Word: novels
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Chinese character instinctively believes that life constantly swings between extremes, that the law is always change, reversal. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the most popular classical and historical novel in China, begins this way: "They say that the momentum of history was ever thus: the empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide." In any case, the Chinese leaders, preparing for a reversal of nearly everything that Mao Tse-tung taught, have proceeded by subtle indirection to prepare the masses for de-Maoification...
...migrates into the vocabulary of folklore. There it persists as a sort of handy hieroglyph for conjuring up popular memories of a time. So it is that "the '20s," as a phrase, evokes not only The Great Gatsby but more social lore than the entire text of the novel. Similarly, to allude to the '30s, the '40s, the '50s or the '60s is to speak volumes. In contrast, the '70s have not, so to speak, learned to talk...
Conventions are as American as HELLO MY NAME IS badges, loud sports coats, straw hats, brass bands and George F. Babbitt, the Middle American Everyman of his era whose adventures at an annual gathering of realtors filled a trenchant chapter of Sinclair Lewis' satirical 1922 novel Babbitt...
...Cult are solid documentaries. "It isn't War and Peace," admits Harwood, co-author of the Berkley book. Krause and his co-authors offer more sophisticated speculation about the psychological motives for Jonestown. One of the chapters is entitled "Scoop," a reference to Evelyn Waugh's satiric novel about journalists who cover an elusive crisis in a backward country. "A friend told me I would never write a book without a gun to my head," said Krause. Perhaps more editors and publishers should arm themselves...
Like a hermit crab, John Updike inhabits old but serviceable forms: the novel, short story and light verse, the Christian church, a duly consecrated marriage (his second) and a 19th century Massachusetts farmhouse. Both the artist and the man have discovered the vital irritants and ironic satisfactions of the familiar and traditional. His body of work grows with impressive regularity. He is a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and a fixed star at The New Yorker. Yet many critics have called him irrelevant, accused him of having nothing to say and proffered the supreme lefthanded compliment...