Word: parrot
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...tone of the title -- both grandiose and self-mocking -- accurately reflects the contents. Julian Barnes, whose third novel, Flaubert's Parrot (1985), earned an army of readers outside his native Britain, has here gathered a collection of prose pieces, nominally fiction, that cohere chiefly by virtue of being bound together in one book. The affair kicks off with a termite's view of the adventures of Noah and his ark. (Noah, it turns out, was not a particularly nice fellow, and his epic voyage was less than heroic in its details.) Matters then proceed through a number of other diverting...
...world of the Spanish seacoast is too astonishing to allow prolonged brooding. Remembering misty Ireland and rainy London, Anna is constantly dazzled by the light: "The sun blazed and emphasized everything, sugar crumbs on a plate which the previous person had left, the white gold of the watch, a parrot on its lead, its greenness seeming to vibrate." Such moments partake of the miraculous. Equally remarkable is O'Brien's ability to make Anna's narrative seem casual, almost random, when in fact each incident, each encounter, adds another piece to a puzzle that Anna must solve. The villagers begin...
...resumed a career that had made him celebrated as the comic foil of Groucho Marx, George Burns and, most memorably, Jack Benny. It was for the Benny show that he regularly played a polar bear, an antique car, a "Union Depot train caller" ("Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc . . . amonga!"), a parrot, a Mexican ("What's your name?" "Sy." "Sy?" "Si"), and the choleric Professor LeBlanc, Jack's violin teacher: "Meester Be-nee, could I have some water, please?" "Water? Yes. There's some in the cooler down the hall." "That ees not enough. I would like to drown myself...
...broken triangle repairs itself upon the death of Urbino, who comes to his demise while chasing his parrot from a tropical tree. At the funeral, Florentino arrives to declare his undying love for the widow, and he and Fermina resume their relationship of a half century before, celebrating their union with a riverboat journey. The president of the riverboat company, Florentino has the boat's captain take advantage of the ever-present cholera epidemic to hoist the yellow flag of quarantine so that the lovers never have to disembark and can celebrate their love "forever...
...year, most of them around the southwest part of the Square. The Coalition guidelines identified several projects as too dense or too high, including the replacement to the Club Casablanca building, a commercial-office complex slated to replace the Harvard Motor Inn, and the building to replace the Blue Parrot...