Word: iv
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When novelists take liberties with historical events, they have a pat defense: if things did not happen that way, they should have. In embroidering upon the stormy marriage between the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and Caro line of Brunswick, Novelist Richard Condon takes this defense and stands it on its head. If things did not happen to the real people involved as they are described in The Abandoned Woman, so much the better for them...
...adventure is now reactionary." With loran, radar, autopilot and vintage wines, Buckley was not exactly blown across the ocean on a naked raft. Even the most venturesome solitary sailors today - men like Sir Francis Chichester, who circumnavigated the globe in 1966-67 in his 53-ft. boat Gipsy Moth IV - have the advantage of sophisticated hull and sail design. Says Tristan Jones, a small, bearded Welsh sailor who has circumnavigated the globe three times, crossed the Atlantic 18 times under sail, nine times alone: "The boats I sail wouldn't have existed before now. They are fitted with...
This time around, we get to watch Oliver Barrett IV, former model Harvard boy turned lonely do-gooder, deal with the loss of his wife and with his eventual self-discovery. The story picks up 18 months after Jenny's untimely death. Oliver has thrown himself into his work as a crusading liberal lawyer, coping with grief by shutting off all his emotions. He does not allow himself to think about other women, for he is consumed by guilt. In the last chapters of Love Story, Jenny tells "Preppie" not to feel guilty for robbing her of freedom and adventure...
...Story would have possibilities if Marcie Binnendale were the focal point, but Oliver's interior struggle is, and the book suffers as a result. The ill-fated romance is only a sidelight, an indication that Oliver finally has managed to overcome his bereavement. But the confessions of Oliver Barrett IV are conspicuously uninteresting. Page after page, Ollie exorcises his guilt for the excesses of his forebears, who exploited workers for generations in order to accumulate a spectacular fortune. Oliver is in position to inherit the tainted millions he rejected in Love Story, depending on Jenny, fostering his guilt over...
DESPITE THIS SOUL-SEARCHING, Oliver sells out in the end. Oliver III retires, and Oliver IV renounces his decision to abandon the family fortune he rejected so endearingly. At last, Oliver knows who he is--a widowed capitalist returning to the fold after a brief fling with radical chic. The Harvard dream--or nightmare--comes true with a vengeance in this otherwise deadly dull book...