with a group that would include her husband Paul Gewirtz, Cutler, fellow fortysomething lawyer Terrence Adamson and Secretary of State Warren Christopher. By 10:45, Baird concluded that she must withdraw her nomination. "She said, 'Look, this is so controversial it would be crippling for the President and the department even if we won,' " said Adamson. Soon after, Christopher phoned White House chief of staff Thomas ("Mack") McLarty...
...Lucile Adamson Slocum ('44) from Minneapolis had a special memory to honor. Her English and drama teacher, Miss Spence, had opened a world of meaning and beauty for her. Back in the shadowy gym she felt again that bright, intense figure coaching her kids through the class plays. Dorothy Spence Illson later became head of Life magazine's copydesk in New York City. She died two years...