Word: berger
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...contrast, the protagonist of Thomas Berger's Being Invisible cannot seem to invent an identity for himself on paper or in person; when he uses his invisibility, clumsily, to filch $2,200 from the cash drawer of a bank, he is so conscience-stricken that he returns the money before closing time. Fred Wagner, a copywriter for a mail-order catalog and a would-be novelist, is the sort of wimp whose wife of four years would leave him out of "contempt for his habitual failure to claim justice from the petty tyrants of quotidian life." One day he discovers...
...others, he has just as much trouble getting them to believe in his unseen self as in his presence. "I'm sorry, Fred," says his bored doctor after Wagner has disappeared and reappeared before the man's eyes, "we just don't have time for any more shenanigans." Berger's sly theme: invisibility is almost beside the point. Character, not circumstance, is Wagner's dilemma, and a very funny and touching one it is. As might be expected from the author of such novels as Sneaky People and Neighbors, Berger surrounds Wagner with a gallery of vividly tacky secondary figures...
...Both Berger and Saint have trouble finding an ending, and finally place their characters in the hands of extraordinarily sympathetic women -- a pleasant fate but an improbable one. This is particularly disappointing in Being Invisible, if only because the book raises higher expectations than the straightforwardly commercial Memoirs. Berger has qualities that Saint as yet lacks, including a distinctive prose style and a disciplined, selective eye. His antihero Wagner, seeking somebody else's faith to validate his existence, at least conveys a sense that something more is at stake than a big movie sale. Saint's Halloway remains...
Bumper stickers and stadium banners proclaim BRUCE--THE RAMBO OF ROCK! "In the midst of a lot of music about love, he's a spokesman for patriotism," says Larry Berger, program director of New York City's powerful WPLJ-FM. "He's the Ronald Reagan of rock 'n' roll." In fact, the only thing Springsteen has in common with Stallone's marauding murder machine is a bandanna around the forehead; and the one time the President tried to cut himself in on Boss territory ("America's future rests ... in the message of hope in songs of ... New Jersey...
...Berger proves the consummate ingénue in her role as Miriam. She appears perfectly guileless and radiates compassion with each luminescent smile. Her naïveté offers stark counterpoint to Turner’s world-weariness. After she and Turner are discovered she remarks absently, “nothing is likely to come of it.” Turner feebly assents, but hangs his head in defeat...