Word: hermits
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Like a hermit crab, John Updike inhabits old but serviceable forms: the novel, short story and light verse, the Christian church, a duly consecrated marriage (his second) and a 19th century Massachusetts farmhouse. Both the artist and the man have discovered the vital irritants and ironic satisfactions of the familiar and traditional. His body of work grows with impressive regularity. He is a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and a fixed star at The New Yorker. Yet many critics have called him irrelevant, accused him of having nothing to say and proffered the supreme lefthanded compliment...
...could one imagine a connection between Santayana and Jones's cult? Santayana--the philosopher of the American consciousness, the dissector of our spiritual heritage; the rationalist Harvard professor, the ascetic hermit; the half-Spanish, half-Boston Brahmin writer who knew the spirit of this country so well yet found it troubling and oppressive--what did Jim Jones see in his words? Surely there is some subterranean meaning in this strange confluence of philosophies...
Neglected Lives even has a point to it. The title refers to all of the characters and their sadly solitary lives--each one is enveloped in a cocoon of lonliness, from the crazed general who spends his days shooting monkeys who make forays into his orchard to the old hermit having the life sucked out of him in a house infested with leeches. The characters trapped in the jungle village dream of escape from their solitude, but the city-dwellers are no better...
...very traditional (your uncle who went here probably led them when he was an undergrad), but after all, sort of bland. The Crimson Key Society, which runs these officially-approved tours, makes the University attractive and awe-inspiring. But after that, if you have any more curiosity than a hermit crab, you'll want to find out what the place is really like...
During his Magazine Management days, Puzo never stopped his intake of calories or his output of serious fiction. His second novel, The Fortunate Pilgrim, drew heavily on his childhood experiences. Again he found an audience of enthusiastic reviewers, but few paying readers. The author remained a hermit to New York literary life, though he had some close writing friends. Among those in his regular card-playing group was Joseph Heller. Recalls Puzo: "I used to get mad at him and throw his papers around. How could I know that the stuff was going to be Catch...