Word: grasping
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...well known in Yugoslavia for a heroic novel (Tifo) and some short stories. Critics there praise him for his efforts to establish social satire in Yugoslavia (despite the fact that as director of the National Museum he is obliged to take the government seriously). But his grasp of the satiric method is so masterful that he keeps several lines of intent running at once-the narrative, the lesson, the joke-creating an impression of charm, not bitterness, of critical appreciation, not disloyalty. To make a point, he follows Voltaire's example and speaks in Panglossian didactics: "When...
...concepts are expressed verbally, Aiken stated; for example, authority is evidenced in many ways, and primarily not enough verbal expressions. In this case "linguistic analysis alone won't grasp the problem." If not limited to words and the conventional uses of expressions, analysis can be directed "to the meanings of ethical terms and to the ideals and standards which we call a way of life...
...much for ICBMs. Before McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were accustomed-as one New Frontiersman puts it-"to render advice as though it were engraved on stone." Today, the Whiz Kids assemble the facts and the alternatives-including unorthodox possibilities-so that the Secretary of Defense can grasp the whole problem and make up his mind for himself...
...This is a most intellectual sport," he asserts in a vivid description of the internal conflict that he experienced during his first jump. "On the one hand is the fact of its safety: you grasp this easily and firmly with the mind. But on the other hand is the emotion of fear. It is so strong that you might want to call it an instinct. It is not, of course. This fear is very useful, and you have learned it from your earliest days of falling out of your high-chair...
Close your eyes, you say. That doesn't help, for her Shakespearean diction is monotonous, and she shows not the slightest grasp of the music and rhythm of the lines. She ruins Lady Macbeth's crucial "We fail?" and, as Portia, she delivers "The quality of mercy is not strained" as a question. What on earth is one to make of that...