Word: perfervidly
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...fate of The Thorn Birds will certainly not hang on literary merit. With the broadest strokes and the most perfervid prose, the novel traces three generations of the Cleary family-from poverty in New Zealand to wealth in Australia to triumphs on the London stage and in the Vatican. None of the Clearys, however, is as interesting as Australia itself. McCullough knows how to stage convincing droughts, floods and fires. Even her descriptions of landscapes sometimes flare into life...
Within such brackets of past and future, the United States will celebrate its 200th anniversary this weekend-a culminating moment of raucous blowout compounded of Disneyland pageantry and kitsch, perfervid oratory, sentiment and sentimentality, dissent, 10,000 miles of bunting, phalanxes of politicians and majorettes in a din of John Philip Sousa brass, and tons of fireworks splashing in the dazzled night...
Jonathan's mother starts a perfervid affair with an American seaman, Jim (Kris Kristofferson), which her son also observes intently through his knothole. Jonathan liked Jim when they first met, thought him strong, worldly and commanding, but soon has a new viewpoint. Mom's sailor may have been fine on the ocean, where he was part of "the pure and perfect order of things," but away from his rightful place, he becomes an imperfect creature, a subject of jealousy and contempt who must be done away with. Jonathan consults the Chief, who had previously persuaded his minions...
...very dawn of the new century. The occasion is a transcontinental road race, "the greatest sporting event," one perfervid announcer claims, "since Spartacus." Indeed, this particular race combines some of the more popular elements of both the Colosseum and the Indianapolis 500. The winner must not only get to the finish line first but rack up the greatest number of points. This is accomplished by the tactic of running over any pedestrians who can be found along the course. Since the race starts in New York and ends in New Los Angeles several days later, a large part...
...Senator (after Democrat Henry M. Jackson) and the most intelligent. But in the aftermath of Watergate, his virtues have the appearance of vices to some outraged citizens. A cautious, scrupulous politician, he rarely speaks out on an issue until he has absorbed all the facts. He was not a perfervid critic of Nixon during Watergate, and on occasion defended the beleaguered President. For this reason, he is sometimes portrayed as a political trimmer without sufficient principle at a time when ethical purity seems to be valued above everything else...