Word: banally
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...sharp break in the book at that scene--it becomes suddenly less banal, more interesting--points up the book's major strength and weakness. From that point on, Robert's conflicts with his father are rooted in reality: someone, somehow, has to do something about Kate's pregnancy, and Robert's father, a prominent local surgeon, is a likely candidate for the task. But his father also believes firmly in a "sense of responsibility," and is extremely disappointed in his son Robert for displaying a serious failure to be responsible. One simply does not get one's friends pregnant...
...encourage him to seduce her) with the help of wine and her pocket Freud. Berger shows the calculations and machinations of his characters. If Leo acts like a sexual automaton (he places his hand on Celeste's leg; she asks sharply, "What is that?"), Celeste reacts coldly with banal psychology in her analysis of Leo's childhood. Employing a more experimental approach, Berger tries his hand at Joyce an stream of consciousness in the sexual encounter between Todd and Lynnette. His use of monologue also shows originality, although it's not always dramatically appropriate...
...thought keeps nagging that this command decision is based on aesthetic rather than scientific, moral or political considerations. It may be that the agent charitably wishes to spare the world more banal dialogue. Or it may be that he wishes to spare his colleagues on the train any further embarrassment. Surely he, like the viewer, must wonder why Richard Harris, as the only doctor aboard, has been encouraged to dye his hair white-blond. And why Sophia Loren, as Harris' estranged wife, is working in a gray make up that makes her look plagued even before the dis ease breaks...
Cheever's great strength has always been his ability to charge both the ordinary and the fanciful with emotion. Falconer is strong on feelings, even though they often overflow the novel's loose structure. Farragut is admittedly a man keenly aware of the banal ironies of his life and of his own sententious observations. Yet at times Cheever imposes them on the reader as if the novel itself were a correctional institution. "We prisoners," says Farragut, "more than any men, have suffered for our sins, we have suffered for the sins of society, and our example should cleanse...
...young aide. But the insights a 17-year-old Ohioan brings to a national political convention are, well, the insights of a 17-year-old Ohioan. We follow her as she visits the Statue of Liberty; we follow her as she visits bars for the first time. Most banal of all, we read an imaginary conversation with her mother after she dances with a city councilman from Cleveland for a news program beamed back home...