Word: masterful
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...writes only because he must. In comparing his work to the virtuosity of Joyce, he says, "The kind of work I do is one in which I'm not the master of my own material...My little exploration is the whole zone of being that has always been set aside by artists as something unusable--as something by definition incompatible with art." Although this assessment sounds overly self-deprecatory, it points out the reduction in the scope and power of creator and character--the self--which is central to all Beckett's work. It is not that Beckett lacks...
...acceptable under Faculty auspices, the introduction this year of a Certificate of Advanced Study for the equivalent of a year's work beyond the bachelor's level, and the expansion of the school into granting graduate degrees in areas not covered by other Harvard faculties, like offering a master's in Applied Arts or Liberal Studies...
...cost and night-availability of classes are primary. Two hundred and fifty recent immigrants to the U.S. are enrolled in the Extension School's language courses. About 7 per cent of the students come to the school already holding a bachelor's degree, over 16 per cent with a master's. For most, the purpose is enrichment, but 60 per cent of the 6 per cent who do receive degrees go on for further graduate work, many of them at Harvard...
Something is much amiss here, and Sherlock Holmes should be just the man to put it right. Unfortunately, Holmes may be on hand in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, but he is not fully present. He appears quite prominently-gamely played by Nicol Williamson-but the spirit of the master sleuth is nowhere to be found. Instead of pursuing his customary invigorating adventures, Holmes becomes enmeshed in a slack, sorry matter involving anti-Semites, a pasha, an abducted actress, a train race and Dr. Sigmund Freud...
...Seven-Per-Cent Solution puts one wistfully in mind of Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), a lovely, melancholy evocation of the master sleuth. It was a ravishing movie, misunderstood and ignored on its first release. Now should be just the time for another look at it. The movie features portraits of Holmes (by Robert Stephens) and Watson (by Colin Blakely) that are virtually definitive and thoroughly captivating. Director Wilder showed respect for Conan Doyle, with out slavish devotion, and managed to make the two sleuths real men even as he dealt with them...