Word: overlong
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Like Nixon, Morrow sometimes lets his own internal monologue loose. He spends five puzzling pages comparing Nixon to the actress and sex-symbol Lana Turner, of all people, arguing that they both “were isolated, manipulative, calculating, detached.” Even Morrow acknowledges that the overlong exercise is “on the face of it, a preposterous and frivolous comparison,” and the narrative flow, which is interrupted by a mini-biography of Turner, would have benefited from its absence. At times, the book feels more like a biographical pastiche of famous figures rather...
...Soviet leader's euphoric reception in Britain last December: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher saying she could do business with him; former Defense Minister Denis Healey finding Gorbachev like a "Western intellectual, a poet." Then came Dolan's version: ominous shots of Soviet troops parading and an overlong interview with Republican Senator Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire, who believes that so long as there is fighting in Afghanistan, there should be no talking at Geneva. (Secretary of State George Shultz, who in committee hearings can listen stonily to most congressional critics, recently admonished Humphrey, "Come off it, Senator.") As NBC Correspondent...
...then God cannot." What's unmistakable is the lesson for today. Muslims and Christians? Holy war? The message is loud and clear - play nice. But with a narrative as lumpy as melting feta, that's not enough to hold our interest. Ten years of tinkering have resulted in an overlong book with trademark flashes of high emotion splattered among a disjointed cast of characters - sensibility without much sense. It may be hard for any author to hear, but what we truly want from De Bernières is a little less...
...right, that was an easy one. The year was 1996, and the adviser was Dick Morris (and no, they couldn't stop the story). The scene is from The Clinton Wars (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 822 pages), Sidney Blumenthal's long-awaited, overlong account of his years at the White House, which, in rare moments, has some of the you-are-there, walk-with-me charm and snap of the TV show...
...wait for the movie. Read The Crimson Petal and the White now, while it's still a living, laughing, sweating, coruscating mass of gorgeous words. Don't be put off by the setting--London, 1874--or the length, or that unfortunate, overlong stuffed shirt of a title. Don't worry about its author's ominously French-sounding name (Faber is actually a Scot by way of Holland and Australia). Ever since last fall readers have been watching for another knockdown, breakout book on the order of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. It's here...