Word: burnett
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MOTHER & SON (256 pp.)-/. Compton-Burnett-Messner...
...explain the thousands of books that come out every year?" asks a character in Mother & Son. The reply: "I do not explain them. There seems to me to be no explanation." The same answer might apply to questions about the works of veteran Novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett. What explanation is there for an author who has produced, at almost regular two-year intervals, a string of novels that have all much the same title (e.g., Pastors & Masters; Elders & Betters; Brothers & Sisters'), are about much the same people living in much the same house at much the same period (turn...
Author Compton-Burnett has used the same revealing piece of wood off and on for 20 years, sometimes broken in a desk, sometimes built into a locked drawer-though once, admittedly, it was widened and made into a bridge over a ravine: the result was nearly neck-breaking. The nearest equivalent to this slice of timber is the distaff which the Greeks put in the hands of the Fates-and man's fate, in the Greek sense, is in fact the essential clue to the mystery of Author Compton-Burnett's long (15) line of novels...
...people refuse to accept this fact: they struggle to release themselves by trying to make their lives different from what they are fated to be. This struggle, enacted with Greek gravity and formality, is invariably the theme of a Compton-Burnett novel. The skill she exhibits in playing witty and tragic variations on it explains why her fans agree with Critic...
...Burnett Magruder, radio and TV coordinator for the Louisville Council of Churches, told the Louisville Ministerial Association that they are too casual about broadcasting and telecasting. "The Protestant clergy is in danger of taking a colorless, common-denominator approach. Ministers do not evaluate [broadcast] time as highly as they should. The modern minister is skillful in the art of almost saying something...