Word: grasping
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Paradoxically, Flaubert's Parrot is an extraordinarily successful novel about failure, about the emptiness that remains in the scholarly grasp of anyone who tries to completely recapture the past. At one point, Braithwaite says in an aside: "I know this. Sometimes the past may be a greased pig; sometimes a bear in its den; and sometimes merely the flash of a parrot, two mocking eyes that spark at you from the forest." Braithwaite's--and the novel's--wisdom lies in his realization that the overgrown byways of literary history may not lead anywhere in particular, but the stroll itself...
WHAT THE PRESIDENT has failed to grasp is the difference between reconciliation and memory; the former does not preclude the latter. Our responsibility to remember the victims of the atrocities transcends any state of diplomatic relations between nations. It is not, as Reagan seems to believe, a choice between memory and good relations with Germany. It is not the President's responsibility to decide whether to view them either as allies or as descendants of the Nazis. They are both. And Reagan will visit as an ally...
Although Reagan, has agreed to stop at the site of Bergen-Belsen in addition to the Bitburg cemetery, nevertheless his staunch refusal to reconsider the Bitburg visit rightfully has provoked dismay about the President's grasp of the gravity of his action. His outrageous remarks last Thursday, in which he called the suffering of the Nazi soldiers comparable to that of murdered victims, shows an astonishing lack of comprehension and sensitivity which is appalling and frightening...
...driving south on Broadway sees a pedestrian whose "nice unimportant clothes seemed to be merely a shelter for the naked male person." She thinks, "Oh, man, in the very center of your life, still fitting your skin so nicely . . . why have you slipped out of my sentimental and carnal grasp?" Turning to a woman friend in the car, she says: "He's nice, isn't he?" The reply is vintage Paley: "I suppose so . . . but what is he, just a bourgeois on his way home...
...coming Matthew Broderick steals the show as Phillippe the Mouse, a devil-may-care pickpocket who saunters through impenetrable fortresses, subterranean passageways and enchanted forests. In the process of extricating himself from the grasp of some rather unsavory soldiers charges with reimprisonng the lawless but lovable Phillippe in the infamous prison of Aguila, our hero meets up with Nararre, the aforementioned chivalrous knight who rescues the Mouse just in time and spirits him off to safety...