Word: englishness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Unsatisfying as this may be for armchair detectives, it preserves the phantasmagoric mood essential to Hawksmoor's impact. Ackroyd, 36, a versatile English writer whose biography of T.S. Eliot was widely praised two years ago, has a gift for historical pastiche. His 18th century is a battleground where the rational temper of the modern world, championed by Wren, contends with the medieval occultism embraced by Dyer...
...Rosenthal's illustrious predecessors as editor of a New York newspaper was Horace Greeley of the Tribune, which no longer exists. It was an affectation of Greeley's to pluralize as the English do when a singular word has a plural context, as in "the government are concerned." Once Greeley impatiently cabled one of his correspondents, "Are there any news?" Back came the answer: "Sorry, not a single new." That unsung correspondent may only have intended a funny reply, but he appears to have had a firm grip on what needs to be reported...
...Pleasures: "One young man in an exquisite hat and beautifully made dress keeps circulating among American women asking for a household job which would include cooking, cleaning, dress- and hat-making." And this priceless piece of advice from Italy: The Places In Between: "One assumes that foreign ladies, English and Americans particularly, because they are tremulous, neurotic bags of bone reduced by sexual malnutrition, find all Italians irresistible. Gentlemen who agree with this premise are often to be found in hotels during festa times when numerous visitors, to-ing and fro-ing at odd times, create a nice smorgasbord...
...sort of travel book. A four-year-old Kate and her rachitic younger brother are transported thousands of miles from Poland to the U.S. at the end of World War I. The girl discovers the American air to be full of strange odors and foreign languages, especially English. She is part of a typical "Jewish immigrant hegira": first the densely packed tenements of the Lower East Side, later the wide open spaces of the Bronx, where her household is a turnstile of transient relatives. Simon's father plugs along in the shoe-design business and resents the energy and inquisitiveness...
...Dickens, such pluck and clarity of intent are completely captivating. A dud in bookkeeping class but an outstanding English student, Simon manages a transfer to an academic high school. Her lively essays attract attention. She has other notable attributes: blond hair, blue eyes, a sensuous mouth and a fortune in cheekbones. But even James Monroe High is a bit restricting. Foreshadowing the future world traveler, she writes, "I had no time for step- by-step projects; the urgent need was for swift voyages, with short stops at many ports of call...