Word: godly
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...devoted readers have learned, after 21 novels, to expect abstract, philosophic patterns beneath the beguiling surface of her fiction. The Good Apprentice, No. 22, seems designed to shake admirers out of such complacency. Murdoch includes most of her by now familiar clues to deeper meanings: constant references to God, lesser deities, the devil, good, evil, myths, legends, magic, and the power of elemental forces like water to nurture and destroy. But this time out, such allusions do not point toward an order underlying reality. They mirror instead a dazzling chaos of Murdoch's invention...
...discomfit him. Stuart, his son by his first wife, has suddenly dropped out of his university studies in mathematics, renounced sex, and proclaimed his intention to help others and to lead a good life. His cynical father comments, "He wants to be like Job, always in the wrong before God, only he's got to do it without God...
Edward accurately describes the novel in which he appears. The Good Apprentice is a tour de force of narrative energy. It also includes the provocative remarks ("If Newton hadn't believed in God he would have discovered relativity," or "Psychoanalysis attracts failed artists") that have become a hallmark of Murdoch's dialogue. But in raising expectations that all the frantic activity she describes will finally lead to some sort of understanding, the author finally sets herself up for a fall. A last word of sorts is left to Harry: "No one can avoid muddle." That is probably true. But Murdoch...
...likely to die in car accidents as in plane crashes. Secor Browne, former chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board and now a Washington consultant, calls aviation easily "the safest mode of transportation." He adds, "If you're afraid to fly, then you better not take a bath, and God forbid, don't get in your...
...point he recalls a moment when he and his companions came upon the scene that would become his most famous image, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941). With the last rays of sunset striking the tiny settlement, Adams scrambled to set up his camera, shouting "Get that, for God's sake! We don't have much time!" Not much, but enough for an artist of sublime sensibility to catch light on the run and keep it forever. --By Richard Lacayo