Word: ascent
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...there was the slender bamboo pole that had been planted on the summit in 1947 by Bradford Washburn, a mountain-climbing geographer. Three men burst into tears. "Do you realize," gasped Buckingham, "do you realize what we've done? Four hackers-we've made a great ascent, maybe the greatest outside of South America in the world...
...much his own fault as that of society. And some of society's offenders appear more sharply in this light than they do in the book. The gruff nature of M. de Renal, for one, is brilliantly emphasized, providing a clear motive for Julien's well meditated social ascent. Then, too, the seduction scenes are fine stuff, exhibiting some well coordinated pussyfooting from bedroom to bedroom...
...wrenching break from the past has its disasters. The longest and best story, Goodbye, Columbus, is about Jews who have made the ascent from grubby Newark to the green pastures of suburban Short Hills, NJ. Mr. Patimkin is a rich manufacturer of kitchen sinks, "tall, strong, ungrammatical, and a ferocious eater." Son Ronald was an all-state basketball player in high school and a Big Ten star at Ohio State. Daughter Brenda is beautiful, plays crack tennis and goes to Radcliffe. Her suitor, Neil Klugman, tells of his summer affair with Brenda-a daytime round of basketball, pingpong, mile runs...
...like eating or drinking, and a two-way voice radio will keep him in touch with the ground stations. There will be no window for him to look out, but an "optical display" (undetermined) will give him a kind of indirect visibility. If anything goes wrong early in the ascent, he can fire an escape rocket that will bring him back to earth, with luck, before he has climbed too high...
...news, leaving unchronicled, among other things, the inside-page happenings of the community. Many a forlorn Manhattan miss lost the opportunity to exhibit her face, or at least the fact of her engagement or marriage, to her neighbors. Many an executive, promoted as the New Year approached, made the ascent unnoticed. For want of want ads, the unemployed lost job opportunities, apartments stayed unrented, dogs stayed lost. Men were convicted or acquitted without public attention, the scores of sports events went unreported, Christmas charities were hard put to make their appeals heard. And many a citizen whose passing would have...