Word: servants
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Konrád's second novel again deals with a civil servant, an unnamed city planner for a provincial town in an unspecified Eastern European country. However, this time the clients are not bizarre, ruined people but buildings, factories and streets. The abstraction of architecture casts a chill over the planner's meditations. When he looks at an old man, he peers beyond individual details to "make out the final chapters of Eastern European history, its way of life down to the last coffin nail, its untold mental anguish, its ill-concealed hind thoughts, the well-tended museum...
...fear that there is nothing I can ever do to reestablish my reputation as a minister, a public servant, an attorney, and most of all as a husband and father of three children," Ralph said...
While many may envy Clarke's success at relocating himself off the subcontinent in an island paradise, few will care about his domestic difficulties, described in "Servant Problem--Oriental Style." Nor is the reader likely to admire Clarke's wit in suggesting that Appuhamy, his houseboy for eight years and the father of 13 children, should receive a complimentary vasectomy as remuneration for services rendered. Equally boring are Clarke's tax problems, his alimony difficulties, his spinal injury, and the roster of literary celebrities and other personalities whom Clarke has met in the lobby of New York's Chelsea Hotel...
...Venice-the richer half -that he will make each one his heir so long as he is kept in good humor until his death. The lure of his wealth-"letting the cherry knock against their lips," as he puts it-makes Volpone truly rich. Urged on by his servant Mosca, the Venetians beggar themselves to keep him happy, giving him their own treasure now in hopes of gaining his later...
Lance presented himself as a wronged public servant, condemned as guilty by his critics and a sensation-bent press before he could fully set forth his own defense. Invoking the Bible and Abraham Lincoln, he rather grandiosely said that his ordeal was a test of the system by which the U.S. determines whether its high public officials merit their trusted positions. That turnabout, putting his inquisitors on the defensive and setting them to partisan bickering among themselves, was a remarkable achievement for Lance. He had sufficiently muddied up some of the allegations against him so that the joking question wagging...