Word: fictions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Rebecca West, after one of Ibsen's strong-minded heroines, and then spent much of her life in the public spotlight. In 1912 she began a tumultuous ten- year affair with H.G. Wells and in 1914 bore him a son; meanwhile, her writing began to attract attention. She produced fiction, biography, history, criticism and a steady supply of journalism. She espoused feminism in its early wave and patriotism during the period after World War II when her native England reeled with self-doubt. Although she died in 1983, at age 90, Dame Rebecca remains in prominent view. Last year...
Trying to convert the past into fiction is no small act of faith either. The historical novelist must believe that he can be adequately inspired by old documents when, in fact, his imagination is better served by direct experience. Moore cites as his sources eyewitness reports and church records used by 19th century Historian Francis Parkman for his classic The Jesuits in North America. The novelist does not mention that it is hard to improve on this enthralling narrative, with its zealous clerics snatching souls from "the fangs of the 'Infernal Wolf' " and its droll view of the New World...
...interesting as the question is, whether Sarah Phillips is autobiography or fiction is irrelevant. As fiction, the stories reveal a fine craftmanship; some passage are as lightly knit as poetry. Describing Sarah in Paris. Lee is not afraid to be flippant about subjects that cause other writers to tread lightly--if they tread at all: "I had graduated from Harvard, having just turned twenty-one. I was tall and lanky and light-skinned, quite pretty in a nervous sort of way. I came out of college equipped with an unfocused snobbery, vague literary aspirations and a lively appetite for white...
...computer requirements are straight out of science fiction. Computers would have to keep track of tens of thousands of objects (warheads, decoys, smart rocks) moving at high speeds, analyze instantly billions of bits of information from sensors and weapons platforms, determine which weapons to fire, when to fire them and at what targets. Not only could no human write such a program unassisted, no human could check it for errors. That would have to be done by computer too. James Fletcher, who headed the Administration's original S.D.I. study, estimates the program might have to be put through 50 million...
Though the names of the novel's characters have the ring of Restoration comedy, Money owes much of its drive to contemporary American fiction. Unlike most British novelists, Amis projects a large and raucous vision. He seems to have learned his heightened personal voice from Saul Bellow, the humorous uses of inverted logic from Joseph Heller and his naughty bits from Philip Roth. In fact, Self can be just as shocking and funny as Alexander Portnoy, an accomplishment not likely to go unnoticed. Amis' new novel should have feminists calling for blood and entertainment packagers trying to raise the ghost...