Word: novels
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Based on a novel by Leonard Wibberly (which I haven't read but have been informed is "deeper" than the movie) The Mouse tells the story of how Grand Fenwick--its economy threatened by an imitation American wine that drives its own product off the U.S. market--plots to make war on America, lose, and, as is customary with vanquished U.S. foes, be economically rehabilitated. The triad of hereditary rulers who run Grand Fenwick--creaking and Victorianesque Grand Duchess Glorianna, imperious Prime Minister Montjoy, and meek but good Tully Bascomb, a combination game warden and defense minister--are all played...
Michener's gigantic work loses pace in its final section, as the descendants of the New Englanders and their upstart adversaries seem to forget both animosities and identities, and the author drums busily for tourism and statehood (the novel was finished before statehood came last spring). Honolulu Resident Michener strives hard for a lyric quality as the two-party system triumphs and the barons and their onetime vassals sit happily together on the same interlocking directorates. But after all the blood and gusto, such gentle music is hardly audible...
Mere Mannerisms. Half a dozen variations on this theme help to dispel any notion of Dickens as irrepressibly comic. Other "best stories" of Editor Zabel's choosing include second-rate ghost thrillers and third-rate detective stories. At novel length, Dickens could create memorable caricatures, e.g., Mr. Micawber, Uriah Heep, Madame Defarge. In the short stories, his characters are mere mannerisms. In the novels, Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller produce idiosyncratic dialogue; in the short stories there is only an endless chatty...
Krishna Fluting, by JOhn Berry. An exotic, erotic, comic novel of Quakers in India, by a writer who seldom turns a mere journeyman's line...
...Treatment Man, by William Wiegand. A skillfully written novel about a prison riot that is also a prickly parable of power and evil...