Word: grimness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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With the Exxon Valdez disaster still grim and fresh in memory, any new spill would suffice to trigger a bad case of public jitters. As rotten luck would have it, last weekend brought three spills in a little more than twelve hours...
...This grim fantasy is engendered by exposure, in rapid succession, to the films underlying those last two presold titles and by the prospect of The Karate Kid III, Lethal Weapon II, Nightmare on Elm Street V and, heaven forfend, Friday the 13th VIII. Not to mention James Bond umpty-ump. The basic criticism of sequels is as familiar as it is correct: they represent the triumph of commercial caution over creative daring...
...faith that both Hong Kong and China placed in a common future, a visible symbol of the "one country, two systems" promised when the British crown colony reverts to China in 1997. Last week two enormous black-and-white banners drooped across the tower's facade bearing a grim message in Chinese characters: BLOOD MUST BE PAID WITH BLOOD...
Ealier in the week, Gorbachev had visited the scene of the explosion, acre after acre of which was scorched black by fire. "It seems once again that it is a matter of incompetence, irresponsibility, mismanagement," the grim and angry President told the Congress. "It was nothing less than a shameful outrage. There will be no progress in this country if we have such laxness." Gorbachev then exhorted his listeners to "learn hard lessons from what happened." Last week in the Soviet Union, there was no shortage of hard lessons...
...Goldsmith, Maria Edgeworth, Oscar Wilde) and then to such acknowledged modern masterpieces as James Joyce's The Dead and Frank O'Connor's The Majesty of the Law. The familiar mixes easily with material less so: William Carleton's eerie The Death of a Devotee, Bernard Mac Laverty's grim Life Drawing. All this diversity is held together by a common trait, an irresistible claim on attention, the written equivalent of a tug at the lapel or a hand on the shoulder. This book can be picked up and put down many times, but hardly ever in the middle...