Word: respectable
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Freedom, in other words, is a case of divided loyalties, not only in its subject matter -- a nation at bitter war with itself -- but in its execution. For in trying to pay equal respect to the demands of truth and fiction, Safire strands his novel in a no-man's-land between concrete facts and illuminating imagination. He recognizes this dilemma and tries to pass it off as a virtue: "The reader of any historical novel asks, 'How much of this is true?' " But many readers surely have more urgent questions, such as "How much of this is vivid...
Comedy is the original no-respect art form. Primitive man knew that if he were to be hit over the head by his fiercest rival, then stumble around and yell "Aarrggh!," he would be acclaimed as a great tragedian. But if he were to do ten minutes of witty stand-up, then bash himself with a club, he would be accused of doing shtick. It is ever thus. At the movies, comedy may be king at the wickets, and most of Hollywood's nouveau novas -- Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks, Dan Aykroyd, Robin Williams, Bill Murray, Pee-wee Herman...
Robert Bork is a right-wing ideologue. As a Supreme Court Justice, he would show little respect for the past 30 years of judicial precedent. Acting on dogmatic, narrow-minded views, he might vote to overrule landmark decisions on abortion, civil rights and church-state separation...
...Armacost downplayed the dispute. He described the nuclear discussions as "very frank and, I believe, useful." Further talks, he said, would follow. But Pakistani Foreign Minister Sahabzada Yaqub Khan was more direct. He indignantly declared that acceding to any U.S. inspection demand would be "an affront to our self-respect and harmful to our national interests...
...better noted for their series featuring pairs of mismatched policemen. Reginald Hill, whose stories of the cops Dalziel and Pascoe verge on instant classics, writes Death of a Dormouse (Mysterious Press; 281 pages; $15.95) under the pseudonym Patrick Ruell. He discerningly depicts the slow emergence from submission to self-respect of a woman who discovers after her husband's death how little she has known of his real life. Ruth Rendell, roughly half of whose novels feature Detectives Wexford and Burden, won an Edgar this spring under the pseudonym Barbara Vine for the one- off saga of family madness...