Word: polisher
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Michener is entirely preoccupied with his political message: "Personal freedom was the lifeblood of Poland, but the supreme irony was that its freedom-loving citizens were not able to develop those same mental forms which could preserve that freedom." He sets up rigid dichotomies between Polish culture and the surrounding barbarism. The monomania goes to the point where he assets that Germany and Russia invaded Poland solely to allay the fear that their common people would envy the conditions of the Poles and be incited to rebel. He makes no mention of Poland's immense strategic value or her rich...
This political bias is partly inherent in the book's structure. It begins and ends in 1981 when Polish farmers attempt to organize a union. The fictional organizers meet with stiff opposition from Polish communist leaders and more obliquely from Soviet officials. Sandwiched between these opening and closing chapters are flashbacks to earlier Polish history. The reader is supposed to reach the concluding chapter with an even greater sympathy for the David of the situation, but Michener forces the sentiment...
...CONSISTENCY of the roles of three families is probably justified by the rigid class structure of Polish society and the book makes that point well. But it does not explain the precasting of the three families who serve as protagonists: the major nobles are wise and selfless, the petty nobles brave, but not extremely intelligent, the peasants stalwart and forthright. Under the combined weight of political and individual stereotypes, Poland is merely a vehicle for the characters' political platitudes. Even in the most romantic and stirring public scenes, personal characters get buried. The following is a scene from turn...
...lesbian participation. Even before last Thursday's evaluation meeting could begin, a debate erupted between the National Anti-Racist Organizing Committee and the American Jewish Congress over the war in Lebanon. Charges that Zionists are racists and civil rights and peace activists are anti-Semitic don't polish the image of the coalition movement...
...been given 90 minutes of screen time and a license to steal children's lunch money. Strange Brew, which the two stars also directed, sets the Cheech and Chong of malt into an informal remake of Hamlet and includes "quotations" from Star Wars, Superman, W.C. Fields movies and Polish jokes. (Sample dialogue, Bob to heroine: "Hey, you're real nice. If I didn't have puke breath I'd kiss you.") On TV Thomas and Moranis are sophisticated parodists; on film they are clod farceurs...