Word: despairs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Percy's fiction revolves around a central question: can humane, civilized life survive this murderous, mechanized century? Details change from book to book, but a number of constants recur. The hero is typically a Southerner and a loner, a weirdo in the eyes of friends and relatives, whose despair at the decline of civilization has lured him into alcoholism, drug addiction or rampant crankiness. His struggle back toward health and sanity is usually undertaken with the help of a younger woman, who may be as wounded a victim of modern life as he. The saving grace is just that...
...wanted to clear the air." A source who has seen the letters adds that McFarlane "felt he may have created the atmosphere" that prompted North and others to solicit funds for the contras that were at best legally dubious. In any case, the letters make clear McFarlane's despair. Says one source: "Bud was sitting down at the typewriter and blaming everything on himself. He said he was responsible in the beginning, and when the thing got out of hand, he found it impossible to stop...
Fish's man dumps her, calls back, then dumps her again. A man steals Dusa's children. Men prostitute Stas, rape Vi, and generally cause depression, despair and death...
...more serious exertions. A score went to a Sioux reservation in South Dakota to do painting, tiling and light carpentry at a Y.M.C.A. center; a dozen arrived in Juarez, Mexico, to help build a "serviglesia," a church to serve the poor; another twelve headed for Appalachia's "Valley of Despair" to plant fir trees and work on construction and furniture-building projects. Says Vanderbilt Senior Ethel Johnson, 21, who stayed in Nashville with another team sowing gardens, making curtains and teaching English in a community of Cambodian refugees: "Students are vastly underestimated. They have a real desire...
Glowacki's text, translated by Jadwiga Kosicka, benefits from lively staging by Arthur Penn and sensitive performances. Ron Silver bearishly evokes the descent from self-doubt to despair. Dianne Wiest (an Oscar nominee for her role in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters) bubbles with fantasies of redemption: she stuffs a pillow under her clothes and says she will have a child; she tells an enigmatic joke and vows to become a stand-up comic. Each gently deflects the other in a tender marriage, unharrowed by grief...