Word: distantly
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...recollection reveals that his motivations were not as definite as he sensed they were. He lingers over the decisions he makes in his life, wavering, but exquisitely aware of his equivocations. Whenever possible, he takes both roads at once, for example in his choice of careers. Driven by his distant but august father to pursue a military career, but convinced of his destiny as a poet, he prepares both for the military and for a degree in literature. As a result of this, he only becomes a Lieutenant-Colonel in his professional life, a life of action, and achieves nothing...
...Mugabe and his president-for-life ambitions marked a maturation of Zimbabwe's democracy. The president had based his campaign on racial demagoguery, trying to portray a "no" vote as an endorsement of the colonial past. But the minds of the urban voters was focused less on the distant past than on the present - runaway inflation, fuel shortages, repression of dissent and a military adventure in support of President Laurent Kabila in neighboring Congo that prompted the IMF to cancel all assistance to Zimbabwe. The first warning sign was there last winter, when the capital, Harare, was shut down...
...political skill has been keeping his enemies off-balance, divided and isolated. Although that's required 180-degree turnabouts on some policy questions, it's effectively neutralized most challenges thus far to his presidency - an office he acquired only by his supreme skill at backroom politicking. Despite finishing a distant third in last spring's polls, Wahid managed to shut out the presumptive president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, by cobbling together a voting bloc of Islamic parties and Suharto supporters, and then immediately headed off the violent reaction in the streets by naming Megawati as his deputy. But while he's almost...
...saddened." "I am disappointed." Wiesel describes his emotions in terms that are distant, spare. Often he describes his actions and reactions as if from the outside, as a biographer might. The "I's" could be changed to "he's." When explaining his opinions, he often quotes himself. But beneath these simple phrases lies an ocean of emotion. In each description of an encounter, Wiesel embeds a new clue and connection to his own motivation and intensity...
...provide a poor approximation. Yet, And the Sea is Never Full reads more like a history than like a set of thoughts. It relies on analysis, the ordering of events, cause and effect. Wiesel worries about saying too much, and though he is powerful and compelling, he is a distant writer. His books are not emotionally intimate. This is not a fault. But we need the intimate accounts too--the people who will go further and tell us more, who will provide us with the tools to imagine the survivors as our neighbors, even after they are gone...