Word: contrivedness
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In the past, Oates' touch has often been too heavy to sustain her fantasies. Ironically, in the barocco world of Bellefleur she is deft and self-assured. Even her contrived ending cannot mar a work that immeasurably enriches the 200-year-old tradition of the gothic novel.
Since Alexis de Tocqueville trumpeted the virtue and necessity of political participation, Americans have been, well, participating, albeit in somewhat contrived fashion. Involvement in the political process rejuvenates the individual and strengthens the country. With a zeal even Tocqueville might have underestimated, the elephants trundled to the Motor City last...
*Twice Laver won the French Open, Wimbledon, the U.S. and Australian Opens in the same year. Don Budge, Maureen Connolly and Margaret Court won the grand slam once. "Though tennis was first played by ecclesiastical students in the 15th century, the game quickly became so identified with French royalty that...
Unable to continue publishing in the U.S.S.R., Solzhenitsyn sought to reach Soviet readers by other means. Though under surveillance and in constant danger of arrest or assassination, he contrived a kind of literary Dunkirk. He smuggled out to the West every one of his divisions and army corps. These had...
Despite Hall's attempts to deny his former middle-of-the-road stance in "Without Tears," he shows a soft spot for the old style with some heartwarming emotion in his solo piano and fragile voice. Though the ballad initially seems to sound like most of his other work, it...