Word: comic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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This is not Elizabeth Bowen's best novel. It has a kind of pervasive artificiality, partly the result of a contrived plot, partly the result of comic scenes which do not work. It is necessary in a book of this sort that its unfunny point be made with considerable humor, and the humor does not come off. Furthermore, the flashbacks to the girls' life at St. Agatha's stand as the best parts of the book--not because the experiences seem more attractive but merely because the writing is better. Although the uneven quality of storytelling inadvertently reinforces the theme...
...JACK PAAR SHOW (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Guests include Comic Jonathan Winters, Lord Mountbatten and Phil Cochran, World War II flying ace. Color...
...bell rang for the seventh the crowd was treated to the sight of Cassius dancing to the center of the ring in a comic display of shadow-boxing. Liston sat sullenly in his corner as doctors and trainers hovered over him. For a moment it was not clear what had happened. Then, suddenly, Cassius leaped into the air, arms raised, screaming like a madman, "I won, I won, I won, I am the greatest, greatest, greatest." Jack Nilon, Liston's manager, had stopped the fight. Nilon later explained that the injury to Liston's left shoulder in the first round...
...were at it all the time," and is bitten severely in his fat neck. He bloats with rage after a faculty party when he guessed the word was "effeminately" in a game of charades; the word was "Britishly." He is finally seduced by an ill-complected nymphomaniac and is comic in love as he conjugates Latin to prolong his pleasure. He is outdrunk, outmaneuvered, outraged and out-snuffed at every turn. The young "Yid scribbler" makes off with his mistress...
High spirits, deft wit and an elegantly sketched stage mark Amis' comic theater; the face-pullings, pratfalls and brisk tattoo of slapstick are the devices of a master. His aim is serious comedy. And, like the skewered and flayed Englishman of the fable, it never hurts except when he laughs...