Word: points
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...song I sing, and live and die a Pirate King.” The strength of the supporting cast sometimes threatens to overwhelm Frederic’s character—which Nelson, either purposefully or not, imbues with a sense of weakness—but that is, perhaps, the point. Frederic—who stubbornly holds to his idea of duty even in morally complex situations—is essentially a feeble character, and only his love for Mabel begins to change that...
...manifesto.’ The term implies the creation of an innovative world view, philosophy, or theory—basically, the advent of something new. And although Shields certainly believes his book to elucidate the development of a new art form, one that blurs to the point of invisibility the “distinction between fiction and nonfiction” as per “the lure and blur of the real,” what he advocates is not exactly new, and, as such, does not—at least in terms of content—earn its status...
...rather the truth—or, in other words, the “reality”—one conveys. Shields writes, “[It’s] not the story. It’s just this breathtaking world—that’s the point.” If these are the foundations of Shields’ manifesto, has all of this not been said before? Can Shields be given credit for tracking the development of a “new” art form that, considering the work of artists as diverse as Virginia Woolf...
...came of age, seems a bit out of sequence. While the ideas Shields espouses—a greater emphasis on truth instead of the artificiality inherent in traditional narrative structures—are valid, they seem to be ideas that most students of literature will have encountered at some point or other in their career. In other words, it is the novelty Shields believes his book to carry—the fact that he considers it a manifesto to herald in a new age that seems to have arrived long ago—that is the problem...
...dragged on for two or three songs too many, and though it began energetically, it felt like he could have better maintained the pace. “I haven’t done a show this sober in a year,” he told the audience at one point, and perhaps the deficiency of liquid courage explains why his performance dropped off towards the end. The rapper’s flow should not be overlooked; multiple unaccompanied verses by Wale exhibited his natural talent at the art. However, he seemed to fail at inserting this skill into his normal...