Word: lostness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ross said he fell from his third floor balcony. "I was on my porch, getting a breath of fresh air, sitting on the railing when I lost my balance," he said, adding that he did not know how long he lay on the sidewalk before he was discovered...
Thomas McGuane has lost his way since the days of The Bushwhacked Piano and does not find it in his new novel, whose aimlessness raises thoughts of old ranch buildings fallen to ruin. His hero, Joe Starling, is a brilliant painter who no longer paints (hello there, Papa H.). Becalmed, then stirred by the faintest of internal winds, he returns from the staleness of the East Coast to Montana, where he has inherited a cattle spread. Here the author novelizes industriously, with small effect. Events occur; characters are brought to life, then enter, speak and exit; but Joe remains...
...time even registered ivory reaches Japan, the link with Africa is all but lost. On the wall of the Fuso Trading Co. in downtown Tokyo is a photograph of a lone elephant standing in silhouette against a red sunset. "We don't know exactly what country the ivory originated from, very sorry," says company accountant Miyako Yoshida. Last year the company imported 4.5 tons of ivory from Singapore, of which 2.5 tons went for making piano keys. Once Yoshida and a customer saw a film in which an elephant was shot. She said they covered their eyes in horror...
...were false. Kitagawa says he believed the documents were valid and trusted the ivory's seller, whose name he no longer remembers. There is no evidence that Kitagawa violated any laws, but the rules allowed him to purchase ivory that had been confiscated or whose origins in Africa were lost in the myriad transactions between that continent and Japan. Under "country of origin," some of the export permits say only "unknown" or are blank. Kitagawa bought 13 tons in Singapore last year and twelve tons from Burundi...
...Corky gets a chance, over some parental reservations, to baby-sit for a six-year-old boy. Again credibility is dashed by melodramatic overkill. That night the fire department has to evacuate the house because of a gas leak. When a neighbor driving them to a nearby shelter gets lost, the little boy runs away and winds up at the bottom of a ravine. Corky comes to the rescue, lowering himself on a rope and climbing out with the boy on his back in a climax worthy of The Great Escape...