Word: grandeur
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Films used to portray New York City as a penthouse aerie, where tuxes and smart chat were mandatory. Moviegoers saw the jagged grandeur of Manhattan's skyline as a cardiogram of American sophistication. Fred Astaire used to symbolize New York; now Al Sharpton does, and the metropolis is just a detention center for too many folks you'd rather not dine with. Rank congestion is the norm; you can't buy your way out of the line of fire. Question: Does anyone still dream of coming to town and becoming a star? Funny answer: Yes, because New York's desperate...
...both setting and style, Follett has geared Night Over Water to provide maximum entertainment. Doomed grandeur is always attractive in a book, and placing the action aboard the last flight of a Clipper is an inspired move. Follett's decision to employ multiple points of view also aids the story, especially when the same situation is presented from several perspectives...
...undercurrent of these quarrels is a yearning for a new national myth, a sense of grandeur and destiny. As author Barzini points out, it was Francois Rene de Chateaubriand, the great Romantic writer, who said of his compatriots, "They must be led by dreams." De Gaulle, after founding the Fifth Republic in 1958 and establishing a presidential form of government verging on monarchy, set France apart from NATO, apart from "the Anglo-Saxons" -- conveniently lumping in superpower America with France's ancient enemy, England -- and even, in important ways, apart from Europe...
Delusions of grandeur are Sununu's biggest problem. He craves the challenge of public life but demands the perks of the corporate suite. His need for the trappings of power is so great that he chose to spend five hours enthroned in the back of a dark-windowed sedan rather than 45 minutes in steerage on the shuttle flight to New York...
Such is the peculiar intimacy that develops between hunters and quarry. Big Paul Castellano, as the admiring authors describe him, had a certain gritty grandeur. There was one unshakable rule for his boys in the Gambino family: no dealing in drugs. He accepted fiscal tribute from his capos with the lofty dignity of an Indian raja being given his weight in gold by his subjects. And he could discuss, with almost Socratic detachment, the subtleties of when or whether to "whack" a customer who had fallen behind in paying the vig on an extortionate loan...