Word: ennui
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Fighter Through the Mouth. The novels are almost naive in their simplicity. The Beach is an incident involving the tug of war between the sexes in a pointless marriage. Two seemingly compatible people are brought down by a typical Pavese monster: ennui. Not much here, but short and clean; no wasted words. The House on the Hill has bigger aims. Pavese was an anti-Fascist who was put in prison by the Mussolini regime, and then exiled to Calabria. Actually, he failed to do much more than sympathize with those who risked their lives. He was a fighter through...
...Beauvoir, are the worst kind of illusion; reality is bile. Yet on the very last page, there seems to be a smidgen of vague hope, at least for the children-maybe. That is small compensation for a novel that is distinguished otherwise only for its predictable course and Gallic ennui...
...human factor rather than the statistical and fiscal in defend ing domestic programs, with heavy use of sophisticated television advertising; 4) revive the enervated Democratic Party apparatus, with emphasis on voter-registration drives; and 5) delay Johnson's overt electioneering as long as possible to avoid voter ennui in the crucial weeks next fall...
...detached quality of a series of animated tableaux. The actors however perform with great competence-especially Lou Castel as the matri-fratricide, Paola Pitagora as his sister, and Ciliana Gerace as the mother. The tableaux are often visually stunning, in the best tradition of Italian neorealism: the ennui and self-contempt of family meals at which the cat steals food from the blind mother's plate, the seedy despair of rooms where beds are never made, the solemn revelry of a dance in town...
Candy is not dandy for long; fighting the old ennui, Montand takes on a new assignment in Viet Nam. After he is listed as missing, wife and mistress separately recall the husband-lover who may be dead. Girardot muses over a few dry scraps of memories, while Bergen recites a maundering monologue: "I think I lost my youth ... a man of 40 stole it ... I'll fall in love with an American from Houston or Memphis . . . have children named John or Elizabeth . . ." After such a drizzly forecast, it is no wonder that when Montand is released by the Viet...