Word: scandinavian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Much that seemed off-putting about Beowulf to modern readers becomes, in Heaney's retelling, eerily intriguing instead. Yes, the Scandinavian hero kills three monsters: a scaly maneater called Grendel (Beowulf rips off the creature's right arm at the shoulder); Grendel's aggrieved mother; and, 50 years later, a fire-breathing dragon that mortally wounds Beowulf before expiring. But these bloody deeds actually occupy fairly few of the epic's 3,182 lines. The Beowulf poet, who is recounting legends that were passed down orally from several centuries earlier, is interested less in violence, which appears to be inescapable...
...room, among others, is a lucky recipient of this 24-hour programming. Even I, a self-avowed philosopher more interested in the Scandinavian excursions of Wittgenstein than the continuing saga of inebriated strangers, find such eavesdropping hard to avoid. My desk and bed are away from the window and my shade is drawn. I've tried playing music, but not at 3 a.m.--as has been said, the walls and windows are thin...
...different purposes. Here the moody prince makes only a walk-on appearance. Updike's spotlight falls instead on Hamlet's mother Queen Gertrude and her adulterous affair with Claudius, her husband's younger brother. The topic of illicit sex will sound familiar to Updike's readers, but the archaic Scandinavian setting and the regal gravitas of the characters involved make this old story fresh and moving...
...know that money can't buy love, class or happiness, but you'd think it would have some influence over aging Scandinavian pop stars. Sadly, it is not so. The former band mates of ABBA, the globe-conquering Swedish quartet whose voices soared and members intermarried in the 1970s, have refused a $1 billion offer to reunite for a 100-concert tour. "It's a hell of a lot of money to say no to," said ABBA alum Benny Andersson, "but we decided it wasn't for us." The overture came from a U.S.-British consortium that prefers to remain...
...extent that an average couple would. On the other hand, to supply a global marketplace, he is having to bend his principles. Cryos now supplies a few U.S. clinics with sperm, and in those cases has begun to provide more extensive donor profiles. To service increasing demand for non-Scandinavian ethnic types, Schou cooperates with a handful of overseas sperm banks...