Word: decentering
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...hero of his umbrous novel Novemberfest (Knopf; 386 pages; $24) is Glen Cady, a 50-year-old professor of German whose young wife Paige goes septic after he is rejected for tenure at his New Hampshire university. Glen is a decent fellow. He was an assembly-line worker in Detroit as a young man, before he quit and revived an interest in the German language begun when he was a soldier in Europe. Paige is petulant and self-absorbed. She disapproves of his besotted love for their four-year-old daughter ("so working class") and grumps when...
Cohen's book ends with a brief section, rather blandly titled. "Observations," in which he tries to form some of his own conclusions based on his experiences. He makes a decent effort to acknowledge the complexities of his subject, but the chapter is occasionally marred by digression. We don't really need to hear any more about Americans' distrust of the federal government, or what the author dubs "democrophobia...
...freshmen on the Harvard men's hockey team went into Saturday night's scrimmage with the world upon their shoulders. After all, they were starting out a college career at one of the premier hockey programs in the country, not to mention a school with a halfway decent academic reputation to boot...
...three, I repeat, all three events had a decent fan representation...
...social problem -- what is best for old people? -- yet it has no agenda, makes no statements, foments no outrage. There are no bad people to blame for the old woman's plight: a self-involved son, say, or a callous bureaucrat. Even the garmentmaker who fires her is a decent man under cruel commercial pressures. Nor does Chayefsky rail against "the system." If there's any culprit, it is simply -- pardon the expression -- the human condition...