Word: methodical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Finally, Donaldson reveals an imprecise grasp of the narrative method, the notion that one thing leads to another. He alludes to a reconciliation between Cheever and his son Ben without ever having explained when or why they were estranged. And Donaldson writes, "As his fame grew, so did the local demands on his time from libraries, colleges, and civic and cultural associations." Exactly two pages later, this sentence obtrudes: "Cheever's reputation was at its nadir...
...public TV, his cameras have observed institutions from a New York City welfare office to Dallas' Neiman-Marcus department store, all with the same unvarnished, fly-on-the-wall style. Even his titles -- Hospital, Welfare, Racetrack, The Store -- are stripped to the bluntly descriptive essentials. Behind Wiseman's minimalist method, however, is a subtle and perceptive artist. His enduring subject: the way people cope with the stress, dislocation and institutional indifference of American life...
...much earlier was that magic was sometimes misused. Hearing about miraculous happenings in local spiritualist churches, he decided to see for himself. Disaster. Watching the preacher divine the contents of sealed envelopes handed him by his parishioners, Randi, then 15, was outraged. "He was using the old 'one-ahead' method," Randi explains, still indignant. Striding to the pulpit, he fished one of the opened envelopes out of a wastebasket and accused the preacher of cheating. An uproar followed, and Randi was arrested for disturbing a religious meeting. At the police station, he vowed that he would someday fight back against...
...people together. Lucinda journeys to London, where she consults with the designer of the Crystal Palace, the glass-and-iron housing for the famed Exhibition of 1851, about new directions her factory should take. Oscar, meanwhile, successfully out of Oxford and teaching school, has begun to feel that his method of raising money, while not in itself sinful, has inspired unholy passions in his soul. He longs, in short, to bet on everything. So, on the toss of a coin, he decides that he has been chosen to "bring the word of Christ to New South Wales." He and Lucinda...
What is deficient at Harvard is not the ideal but the implementation. Core courses are too large, while teaching often falls to graduate students largely ignorant of the Core's larger goals. As facts take the place of method, the ghost of Henry Adams snickers...