Word: motifs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Losey adds one character not found in the original, a mysterious young valet in black who hovers wordlessly in virtually every scene of the Don's, often exchanging intimate glances with him. A nemesis? An illegitimate son? A homosexual lover? (A dubious motif also suggested by the epicene revelers at the Don's supper.) The figure, mimed with sullen sensuality by Eric Adjani (Isabelle's brother), remains cryptic and annoyingly gratuitous. He does, however, make a perfect emblem for Losey's whole approach. This Don Giovanni deserves the old line once used by Dorothy Parker...
Baldwin's handling of the gospel music motif, which he weaves throughout the novel to mark the changes in Arthur's life, also warrants some criticism: readers lacking any exposure to gospel music may find the references hard to follow. This is important, since Baldwin depends on the music to evoke an atmosphere rarely found outside black churches. Those who can't understand the gospel theme can ignore it; still, having worked to incorporate that bit of black culture, it is sad the author failed to make the device serve the readers who most need "clues...
Along the way, there are vintage Jimmy McHugh songs to beguile the ear, notably Don't Blame Me, I Feel a Song Comin ' On, I Can 't Give You Anything but Love, Baby. A patriotic red-white-and-blue finale with a naval motif finds the chorus sporting frigates for headgear and sends most playgoers out of the house on a wave of euphoria...
Since Sagan clearly wrote the book for a general public, he should have trodden gingerly when he encountered political and religious issues. His consistent bumbling in these spheres is the unintentional leit-motif of Broca's Brain. When in doubt. Sagan shies away from the secular implications of his lofty ideas. In the course of declaring, for example, that we will one day have robots for garbagemen (at current prices, the human version are "expendable"). Sagan mentions hastily that "the effective re-employment of those human beings must, of course be arranged; but...that should not be too difficult." Such...
Nonetheless, Vonnegut's messages emerge from beneath the overplayed Harvard motif and a typically bizarre plot. Starbuck's biggest claim to fame, for example, amounts to a piddling job in the Nixon administration as the President's Special Advisor on Youth Affairs. His office, hidden in the dank basement of the White House, becomes the resting place for large sums of illicit Watergate pay-off money, and when the break-in and cover-up arrests are made, he is duly escorted to a minimum-security prison in Georgia--undergoing the pains of prison minus the Watergate infamy...