Word: brill
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...think it is a terrific development. It is a step in the right direction," said Steven Brill, editor of "The American Lawyer," who has written extensively on the subject of law schools" financial...
...Brill's fascination with Beulah--in truth a fascination with her mother--reveals his true nature. Although Brill thinks he and Hester are bonded by a mutual appreciation for scholarly achievement, he eventually discovers how truly different they are. Brill's fixation with himself and his own aspirations not only denigrate the quality of his supposedly noble goals, but also leave him feeling painfully along. Consequently, it is unclear how much of Brill's fascination with Hester is intellectual and how much stems from his desire to be loved. By contrast, Hester's willingness to sacrifice her goals...
UNFORTUNATELY, the bitterness Brill subconsciously inherits from his childhood remains with him as a dominant--if not guiding--force. It is this undercurrent of anger--against the Nazis who slaughtered his family, his students who are hindered by mediocrity and, most important, at his own failure to excel--that gives the novel its emotional force. By bottling up the tension throughout the novel, Ozick heightens the impact of the climax, and makes Brill's epiphany about himself and the nature of his goals all the more painful...
...Brill's ultimate failure to unite successfully knowledge and religion does not imply that the two are utterly irreconcilable. In fact, because the intellectual Hester stands by her daughter when Brill beseeches her to abandon hope, she illustrates the hope of fusing both strands. Based on solely Brill's behavior, it is possible to interpret Ozick's ultimate stance as anti-intellectual. Yet closer inspection reveals The Cannibal Galaxy as a plea for knowledge tempered by Christian love, to pursue knowledge and ambition without ever losing sight of one's family, one's past, and one's beliefs...
...Martha Brill Olcott is a Research Fellow at Harvard's Russian Research Center and another of an article entitled "Soviet Islam and World Revolution," which appeared in World Politics...