Word: magical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...WITH a certain mixture of dread and excitement that one finds John Updike undertaking the material of magic and witcheraft in his latest novel. The Witches of Eastwick. Updike is a terrific writer, this book should because for excitement. But he is also innocent of magic; in the way that one's marden great aunt is probably innocent of sex: one dreads his first chapter as one avoids bringing up procreation with auntie...
...farce that to the novel as it is traditionally understood. Although Updike has a refreshing faith in Christian grace, he does not seem capable of addressing the companion doctrine of damnation can such a man wisely choose to write about witches? Moreover, the plot ignores the literary possibilities of magic: writers such as Robertson Davies and Iris Murdoch have put magical material to broader and more interesting uses...
...with all great cinema, makes Bachelor Party strangely disquieting, for it raises more questions than it can answer. Does the final marriage scene imply that mankind is saying "I do" to his own self-destruction? Is the consummation of marriage really only an invitation an voyage to the magic mountain of moral turpitude? Or is it just having your chain yanked by the almighty...
...center-right's cries of victory, there was uncertainty over how to deal with the far-right National Front, which shrilly advocates old-fashioned morality and the return of France's 4.45 million immigrants to their countries of origin. The center-right fell well below the magic 50% that would have allowed it to boast that it represented "the real majority" in France...
...then Magic mishandled it twice. In the back of his mind, Johnson said, he was trying to atone for his transgressions...