Word: ambrosias
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...Billy's main escape is the life of his imagination, the land of Ambrosia--a fanciful municipality which he liberates and defends. In his humdrum real world, Billy is office boy and small time wheeler dealer. In Ambrosia he is Army General and poet laureate, capitalist-magnate, dictator, and idol of millions. His face beams down on cheering throngs from billboards and placards. Everywhere he is trailed by admiring troops and adoring women. Yet Ambrosia is only the infantile country of William Steig's "Dreams of Glory." Clearly, Billy's imagination has been spoon-fed and molded from childhood...
Earlier we saw the fantastic as a refuge from mundane reality. Liz offers a chance for a real-life adventure! But Billy is too weak for actual escape; the lure of Ambrosia is too powerful. Kidding himself to the last, he "misses" the train which carries...
...with submachine-gun bullets.) But finally, after his pipedream of a big-city job collapses, after the boss catches him embezzling, when Liz leaves for London without him and he faces the death of his grandmother and fury of his father we realize that the pathetic little mirage of Ambrosia is Billy's permanent residence...
...success by using its essentially hackneyed humor to freshen up what might have been merely another grim study of working-class life in the industrial cities of England. To make this world bearable, Billy embroiders it with fantasies, one of which encompasses a swell little totalitarian state known as Ambrosia. It is well worth a visit, largely because the acting is unbeatable...
...ticket and get on a train-that's all you do." In a bitter climax, laughter gives way to self-knowledge, to quiet defeat. While Liz heads for London alone, Billy saunters back toward the cold but certain comforts of home-and the loyal troops of Ambrosia fall into step behind...