Word: smiley
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...tribute to Jane Smiley's absorbing, well-plotted novel that it never reads like a gloss on Shakespeare. For one thing, A Thousand Acres has an exact and exhilarating sense of place, a sheer Americanness that gives it its own soul and roots. More important, Ginny and Rose are not villains. Smiley has had Lear at the back of her mind since she first read the play. "I never bought the conventional interpretation that Goneril and Regan were completely evil," she says. "Unconsciously at first, I had reservations: this is not the whole story...
...Seeing Akira Kurosawa's Ran, also based on Lear, provided the missing link. In the film the daughters are sons, and one of them tells the old man that his children are what he made them. Smiley began reading commentaries about the play, especially by feminists, and was miffed to find that even the most radical rejected Shakespeare's terrible twosome: "A remark condemning Goneril and Regan was de rigueur...
This time, it was over early. After the Braves knocked out 20-game winner John Smiley in the first inning, the Pirates had their best chance when Orlando Merced and Jay Bell led off the first with singles...
...these espionage novels, impudent crimes were committed on both sides of the Berlin Wall. There was a peculiar similarity to the sunless corridors and bureaucratic fatigue of Moscow and Washington. Enemies became interdependent and sometimes indistinguishable; it was a case of the left hand strengthening the right. George Smiley in Britain needed his rival Karla in Moscow. NATO needed the Warsaw Pact. The CIA needed the KGB. And the spy novelists needed them...
...plans to dawdle in Cleveland, which has Democratic insiders buzzing that he's moving closer to a presidential bid. When the Democratic Leadership Council convenes in the city May 5-7, most would-be candidates will simply drop in for a few hours of standard speechifying, handshaking and smiley-faced photo ops. The Tennessee Senator aims to spend two full days at the confab, energetically schmoozing with rich donors and story-starved journalists. His game plan: remind fellow party members that he voted for war with Iraq, and deliver a pithy speech on nascent campaign issues...