Word: sand
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...party to the next to the din of drumbeats. The mood seems auspicious for the resumption of negotiations on the Panama Canal. Never before in twelve years of off-again, on-again talks have U.S. and Panamanian negotiators been more confident of success. In their bungalow, overlooking a white sand beach where they occasionally swim and sun themselves, they are quickly getting down to basics. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance has been described as "eupeptic" over the possibility of finally signing a treaty by this summer -even though sizable obstacles remain...
...plant, which at least has roots. Wintermouth finds and loses the cure for cancer. He is instantaneously transformed from the world's hero into its fool for that carelessness, and he ends up with Hitler's love letters to Eva Braun, which he finds buried in the sand. Still, he says-in what seems to be Guare's message as well-"the world needs heroes, or at least people who dream beyond themselves...
...Sand's last political passion was anti-clericalism. Once again--in her sixtieth year--she became "the political clarion of a rising generation," Barry writes. One of her plays, Villemer, denouncing the clergy's political influence that might one day explode "in a vast plot against social and individual freedom" created an uproar in Paris. Literally thousands of students, Barry claims, mobbed the theatre and "escorted her home to the cries of 'Long live George Sand! Down with the clericalists!'" Several students even attempted to unhitch the horses from her carriage to pull it themselves...
...violence, the fear that her own writings had contributed to the bloodiness of the uprisings and the slaughter of many young radicals disillusioned Sand, causing her to retreat to her old country home and withdraw from politics to write peacefully until her death in 1876. Horrified by the violence, she opposed the revolutionary uprisings and the rule of the 1871 Commune. But she retained the belief that socialism would occur gradually at a point distantly in the future, writing, "I am, as always socially red...but one must never impose one's convictions by force...
Unfortunately both Sand's radicalism and her later conservatism are lost in Barry's lengthy and confusing historical accounts, boring for a reader familiar with the history and unenlightening for the uninformed. The political accounts lack coherence and rely too heavily on loosely connected fragments from Sand's journals. Unlike the vivid portrayals of the literary figures, Sand's political associates are names without personalities...