Word: foolishness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Shepard's earlier works are weakened by attempts to universalize uninteresting and generally ludicrous particulars. The characters are two-dimensional, artificial constructions; their conversations are heavy-handed and foolish. Shepard's early tendency toward bald, over stated symbolism has mellowed to produce the subtle, relevant statements of his most recent works, Buried Child and True West...
...then of the virtue of noticing the smaller prosaic things and events which often go unnoticed. Whether reading about "poisonous and nonpoisonous varieties of the genus Amanita" mushrooms, or the skin in sheddings of garter snakes, one is thrilled. The sobering comes shortly after, when one remembers the criminally foolish president and his similarly foolish and greedy followers who strive to make the water, as and ground unlivable for mushrooms, garter snakes and people
...know not where, absurdity becomes dangerous, and no longer only sad, as was Jakob's bitter luxury. Next time, no one will read of an old man's cold pleasures, of musing over weak tea about shattered, harmonies and faded memories, in ruins wrought by creatures who, in their foolish scribblings, advised their children to crouch under school desks so as to hide from the blast...
French department Chairman Charles Porter, who opposed the new requirement, said that "it would be foolish to create the sense of bad will which you get with requirements." Most students at Yale know a second language before coming to college, he added...
...Haig's view, accommodation with the Marxist, pro-Cuban Sandinistas was foolish because Nicaragua was already "lost." Meanwhile, the government of El Salvador, which has committed itself to land reform and fair elections, stands threatened by subversion; El Salvador's conquest by leftist rebels would have a falling-domino effect on the fragile democratic government in neighboring Honduras as well as the insurgency-threatened rightist regime in Guatemala. Haig's ultimate fear is that the entire region, from Mexico to Panama, might fall into the Soviet orbit, which would not only threaten America's vital security...