Word: laval
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...SINGER Laval...
...their complacency about the nation's Nazi past and materialistic present. Still, Grass downgrades his role as a social or political critic. "The idea that writers are the conscience of the nation is pure nonsense," he says. Others disagree. Professor Wilhelm Johannes Schwarz of Quebec's Laval University, who has written a literary critique of Grass, calls the novelist "the direct descendant of Walther von der Vogelweide," a poet who in the 13th century stumped the German dukedoms in support of Kaiser Friedrich II's struggle to become Holy Roman Emperor. "Grass," says Schwarz, "is the only...
...France has already been liberated by the Allies. At Siegmaringen, French collaborators (including Celine) are huddled together, fearful of R.A.F. bombs, of their German masters and, most of all, of one another. In this bedlam, swarming with bizarre characters, are real personages from history like Pierre Laval and Marshal Petain, as well as the Communist poet Louis Aragon and Otto Abetz, Hitlers ex-Gauleiter in Paris. "A pack of the most rapacious wolves in Europe" Céline calls them, all betrayers of someone outside, all frenetically performing a dance of hate, fear and lechery...
...flood where only a drip had existed before. Capitalizing on the general state of disrepair among France's repairmen, SOS's two young owners have built up a $1,000,000-a-year business out of providing prompt and relatively effective service. Gerard Verger, 33, and Joel Laval, 31, started SOS (telephone SOS 99-99) in 1961 with two motorcycles and two trucks. Today, they operate 100 trucks, all radio-equipped, that are manned by a versatile crew of not only plumbers but carpenters, locksmiths, electricians, and appliance handymen-each with a trade-school diploma. Working...
...service has done so well that Verger and Laval have spread to seven other French cities, Vienna, Brussels and London. Half a dozen competing firms have started up in Paris, but Laval feels that the demand for fix up is still well ahead of the supply. Even SOS has recently turned down some calls for lack of men and trucks. "The service situation in France can't go anywhere but down," says he gleefully, and is making plans to double his fleet...