Word: authorly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...twenty-one stories featured in the collection were chosen and edited by Pulitzer prizing winning author E. Annie Proulx (The Shipping News, Accordion Crimes). Proulx offers a good variety of style and content--everything from T. Coraghessan Boyle's strikingly titled exploration of the abortion rights conflict "Killing Babies" to Robert Stone's "Under the Pintons" a Hemingway-esque man-and-the-elements tale. Proulx has selected precisely crafted works that stand on their own--making her surprising attempt to unify them in four "chapter" titles ("Manners and Right Behavior," "Identifying the Stranger," "Perceived Social Values," and "Rites of Passage...
This time it is once acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola who has been swept up in the heavy-handed moralistic mess that is John Grisham's The Rainmaker. And he's inexplicably proud of it too. He puts the author's name in front of the title as if to warn us before the movie even begins: "This is a Grisham movie! Watch Coppola go mainstream!" Indeed, he keeps his promise: for Godfather fans, John Grisham's The Rainmaker is painful to watch...
...failure (if one must pinpoint a single cause) is in the attempt to imbue contemporary stereotypes with a sense of drama. Coppola has attempted to transform a John Grisham thriller into a series of quirky character studies. There is no doubt that the author will watch this new adaptation and smile radiantly as the events unfold incoherently on screen. As long as directors keep trying to top each other in an effort to make a semi-competent film, he'll keep writing his crowd-pleasing prose and run all the way to the bank...
...When Gabriel Garcia Marquez came up, the sole questioner wondered whether the author was still alive...
...others, we could get earnest political activists instead of politicians. What about wisdom? Why not try to hear from someone who is wiser than us--and not wise in the sense of erudite, but someone who is knowing in the ways of the world, like a distinguished author? Or someone who is able to speak to transcendent values? A religious figure who might be able to give us some perspective on our temporal successes and add a bit of humility or sense of obligation to an otherwise congratulatory experience would be a welcome speaker...