Word: protagonist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Hiding in the greenhouse of a lavish apartment on the Upper West Side of New York, the protagonist of “Eight White Nights” sees his life flash before his eyes as he tastes a spicy hors d’oeuvre. This moment appears to be directly inspired by Proust’s episode of the madeleine—in fact, André Aciman’s entire second novel reads like an exercise in bringing a feverish Proustian narrative to twenty-first century Manhattan. This novel, which blurs the boundaries between supermarket romance and literary fiction...
...each part chronicles a different night that the unnamed narrator spends with Clara. He meets her while lurking behind the tree at a Christmas party and is instantly and fatally drawn towards her. Smart and mean, Clara scintillates with brilliance and bristles with animosity and fragility. She and the protagonist constantly dance around each other as they try unsuccessfully to achieve intimacy...
...bulk of the narrative follows the protagonist and his longings, desires, and solipsistic rants as he yearns after Clara and analyses her every gesture. Though laden with the narrator’s passionate obsession for Clara, “Eight White Nights” chronicles an essentially chaste love. Aciman denies the reader the full range of the sensuous prose that he unquestionably mastered in his first novel, “Call Me By Your Name,” and consequently creates a more emotionally tentative work...
...band’s newfound drive and self-assuredness is quite evident in their lyrics. “Ambling Alp” features a father advising, “Stick up for yourself, son”; on “Rome,” the protagonist declares, “Rome is gonna be mine / It’s just a matter of time;” even “O.N.E.’s” somewhat passive narrator declares, “I won’t stop ‘til I’ve given...
...Rothschild, Be'eri and a succession of 20th century archaeologists the lure was a powerful one: evidence of David's reign would be proof that a major Old Testament protagonist was a true historical figure, and not mere legend. Politically, the discovery of David's citadel would strengthen Jewish claims to a contested part of Jerusalem beyond its pre-1967 borders...