Word: beast
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...think this whole stinkin' war has just got one purpose-to knock you off," he sneers. First day ashore, the purpose is almost achieved. A Japanese sniper wings the private and then moves in for the kill. But when the private sees the bayonet he goes beast, and when he comes to his senses again the sniper has been reduced to sukiyaki. "That was close, wasn't it?" the sergeant sniggers softly in the private's ear. "And now you feel guilty because you found out you like to kill...
Nevertheless, for observers who survive the crossfire of cliches, Line has some real rewards. Director Andrew Marton has put together a couple of masterly melees. And in the character of the private he has described with horrifying clarity the nature of the beast in men and nations that perennially threatens to engender Armageddon...
...Hemingway's suicide: "One quarry was left him only, the single beast worthy of him: himself. And he took his shotgun in hand, improbably renewing his lapsed allegiance to death and silence. With a single shot he redeemed his best work from his worst, his art from himself...
...stupendous. On or off stage, I have never seen such torment as his jealousy puts him in-it is as though a wild beast has been sewn up inside him and is clawing to get out. His whole body writhes and flails, out of control-not the reeling and grimacing that often passes for passion, but the real thing, directed from within. He kills with such sorrow that it is unbearable. He is a very great actor, indeed...
Borges delights in the multiplicity of things; he is fascinated with mirrors because they multiply. A poet cannot pin a thing down for eternity in a single phrase, nor a philosopher force it into a rigid system. Variety must be respected: "Never can my dreams engender the wild beast I long for. The tiger indeed appears, but stuffed or flimsy, or with impure variations of shape, or of an implausible size, or all too fleeting, or with a touch of the dog or the bird...