Word: glasse
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...morning last week, after Billy was taken by his mother to the bath, there were childish screams followed by sounds of glass shattering, then silence. Two building inspectors who happened to be in the house were told of Billy's aversion to bathing and left after rattling the bolted bathroom door...
PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES by Shirley Hazzard. 179 pages. Knopf...
...people in this glass house throw pebbles, not stones, and such damage as they do is not to flesh but to sensibilities. Since the house is tall, stands on the bank of Manhattan's East River and is a monument to international good works, it may be as well to see it as U.N. headquarters. Shirley Hazzard calls it simply the Organization-though she worked at the U.N. for ten years. The characters represent many nations, but, above all, they represent one way of life. What they do and say provides a fictional counterpart to William Whyte...
...dislikes. When a personnel functionary (whose child does not learn to talk but to "verbalize") searches for a damning phrase, he hotly charges a subordinate with "unilateral action." Even workers in the "field" when making a report must learn the lingo that will impress their chiefs back in the glass house: "As you know, the object of the Civic Coordination Programme is to tap the dynamics of social change in terms of local aspirations for progress...
People in Glass Houses clearly asks if big-time idealism is not apt to be as dehumanizing as large-scale anything. The point is neatly made when the Director General departs from his prepared address on Staff Day to pay his respects to the need" for holding on to "one's secret identity." The half-asleep come awake. Throats are cleared. The interpreters hesitate. Is this organizational heresy at the highest level? "I don't quite know," says one of the listeners later. "I think I felt heartened to hear something said merely because it was felt. Still...