Word: parallel
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Ever since his first novel, The Tin Drum, exploded into international bestsellerdom in 1963, Gunter Grass has pursued two parallel careers. He continued to write fiction (Dog Years, Local Anaesthetic, The Flounder), as well as plays and poetry, that enhanced his worldwide reputation. He also plunged energetically into politics, working on behalf of West Germany's Social Democratic Party, speaking out against the superpower arms race, and hectoring with particular fervor the Western democracies. Planners of literary conferences learned that one sure way to garner attention was to snare Grass as a participant. He could, at the very least...
South Viet Nam, 1969. Somewhere below the 17th parallel. About midnight. It was called Operation Hot Tamale. Quietly but firmly, Second Lieut. Oliver North roused his combat-weary men from their makeshift bunks. "We have to get ourselves a prisoner," he told them. Peace talks were going on in Paris, and the U.S. was claiming the North Vietnamese were operating unofficially inside the demilitarized zone. North's superiors wanted a prisoner for interrogation...
With blackened faces, North and his men crept through the dark, scarred landscape of the DMZ but could not find a single enemy soldier. North was determined to return home with the goods. Suddenly his team spied a North Vietnamese guard across the 17th parallel, inside North Viet Nam. North did not hesitate. He and a comrade stole across the border, wounded the guard and dragged him back into South Viet Nam. Mission accomplished. Keep mum about this, the lieutenant told his troops when they got back...
Only 27 miles north of embattled Seoul, across the 38th parallel, is another Korea, in every sense an opposite to the turbulent, economically dynamic South. Hunkered behind miles of barbed wire and minefields, Communist North Korea is a constant, sometimes threatening presence in South Korean life. Spartan, plodding, more regimented than all but a few other Communist nations, it seems to act with one corporate mind. That mind belongs to Kim Il Sung, 75, the "Great Leader" who has been whipping North Korea into a model Communist state for 39 years. Kim's stable despotism is backed...
...parallel seems to end there. Wisdom teeth are not funny. Guterman is. With a wry, self-deprecating wit, he attempted to explain what it's like to be a physics major-computer science jock-animator-filmmaker-artist-Harvard student. "Harvard is a sunny day, a leisurely stroll through the Harvard Yard...