Word: francos
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Although A Very Long Engagement has been a huge box office success in France and has generated Oscar talk in some quarters, Jeunet does not wish to raise his hopes too high. With the recent court ruling and Franco-mocking critics everywhere, awards may be elusive. But if he is nominated for an Oscar, Jeunet expresses some minor worries, “[Then] I’m in deep shit. My suit is too small...
...News from Paraguay is the story of Ella Lynch, a lovely, lusty young Irishwoman who in 1854 meets and arouses the ardor of Francisco Solano Lopez, the cruel and debauched son of the dictator of Paraguay. Francisco--"Franco" to his friends and numerous enemies--spirits Ella off to his homeland, a half-savage tropical Eden complete with snakes and crocodiles and cannibals, oh my, where they live in conspicuous luxury until Franco (who is, like Ella, an actual historical figure) leads the country into a disastrous war with Brazil...
This is an odd book. Much of it consists of gorgeous, very precise descriptions of the hideous misfortunes that befall the people who surround Ella and Franco. They suffer diphtheria, syphilis, scalding, torture, drowning, stabbing, smallpox, gunfire and, in a couple of instances, grisly botched amputations. None of that bothers Ella and Franco much. They are like cruel children: dreamy, whimsical, pleasure loving, utterly lacking in remorse or the kind of inward reflection one hopes for from characters in novels. In one scene Franco viciously whips a dog because it resembles a dog that bit him when he was little...
...Franco is not an implausible dictator, but he is exceptionally repugnant, and Tuck never makes clear what greater truth his repugnance conveys. As a result, The News from Paraguay remains a beautifully written but curiously cold and creepy novel. One wishes that it had not won the NBA, not because it has nothing to offer readers but because the award makes one expect something from it that it does not have: greatness. --By Lev Grossman
...thousands strong in Harvard Square to protest Hanfstaengl’s visit. Other students fought to end discrimination against Jewish students and professors within the University. Half a dozen students even volunteered for combat in Spain in 1936, fighting against the combined forces of Hitler and fascist general Francisco Franco. At least one, philosophy student Eugene Bronstein, was killed in battle, but his name appears nowhere in campus memorials to Harvard’s war dead. It is time for Harvard to honor those who saw what was happening when the University turned a blind eye, those who acted against...