Word: barretts
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...novel of ideas, conversations like this inevitably bode romance. sure enough, Barrett and Allison fall in love, and Percy presents this newfound love as the sign from God Barrett was waiting...
...need to believe without an external sign. the conclusion Percy provides his novel with, however, is more than a philosophical cop-out. It rips out his inspirational taproot: his refusal to explain away or excuse the psychological dilemmas of his characters. It turns out, you see, that Barrett's delusions--blown up by the author into chapters' worth of prose--are caused by an imbalance in the pH of his bloodstream, easily correctable by the addition of hydrogen ions. Percy's reduction of the alienated condition of man to a manageable chemical problem mocks not only all his own best...
...asks the reader--Percy? Allison? It would be very easy for he author to clean up some of these passages--like Barrett's first-person tirades against his father, unexpectedly thrown into passages of third-person narrative--simply by substituting a name for a pronoun here, adding quotation marks there...
...writing about the emptiness at the bottom of American prosperity. That doesn't mean he can't write a happy ending if he wants to. But The Second Coming's conclusion, with Will and Allison starting their lives over together, simply ignores all of Percy's oft-repeated questions. Barrett will have his work, his wife, and God too in the bargain. All dilemmas are resolved, with no explanations...
...started reporting on the automobile industry the day I arrived here," says Detroit Bureau Chief Barrett Seaman, "and I won't stop until the day I leave. Such is the lot of Detroit bureau chiefs." Seaman was posted to Detroit two years ago. Since then TIME has devoted 61 stories to the troubled automobile makers. For this week's cover story on the present plight and future prospects of the nation's most important industry, Seaman could draw on familiar sources, including the top executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. One whom he knows especially well...