Word: pointlessness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Pointless writing like that--and examples could be taken from almost every piece in the issue--is not only offensive, it is also dull. One thinks of Harry Truman's reaction to the Follies Bergere: "It was okay for the first few minutes, but you get tired of watching a lot of naked women bounce around after a while." The editors and the writers will undoubtedly insist that their frankness shows life as it is, that openness about sex belongs to the new trend in literature, and that the artist must be honest. Few would disagree with them. But proportion...
Scenes, character and incidents shrink from one another like people trapped in an elevator trying not to inhale. A large part of the book is amusing, fragmented, pointless reminiscence by the writer. Another part is solemn bosh about time and reality. One character is admired for having escaped into the past, apparently because he lives (he is not dead after all) in a troll-infested castle. Another runs a progressive school in which the past is ignored on the ground that if it had any value, it would not be past. People go around saying things like...
...chance, as much as strength and skill, is always a part of bulldogging. It begins with the draw, by lot, for the stock, and like a torero with a bad bull, a cowboy with a bum steer is faced with a pointless afternoon. "There's some steers that won't cooperate," drawls Bynum. "The thing you like is a small, long neck, with good horns, not real long, not real short...
...issues of weaponry and strategy and turned to the military for support. The virtual assurance that violation would be detected, the right of withdrawal from the agreement, and the reassurances regarding inadvertant recognition of East Germany have made the argument about the scheming Red Russians seem somewhat rote and pointless, even to a few of the treaty's detractors...
...Pianos Mecaniques by Henri-Francois Rey. A French bestseller highly praised by the critics, Pianos is a sort of Dolce Vita set on Spain's Costa Brava whose main characters-a schizophrenic journalist, a neglected teen-age boy and girl, a half-wit charwoman-move through their pointless lives battling boredom with promiscuity. Sample passage: "She led him to the bed, still keeping their lips locked. Vincent lay down. Jenny detached herself. She began to undress him, with sure clean motions...