Word: insights
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...This insight concludes Tamar, the story of a man who is late for a dinner party and made to sit with the children, one of whom is a beauty on the brink of womanhood. Exquisite tension, indeed. Elsewhere, a man numbed by tragedy climbs out of himself by scaling an Alp. The purpose: to recapture his humanity "in a crucible of high drama." Humanity sinks in Letters from the "Samantha, " in which the captain of a British sailing vessel rescues a reddish ape from the Indian Ocean but throws it back when the sad, manlike creature disrupts ship...
Among newspaper critics, Shales is the most admired, though John O'Connor of the New York Times may have more clout because of his proximity to Broadcast Row. The Shales style is a fast-paced blend of insight, humor and an almost possessive affection for the medium. He can write lovingly, as he did in "Dingbat's Demise," his column about the death of All in the Family's Edith Bunker: "Wife, mother, grandma, neighbor ... philosopher, cook, mender of socks, bringer of beers, keeper of the faith ... Edith, Edith, Edith, how could you ever...
...Galbraith's contemporaries, combine his proximity to the central events of the era, and his mastery of the English language; this combination alone would make A Life in Our Times a worthy endeavor. Yet Galbraith has something beyond the advantages of access and writing skill--insight into the human heart. That insight might not extend into the knowledge of his own soul (at least for public consumption), but it is a rare talent, displayed to great advantage in his memoirs, and, consequently, worth celebrating...
...bride-to-be Suzanne with plots of his own, he acts more like an lago than a Prospero. Karen Macdonald's Suzanne follows his lead--spleen overbalances sweetness. Harry Murphy's smug Count and Cheryl Ginannini's hoarse, pouting Countess are closer to the mark--he displays all the insight of a brontosaurs, she the passivity of a wildcat. These are Beaumarchais' hollow hulks of aristocracy waiting for someone...
...never asks why students in their teens decide to give up their twenties for the grind of endless school and the care of dying patients. The psychology of his classmates is entirely absent. Conversations are included only to post straw men or to make points; they rarely give insight into the speakers. As far as LeBaron can tell, his classmates are there only because they are fourth generation HMS or the children of the faculty...