Word: aunt
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...longer simply participate in the action but begin to see the overall design of the narrative. "In detective stories," he says, it's "when we find out who done it." That's the point where we stop worrying about the butler with the sinister moustache or the withered aunt with the poisonous look in her eye and we begin to understand why they were included in the story to begin with...
...protagonist of "Sour or Suntanned. It Makes No Difference," the main problem, on the other hand, is how to avoid being contaminated by the grayness of other peoples' lives. To this unhappily observant child, the world is composed of an admixture of liars and fool, typified by an aunt "who spent her life thinking there was not much children could understand" and an uncle who keeps trying to figure out which countries are "faking it" with Socialism. Miriam's often bewildered scorn can find no surer irritant than the fakery of summer camp. "They were all people you hardly knew...
Kaplan treats her characters compassionately. There are no real villains in these stories, only people who seem more unpleasant than others--like Miriam's aunt and Sut-On's money-grubbing uncle--because their struggle with life has crippled them more...
...Rock Hudson movies showing on the tube, Mom has bought American rather than Swiss cheese, and Dad decides to take off a few days from work so that he can catch up on what kids are thinking these days at Harvard. While the family rides over to visit Aunt Ethel and Uncle Herb, the student wonders what's playing at the Brattle that week...
...fanatics, Wodehouse readers could only feel sorry for those who lacked the special sense of humor that allowed them to wander through the sunlit gardens of that little Eden at Blandings or to guffaw as the omniscient Jeeves pulled addlepated Bertie Wooster out of the clutches of his Aunt Agatha or the local constabulary. Wodehouse addicts had their own favorite characters. The author himself confessed he bent toward Lord Emsworth, the daffy ninth Earl of Blandings, who spent most of his time escaping through the hedges from his domineering sister Constance or making sure that his beloved pig, the Empress...